Three Ways Scripting Your Client Intake Process Will Help Your Firm Succeed

We here at Answering Legal know our audience. You’re an attorney, and whether you’re just setting out or have decades of experience, we know you do your research. That’s how we know that your phone-answering staff — whether that be your receptionists, associates, or even yourself or other attorneys — is the best of the best. You hired them, after all.

But if you aren’t scripting your client intake process, you’re not using all the potential in that hand-picked staff. By scripting your client intake process, you will always make a good first impression, get all the information you need out of every call, and snag even more leads than you are now.

Of course, there’s even more to client intake than scripting, but we’ll get into that later. For now, here are three ways scripting your client intake process will help your firm succeed.

1- You’ll Cement Your First Impression

A phone call is almost always the way a new client is introduced to your firm. This isn’t news to you; even if you aren’t answering the phones yourself, you’re probably aware of just how often that phone is ringing with prospective clients. That’s a good thing, of course. More clients calling is more business, after all.

But how do you make sure you’re putting your best foot forward every time that phone rings? By scripting your client intake process, you’ll make a good first impression on every client who calls. It seems simple, but even just a friendly voice introducing your firm and asking the caller’s name and contact information makes prospective client callers feel they’ve begun talking to a lawyer.

If you script and practice your client intake process, you’ll be amazed at how much better callers will feel once they’re done talking to whoever’s answering your phones. New client callers are often anxious, and will respond better to a patient, practiced intake process than to someone who wants to get them off the phone so they can get back to work or answer the next call. A good caller experience is often the key to securing a new client.

2- You’ll Standardize Every New Client’s Experience

Which leads us to our next topic. It’s an unfortunate truth of the internet era: by now, many attorneys have experienced the dreaded negative internet review. Quite often, these reviews aren’t from former clients. Rather, they’re from disgruntled callers who couldn’t get in touch with you, or had a negative experience on the phone.

By scripting your client intake process, you can ensure that every new client caller gets the same stellar treatment. Rather than letting a mistake from a receptionist or an attorney’s busy day garner negative reviews, you’ll be giving prospective clients every opportunity to hire your firm. Which is, of course, exactly what you want if you want to get new business.

And when you do get that new business, scripting your client intake can avoid certain awkward headaches involved with engaging a new client. Have you ever found yourself making a follow-up phone call and asking questions that should have been asked during the client intake process? Or worse, whoever answered that first call didn’t take good notes, and you have to ask questions again?

By scripting your client intake process, you ensure that all the information you need is available right when you need it, as long as whoever’s answering your phones takes great messages. That way, every new client will know you’re always on the ball.

3- You’ll Secure More Leads

Alright, so we buried the lead (no pun intended, promise!). The real reason you want to script your client intake process is that it will secure you more leads. The above two reasons are big parts of this: the better your first impression and the more standardized your new client caller experience, the more leads you’ll secure.

But there’s more to it than that. The more new client callers feel they’ve already spoken to someone who can help resolve their legal issues, the more likely they are to stick with your firm. By scripting your client intake process, you can shape that journey from caller to client personally.

The legal profession requires hard work, attention to detail, and a constant willingness to learn. These qualities make great attorneys but awful delegators. If you’re the most qualified to handle something, why not handle it yourself? But there aren’t enough hours in the day, and if you don’t spend time with your family and friends, you’ll soon burn out.

Scripting your client intake process allows you to have your cake and eat it too. You know your firm best, so if you work with your phone-answering staff to develop a strong script, you can be sure that everything is being handled the way you would handle it yourself. You’ll be securing leads like you’re the one answering the phone, because in some ways you are.

Make It Easy With Answering Legal

So we’ve established that you should script your client intake process. But where do you start? We’ve got a great guide here, but may we make another recommendation?

Hire Answering Legal to answer your phones. With our service, you’ll decide the script our virtual receptionists use to answer your phones. We’ll perform legal intakes to your exact specifications and take copious notes and send you messages so you never miss a thing. Best of all? Our virtual receptionists answer the phones 24/7, so you’ll never miss an incoming lead no matter when they’re calling.

Start developing your client intake process with Answering Legal. Click here or call 631-686-9700 to sign up for our free trial, where we’ll work with you to figure out exactly how our service will work for your firm. For a limited time, we’re offering firms who sign up their first 400 minutes free.

To learn more about how our legal intake professionals secure leads for your firm, check out this post!