How a Seamless Intake Process Helps Clients Fall in Love With You

A thoughtful, frictionless intake process has the power to win over your dream clients and position your firm as a trusted provider of legal services. It also happens to be your shot at making a positive first impression. Below are five lessons for creating an impressive client intake experience—one that ensures you’ll attract the best new clients and make them fall in love with your firm. 

Make the best first impression

First and foremost, to attract new clients, you have to make an exceptional first impression. You can do this by ensuring your website not only accurately represents you but also gets clients excited to work with you. Sharing a short, captivating story about why you pursued law and the magic you feel when helping clients is one way to really wow prospective clients. On top of the charm factor, you’ll also be setting yourself apart from other firms. You can gain even more inspiration and insight into creating high-quality online assets by reading our complete guide to law firm website content. 

The best law firm websites provide an effortless, client-centered experience while projecting a unique brand true to their practice. Understand more about prioritizing the digital user’s experience by learning from the 20 best law firm websites on the internet. 

Creating a website for your law firm is one of the most pivotal steps in building your brand and connecting with potential clients. Gain the confidence and direction needed by following our guide to website design for law firms. 

Be responsive and communicative

What is the most sought-after trait of a lawyer? According to the 2021 Legal Trends Report, 86% of clients say it’s responsiveness to questions. 

When a potential new client engages with your firm via email, phone, or a form on your website,  they want to hear back from you as soon as possible. In fact, one survey found 46% of consumers expect companies to respond faster than four hours to their emails. 

Having a straightforward process for replying to all client communications will ensure you aren’t leaving any prospective clients behind. The below tips will help ensure reliable communication processes are in place at your firm: 

• Have a checklist of each new prospective client’s progress. This record should also highlight the next steps in getting them closer to a signed retainer. Your checklist might include the following:  
  • Send an intake email. 
  • Follow-up with an email reminder in case they haven’t filled it out after a specific time period.
  • Prompt them to schedule a consultation appointment. 
• Include drafted template emails for swift sends. These should include links to intake questionnaires or forms. Software such as Clio Grow can provide client intake form templates with customization capabilities.  
• Utilize legal workflow and email automation software to passively send client communications and track their status. 
• Consider investing in a chatbot application for lawyers. Utilizing technology to communicate clearly and often is one of our top eight lawyer-client relationship tips. 

Target the right audience 

You need to ensure your firm isn’t wasting valuable resources and time on potential clients you can’t actually work for. Having a clear conflict of interest checking process is a good place to start. Legal CRM software such as Clio Grow makes it easy to run a conflict check. 

Another important consideration when finding the right clients is creating and implementing a pre-screening process. Before you book an initial consultation, you can save valuable time by asking for enough information to determine whether a given client is a fit for your firm from the get-go. Create a pre-screening form that includes: 

• Specific questions about their matter so you can determine if the scope of their case will fit into your practice’s workflow. 
• The information you require from them for a conflict check. 
• Supporting information about expectations and results. This can help set realistic expectations about details, such as how long the process might take. 
• Anything else that might support your ability to consider their case at your firm. 

When you collect information through a form the client submits, you can ensure that information is as accurate as possible. No information gets lost because of hand-written intake notes or having it relayed through multiple people at the firm.  

The best part is this important information can be shared with all the key stakeholders at the firm as the client progresses through the various intake stages. Plus, it’s easy to store a digital record of the form to refer back to later. Client intake software makes this process even smoother—it’s the fastest  way to share public intake forms online, see the status of all incoming clients, and more. Find out how client intake software can build your client list by scheduling a Clio Grow demo today. 

Make scheduling easy

No one enjoys the phone tag that often accompanies the seemingly simple act of scheduling a meeting. Cut out the back-and-forth by setting up a booking link on your website and Google My Business listing. In one click, they can book time in your calendar—no voicemails or busy lines. Clio’s legal appointment booking software connects to your calendar and takes into account your availability and scheduling preferences so prospects can book a time that works for everyone.

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See how Clio’s client intake software can help your firm win new clients. 

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You’re ready to enhance your firm’s client intake experience

By prioritizing the above in your client intake process, you’ll be well on your way to creating a positive and professional first impression with prospective clients. Being memorable for all the right reasons will support your firm’s growth, allowing you to help clients for years to come. 

We published this blog post in February 2022. Last updated: February 10, 2022.

Categorized in: Technology