Lots of things in life are a mystery, like:
- How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll lollipop?
- Why doesn’t Tarzan have a beard?
- Why are there 5 syllables in the word monosyllabic?
- Or even, Why do we fall in love with one person and not another?
Law Firm Marketing can oftentimes feel like a mystery, too; trying to figure out Google’s Algorithms; or What it takes to make one video go viral when others garner little to no response at all; Or why certain marketing strategies are extremely successful while others flop….
That’s why it is extremely important that law firm’s grab onto proven strategies that are sure things whenever possible. These are the no-brainer moments.
So, if I told you there is an easy way to double or triple your firm’s conversions, would you do it?
Drum roll.
Here it is in a beautiful nutshell: If you can get your law firm’s Lead Response time down to 3 minutes or less, you will see a huge increase in your conversions. Period.
And the thing is, with today’s technology, there’s just no reason not to try to get this one right.
What we know from the data: There have been quite a few studies on how quickly consumers expect a response when they reach out to a particular business before they go elsewhere. The general consensus in today’s market is that businesses should aim for a lead response time of 5 minutes or less. Intake guru Chris Mullins recommends 3 minutes or less.
And if you can cut your firm’s response time down to 1 minute, you will likely see an even greater increase in your conversions. A Velocity‘s recent survey shows that responding within 1 minute can increase lead conversions by 391%! Add just 1 minute to that response time, and your conversion rate drops to a 160% increase (service.bell.com 9 lead Response Time Statistics 2022) In today’s glutted legal market, minutes really count.
And if you are still a skeptic, here are some additional data points ServiceBell recently compiled:
- 82% of consumers expect a response within 10 minutes.
- The likelihood of reaching consumers within the first 5 minutes is 10 times higher than if the response time increases to 10 minutes.
- The first business to respond to a lead wins 35-50% of sales. (Id.)
If you feel like your law firm isn’t making its mark, you are certainly not alone. Hennessey Digital conducted a detailed analysis of over 950 law firms across the country last year and the results may surprise you: Almost a third of the law firms contacted didn’t respond at all to the ghost lead form inquiry! And only 17% responded in 10 minutes or less! The median response time of all law firms contacted was 33 minutes. Only 56% of the law firms had a chat feature on their websites. https://hennessey.com/2022-law-firm-lead-form-response-time-study/
In the spirit of “You Snooze, You Lose,” here are the important takeaways if you are ready to increase your firm’s conversions, and start capturing more of the precious leads you are working so hard to bring in:
Online Lead Response Best Practices to Increase Conversions
- Have a designated Intake Department. Gone are the days when the law firm receptionist or busy case managers should be handling your firm’s intake calls. You need to have people ready, willing, able, and trained to answer your lead calls as soon as the phone rings or the email form comes in.
- Be a 24/7 Law Firm with Live phone coverage: This matters to Google, and it matters to your prospects. You don’t have to try and provide this coverage in-house. Call Centers like Alert Communications and Intake Solutions of America can cover your nights and weekends. And, with offshore hiring options, getting these kinds of phone coverage has never been easier or cheaper.
- Offer Chat Features and Online contact forms that pop up on your Website. With ever-evolving AI, you can provide more in-depth Chat Bot features than ever before, and that provides immediate interaction with your prospects. Companies like ServiceBell and Intaker offer live chat/ video chat programs.
- Use Sales customer relationship management systems (CRMs) like Salesforce and Freshworks CRM to notify you when you get new contacts, and help you track and document your firm’s interaction with leads.
- Use automated email and text to immediately respond to leads Use these automated messages as an opportunity to let prospects know what to expect next, such as a phone call within 5 minutes, or personalized emails/texts.
- Track your firm’s lead response times weekly. Make sure your staff and intake department understand the importance of answering the phone and responding to online leads as soon as possible.
Tracking your firm’s online response time is critical in today’s market. We don’t know what we don’t know, and in this case, ignorance is definitely not bliss. It’s for this reason that PILMMA provides our Mastermind members monthly online ghost contacts and scoring critiques so that members have a better idea of their firms online lead response times and quality. You cannot fix a problem that you do not know exists.
When it comes to capturing leads and converting them into clients, time is not your friend. Minutes count. Fortunately, today’s technological advances and market opportunities mean offering 24/7 Live coverage and responding to leads quickly has never been easier. Don’t settle for mediocrity when it comes to how your firm responds to the leads you are working so hard to generate.
Learn more about our PILMMA Mastermind Program and see if we have your Market available. Our next in-person meetings will be in July in Nashville, TN. Joins us today!
