The scope and sphere of digital marketing can be a bit overwhelming. Generating web traffic, increasing phone calls, and bringing in quality leads is difficult enough, but then you also have to track all these measurements to gauge your shortcomings, successes, and new opportunities. With all the options available, it can be difficult to know where to begin or how to effectively and efficiently expand your law firm’s current marketing program. One of the many options is to implement a live chat feature on your website. Live chat is one simple and affordable way to garner great results with limited financial commitment. Live chat allows you to exchange information and engage with site visitors in real time by communicating through direct messaging. This can be a more comfortable way for prospective clients who might otherwise be embarrassed or intimidated to initiate conversations about their legal issues.
Live chat has more benefits than easing your potential client’s initial anxiety about discussing their legal problem. Here are three additional benefits that you and your firm can leverage through using this feature.
1. Improved Customer Service
Individuals researching legal assistance online are seeking immediate results. When people are considering hiring an attorney, they usually have a pressing matter on their mind. Whether it’s a car accident, divorce, or tax problem, visitors to your website are looking for answers and guidance about where to turn, who to trust, and what to do next.
Live chat is popular because it allows website visitors to communicate their needs and receive a response quickly. Studies have shown that upwards of 90% of consumers think that live chat is a useful tool. Consumers are also 63% more likely to return to a website that has a live chat feature.
Live chat allows visitors to unload some of their anxiety onto a trusted resource and help put their minds at ease. Even though their issue will not be resolved by a brief online chat, many individuals are immediately unburdened once they’ve had the chance to speak with someone about their troubles.
The ability to have immediate access to a law firm and relay important information to a trusted legal source will improve the customer experience and increase the likelihood they will retain your legal services.
2. Reduced Expenses
A live chat feature on your website can reduce administrative expenses and free up your staff’s time to pursue other activities related to existing work. Live chat is typically monitored and administrated by someone in your office or by a third-party vendor. Following a detailed script, the live chat administrator obtains information about the user’s inquiry without giving any direct legal advice. The key here is creating a trusting relationship while gathering important information.
Once the client’s information is compiled, the transcript of the chat is turned over to a paralegal or an attorney at your firm for review. After this review, the paralegal or attorney advises on whether the case has any viability or is worth further consultation.
Live chat does come with a monthly fee and administrative costs, but it’s comparable to other written communications services and is significantly less expensive than traditional phone support. In fact, one study found that companies can save up to 50% on support costs when using live chat. Additionally, a chat administrator can handle multiple chats at a time, increasing the potential for gaining several new clients in a more concise timeframe.
Live chat utilizes in-office resources better and more efficiently. It reduces costs and increases valuable data that you can use to evaluate its effectiveness.
3. Trackable Data
Live chats offer trackable, tangible data that allows you to track and evaluate the feature’s effectiveness. This method lets you conveniently track who initiates a chat and when, as well as if the user successfully converted into a new client.
Reporting data from phone support—which depends on reporting from the person answering the phone—and email support show a limited view of a support personnel’s interaction and performance with a potential client.
The available reporting from live chat is more comprehensive than other methods. Most live chat services will provide full transcripts of the interaction, display a timeline of when the chat was initiated and answered, the live chat administrator can then be evaluated based on his or her performance, survey visitors at the end of the chat about their experience, and be used to document if chat users convert into clients.
Tracking this data, as well as data from other marketing initiatives, is vital to ensuring your valuable marketing dollars are being put to good use.
A Holistic Marketing Strategy
Having a live chat feature on your website is just one piece of a larger marketing strategy that can be used to grow your practice. A good marketing strategy will improve your clients’ experiences, increase leads and clients, and give you trackable, tangible data.
Take a few moments to think about how you want your firm to grow, what practice area(s) you want to focus on, and where you see your firm in 5 to 10 years. The answers to these questions will help you figure out how a live chat feature on your website might fit into a larger marketing strategy for your firm.
Is Live Chat Right for Your Firm?
At LaFleur Legal Marketing, we know that a user-friendly website and top-notch customer service is essential to growing your law firm. We use industry best practices and insightful data-driven innovation in the legal sector to design an effective marketing strategy that helps you achieve results and grow your firm.
Call us at (888) 222-1512 or fill out this brief online form if you’d like to discuss how we can work together to help increase your leads and obtain more clients. And subscribe to our blog to get more information about how to improve your website and other tips about growing your firm.
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Resources
5 reasons why live chat is the untapped potential for your business. (2011). Kissmetrics Blog. Retrieved from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/live-chat/
Gao, K. (2015 July 20). Top 10 live chat benefits you have to know. Comm100. Retrieved from https://www.comm100.com/blog/live-chat-benefits.html
Honigman, B. (2013 November 26). 6 reasons to consider adding live chat support to your business. Entrepreneur. Retrieved from http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2013/11/26/6-reasons-consider-adding-live-chat-support-business/