The Ultimate Guide to Personal Injury Intake

Why intake deserves more attention than your ad budget

A lot goes into running a successful personal injury practice. Many of the lawyers and firms we work with are not focused on — or even aware of — the new-client experience. A firm can be losing potential clients every week without anyone inside it noticing.

The ABA's benchmark study on law firm intake found that 72% of potential clients hire the first attorney they speak with, while 42% of the time, firms take three days or more to respond to a voicemail or web inquiry from a prospective client.

That combination is astounding. Firms spend 5% to 10% of annual revenue on marketing, and then, when the marketing works and potential clients start calling, nobody picks up the phone or answers the inquiry. Firms with sound intake practices end up with the lion's share of cases because they attract, respond, and retain better than the majority of their competitors.

• ·3% of callers gave up before the phone was answered, and 11% of calls lasted less than 10 seconds
• ·92% of small law firms cannot calculate return on ad spend
• ·96% of small law firms do not know their cost to obtain a client

Audit your intake department quarterly, and any time you hire a new intake agent.

How successful firms handle intake

Successful personal injury firms share one thing: they understand the importance of the first call from a potential client, and they know how to handle it. The details vary firm to firm, but the pattern is consistent.

Here is how a top national PI firm handles an incoming call. An injured person sees an advertisement on television and dials the number. The call is picked up within three rings. A friendly voice answers, states the firm's name, and asks how they can help. The caller says they were in a crash and need help. The intake specialist says they are sorry to hear it, asks whether the caller is in a safe location and whether they are injured, listens, and then says: "Let me get some information about what happened."

At that point a fine-tuned intake department gathers demographic, accident, and insurance information. It captures the caller's phone number and email early so the call can be returned if it drops. As a bonus, the intake specialist asks for permission to send SMS messages — a verbal agreement on a recorded line is useful, since many consumers prefer text to email or phone. Check your local laws on call recording, recording disclosures, and text messaging consent.

Notice what happened: the call was answered within three rings, and the caller was not put on hold. Far too many firms fail to answer within three minutes, and when they do pick up, they put the caller on hold before getting a name. Nervous callers hang up if the phone rings for more than ten to thirty seconds, and they hang up at an even higher rate when placed on hold. If you must place a caller on hold, have the receptionist check in frequently, and make sure the phone system logs caller ID so someone can call back immediately.

All of this may seem like common sense. Employees fail to do it all the time.

1. 1.Have a dedicated employee handle new clients.
2. 2.Use a dedicated phone number for new clients.
3. 3.Answer within three rings.
4. 4.Do not place the caller on hold right away. Find out the reason for the call; if it is a new client, live-transfer and confirm the caller reached a person — or at minimum capture name and number.
5. 5.Whether it is a web inquiry or a voicemail, call back within five minutes. Any longer and the caller has likely found another lawyer.

The technology behind repeatable intake

Law firm technology has improved dramatically in the last several years, and options exist for every size and budget. The difficulty now is choosing. These are the components that matter.

Phone system

A good phone system is imperative to excellent client service. At minimum it should log and report on every call — how many the firm received by hour, day, month, and year; how many were abandoned; how many were missed; how many were answered — and track the duration of each call. It should also transfer to mobile phones, so a work-from-home or mobile staff never causes a missed call.

As managing partner, assign someone to review call reports at least monthly. Set benchmarks — zero missed calls, no hold times over thirty seconds — so you can measure improvement and catch problems as they happen.

The optional feature worth paying for: logging every call to a known lead or client record. Most modern phone systems can look up a record by caller ID and attach inbound and outbound calls. With that integration you can report on leads who called and were never called back within a reasonable time. Clients expect a response within two hours; no one should wait longer than two days.

CRM or case management system

There is a debate among PI lawyers about whether to log non-retained leads. Every potential-client call should be logged somewhere, with the information stored in a database, so the firm can market to those callers in the future.

If you do not want to clutter your case management system with non-clients, a separate lead system is the answer. It does not have to be complicated or expensive. For twenty or fewer leads per month, a centralized spreadsheet works if staff enter every lead religiously. Above twenty leads a month, a free or low-cost CRM with custom fields — HubSpot and similar — is the better choice. For potential cases that are pending documents (medical records, for instance), a system is not optional; it is the only way to track follow-up.

Whatever software you use — Litify, Clio, PracticePanther, or something else — it should handle five intake functions: contact information; basic accident information such as date, location, and injuries; lead status (New Lead, Attempted Contact, Unable to Contact, Qualified, Rejected, Retained); activity and tasks so employees can log calls, emails, and to-dos; and documents such as police reports, photos, and the signed retainer.

Email and SMS tools

There is no longer a good reason for a law firm not to automate communication with leads and clients by email and text. These tools simplify follow-up and reduce the time staff spend chasing people. Preferably they are built into your CMS or CRM; most modern systems offer at least email integration, and a growing number include SMS. The reason integration matters is templates.

Essential email templates for intake: a "thank you for your inquiry" sequence — ideally a multi-email series introducing the firm and reassuring the lead; an electronic-signature retainer email; a post-retainer welcome email; and an "unable to reach you" sequence urging the lead to call. Essential SMS template: "unable to reach." Firms that go a step further automate transactional messages about case status, upcoming dates, and appointments.

Mystery-shop your own firm

Before we take on a new client, we call their firm and pretend to have a case. That one call reveals how well the intake department actually functions. There is no reason to generate more leads if the firm cannot turn the ones it has into clients.

Have someone call your firm and document the interaction. Pay attention to the attitude and demeanor of whoever picks up; how many times and for how long you were put on hold, and what played while you waited; how many transfers it took to reach someone who could help; how many times you had to explain why you were calling; whether the intake specialist asked for contact information in case of disconnect, gathered what was needed to evaluate the case, and reassured you that this is the right firm; and, if they promised a callback, how quickly it came and by which channel.

Clients are impatient. Some are nervous and will hang up the moment the call connects. Set up a process to call back missed and abandoned calls within five minutes of the hang-up — the contact rate is far higher than calling back after an hour, and there is less chance the caller has already signed with another firm via e-signature.

The audit checklist

1. 1.Call the main number as a prospect. Note demeanor, wait time, transfers, whether a script was followed, whether contact info was captured early, whether a callback was promised, how long it took, and which channels were used to follow up.
2. 2.Missed and abandoned calls. Confirm you have reporting. How many calls go unanswered? How many callers hang up before reaching someone? Is there overflow reception or an answering service? Assume prospects will not leave voicemail.
3. 3.Website inquiries. Who is responsible for them, and how fast do they respond?
4. 4.Case management. Does intake log every call, or only retained clients? Are new-case reports reviewed regularly? How many clients could not be contacted and were never signed? How many found another firm before your callback? What happens to practice areas you do not handle — referrals can be 25%+ of revenue with no additional work. Do new clients no-show for appointments, and could you retain them remotely with e-signature instead?

Clio's Legal Trends Report found that 79% of consumers view working remotely with their lawyer as an important factor when hiring, up from 23% in 2018 — and that 82% of consumers seek out positive reviews before hiring a lawyer.

Once intake is fixed, grow the lead volume

1. 1.Google Business Profile — make sure the Maps listing is optimized and appears for your practice areas in your area, and build an incentive for staff to ask for reviews.
2. 2.Search engine optimization.
3. 3.Email marketing to current and prior clients. Ask for referrals; you will be surprised.
4. 4.Social media.