Looking for Easier Law Firm Growth? Try These 3 Proven Methods

 When law firms plan for growth, they may consider bringing on additional support staff, shelling out for a marketing consultant, or launching their next big marketing campaign. But what if instead of shelling out tens of thousands, you could nurture and convert more clients with just a few minor tweaks to your process and a minimal investment of $79?

Whether you run a high-volume criminal firm or are trying to nurture better relationships for your probate practice, there are three key changes you need to implement now to help encourage scalable growth.

Tip 1: Build a Better Lead Management Workflow

It’s an embarrassing but all too familiar story: a potential client finds your information online and gives you a call late Friday afternoon. They leave a message with your staff, but a backlog of other inquiries pushes it to the bottom of the queue.

Come Monday morning, the once “potential client” has made a few other calls while waiting to hear back from you, and instead transitioned over to a consultation with your competition. Ouch.

Even at top law firms across the country, lead inquiries slip and fall through the cracks—after all, the #1 complaint to the bar association is lack of communication from lawyers. Instead of manually attempting to keep up with every new lead, try automating your law firm’s communication instead!

Automating Your Lead Capture with a CRM

We’ve talked at length about why law firms absolutely must use a CRM, but did you know that your practice could automate a lot of the manual outreach you’re already doing? Opt for a system like Shape that can help you:

• Sync lead capture data from your website and social media into your CRM
• Create a customized welcome email drip campaign that instantly nurtures new leads
• Use autoresponder SMS and emails to send critical information to new leads in an instant
• Automatically send calendar invites to book time for a consultation

With this simplified workflow in place, you can expect to shorten the lead inquiry lifecycle from days to mere hours, while also minimizing the amount of keeping tabs you and your team need to do.

Interested in getting this workflow for your firm? Let’s talk.

Tip 2: Improve Support Staff Capacity

Your support staff is the backbone of your practice–they field client inquiries, send case status updates, help schedule consultations, process your paperwork needs, and much more. When they get backlogged, the efficiency of your firm (and your revenue) is on the line.

Instead of relying on manual data entry and outdated processes, employ a CRM that has tons of automation features to make daily admin seamless and mistake-free every time.

Using a Client Portal to Improve Support Staff Capacity

Apart from freeing up your staff’s valuable time to focus on higher-profile tasks, a client portal can also give you the added benefit of streamlined onboarding. Here’s how:

• Upload FAQs into a customized “help center” that answers common new client questions before the first consultation
• Provide a secure place to upload, view, and act on important documents you need to begin the case, like contracts, intake forms, fee agreements, and invoices
• Automatically sync data to your CRM – when the client uploads documents or interacts with your portal, the appropriate records are updated immediately in the matter instantly
• Provide live chat and other customer service features to ensure you start the client relationship off on the right foot

With more and more businesses moving online, consumers expect to be able to do basic tasks for your law firm from their computers or smartphones. Providing a secure portal gives you credibility, transparency, and boosts client satisfaction all at once!

Tip 3: Simplify Your Documents – Move them Online

Still looking for additional ways to boost client satisfaction without sacrificing quality? Consider moving your fee agreements, intake forms, and contracts online into a secure software like Shape.

In our increasingly mobile world, 40% of consumers make purchases and conduct business on their smartphones every day – and that number is only growing. By letting potential clients fill out and access your forms at their convenience on any of their devices, you’re creating a world-class customer experience.

Worried that your online documents will be forgotten like other email detritus?

Not to worry, Shape has built-in workflow triggers that gently remind your clients when an outstanding document is awaiting signature or action. You’ll never forget to follow up and your cases keep moving forward without the hassle.

The right CRM will help your law firm:

• Build and send custom online contracts
• Use workflows and triggers to send agreements, forms, and docs when client is actually ready for them
• Accept e-signature and online payments to get clients onboarded quickly
• Access client documents at any time from a secure, central location

Bonus Tip: Integrate with Case Management Software

Is there anything more detrimental to law firm productivity than having to manually export client data back and forth between your CRM/practice management software and your case management tool?

Stop wasting endless hours doing manual syncing of data, and start putting it on autopilot. The benefits are clear:

• Seamless and secure real-time data syncing
• No more data entry or difficult data export
• Shape works with Clio, MyCase, FileVine, Practice Panther, and more!

Think your firm could use a powerful practice management system like Shape? Book your custom demo today!

Article Source:- https://setshape.com/blog/looking-for-easier-law-firm-growth-try-these-3-proven-methods