Law Firms – Your Marketing Isn’t Broken, But Your Intake Team Might Be

Marketing and intake are inseparable components of a successful law firm. Without a strong, organized intake team, even the best marketing campaigns can fall flat. Here’s why intake is the linchpin of your client acquisition strategy, and what steps your firm can take to ensure your intake team is set up for success.

 

Why Intake Procedures Are Vital for Law Firm Success

Your intake team is, in most cases, the first personal interaction potential clients have with your firm. Even if your marketing efforts successfully bring in dozens or hundreds of leads, a poorly trained or overwhelmed intake team can derail the process before it begins. Missed calls, muddled messaging, or long response times leave clients unimpressed…and poised to call your competitor.

The truth is, your marketing strategy and intake systems are two sides of the same coin. Marketing brings the leads in, but intake converts them to signed cases. It’s a partnership. If either side fails, the other can’t perform effectively.

 

Training the Intake Team: A Non-Negotiable

One of the most crucial investments a law firm can make is in training its intake team. While it might seem like an expense upfront, quality training has long-term payouts that boost client conversion rates and improve your firm’s bottom line.

What does good training look like?

1. 1. Consistency in Communication: Every intake team member should know how to represent your firm consistently. This includes knowing how to answer the phone, what tone to use, and how to reflect your firm’s brand values in their conversations. While we don’t want the intake team to feel like robots reading a script, we do want to equip them with language to use for common scenarios. 
      
      
   2. Empathy and Problem-Solving: Intake team members aren’t just answering phones; they’re dealing with potential clients at a very vulnerable and difficult moment. They must be empathetic listeners who can also guide the conversation toward solutions.
      
      
   3. Clear Process Documentation: Train your team based on firm-specific processes. Ensure they understand how to evaluate cases, where to record client details, and how to escalate issues.
      
      

Establish Clear Criteria for What Constitutes a Case

Another factor that can bog down intake teams and frustrate marketing efforts is a lack of clarity around what qualifies as a case. Without defined criteria, intake teams often spend valuable time on unqualified leads. Worse, this lack of clarity can lead to lost opportunities for genuinely valuable cases.

Define Your Case Criteria

Work with your team to create a detailed checklist of what your firm considers a viable case. For instance, a personal injury firm might define qualifying cases by criteria such as the type of case, statute of limitations, and degree of injury. Whatever your metrics, ensure intake team members are fully trained to identify and assess these cases.

Communicate Criteria to the Marketing Agency

Your marketing agency is a critical partner in your lead-generation strategy. If they don’t fully understand what a qualified lead looks like for your firm, there’s a good chance you’ll be frustrated with the results. Clear communication ensures marketing dollars are being spent to attract the right potential clients, not ones who your intake team will have to turn away.

Tracking Metrics and Listening to Calls

You’ve heard the expression: What gets measured, gets managed. Tracking your intake data is one of the simplest ways to diagnose whether your intake team is operating efficiently and whether your marketing dollars are being well-spent.

Intake Metrics to Monitor

Pay attention to data points such as:

• • Call Volume: How many calls are coming in daily, weekly, or monthly?

• • Response Time: How quickly are calls being answered or returned?
  • Wanted Rate: Out of the total leads, how many fit your criteria and are “wanted” as clients?
  • Conversion Rate: Out of total wanted leads, how many are being converted to cases?
  • Team Efficacy: Which team members are your “closers”?
  • Drop-Off Points: At which stage of intake are potential clients losing interest or disengaging?

These insights help pinpoint areas of improvement as well as validate what’s already working.

Listen to Calls Regularly

Conduct regular call audits for quality assurance and training purposes. Listening to calls gives you direct insight into how intake procedures are being implemented day-to-day. Are team members following script guidelines? Are they embodying your brand in their tone and approach? If not, you have an immediate roadmap for improvement.

Conducting Call Audits and Mystery Calls

Want to really understand your intake team’s performance? Call your own firm anonymously. A “mystery call” exercise is an excellent way to experience your intake process exactly as a potential client would.

Pay close attention to:

• • How quickly the phone is answered.

• • The tone and professionalism of the team member.
  • How well they understand and explain your firm’s services.
  • Whether they make you feel valued and heard.
    
    

This exercise can be eye-opening, revealing subtle areas for improvement that might otherwise go unnoticed.

Taking the Next Steps to Improve Intake

Improving intake procedures isn’t a one-time fix; it’s an ongoing process that requires commitment and teamwork among all facets of your firm. Start by identifying your intake team’s current strengths and weaknesses. Reassess training materials to ensure team members are knowledgeable, empathetic, and efficient. Communicate openly with your marketing agency so they’re amplifying your intake efforts, not working against them.

Most importantly, don’t treat your intake process as separate from your marketing strategy. The two go hand-in-hand. Getting them in sync could be the transformation your firm needs to see measurable, lasting results.

When marketing and intake marry successfully, they form the foundation of a thriving law firm. Make this partnership a priority, and you’ll find that your marketing dollars go further, your intake process flows smoothly, and your firm’s profitability grows. After all, the first impression your potential clients have of your firm shouldn’t feel like a dropped call; it should feel like the start of something exceptional.