Once a client has met with your firm and decided to work with your team, it’s time to get down to business. That’s right: client intake. The pile of forms that your clients have to provide, and your team has to pore over. It used to take weeks—even months—to manage client intake. Now, with modern client intake methods and a single text message, lawyers can expedite the process.
A single text message, you might be asking yourself? Well, maybe a text message or two.
It used to be that all client intake paperwork was filled out at your offices. Then, law firms started conducting client intake over the phone. Now, most law firms manage client intake via a secure online portal. And with the power of the text message, lawyers can streamline the online process further.
So how exactly is lawyers texting clients going to help scale your firm’s client intake? Read on to find out.
With a Text Message, Lawyers Can Quickly Send Paperwork Requests
Clients are starting to check their emails less and less. This is what has led many law firms to adopt business text messaging in the first place. Professional lawyer text messages between clients and firms allow teams to send case updates, provide meeting notifications, and track billing.
Lawyers can also use business text messaging to send paperwork requests.
Of course, you won’t send paperwork directly over text message. Instead, you can send a link. A paperwork request might look like this:
Hello, {{client name}}, Abe from Lincoln’s Firm here. As we discussed in today’s meeting, here’s a link to your secure client portal. You’ll find all paperwork in the “Paperwork” tab. {{link}}
With an open rate of 98%, lawyer text messages are sure to be opened by clients. By sending paperwork requests via text message, lawyers and their teams can get faster responses than ever before, expediting the client intake process. Plus, clients will appreciate the convenience of being able to text message lawyers directly.
Answer Administrative Questions Over Text Message
Case-related details should be discussed over the phone or in person. However, it is not convenient for law firm teams to answer simple administrative questions over the phone. A single phone call about the simplest thing will take ten minutes at most. Plus, law firm teams are busy with their current projects when they answer the phone.
When it comes to a text message, lawyers and administrative teams can answer quickly. In fact, all incoming client messages arrive in a shared inbox. Permissioned team members can see these texts, ensuring that none slip through the cracks. Whoever is available and able to answer the questions can quickly send a text in response.
With a text message, lawyers and their teams can quickly answer:
- Basic paperwork questions
- Portal-related IT problems
- Whether paperwork was received
- Case updates
With this sort of speed, law firms can answer more client questions faster than ever before. Even when your firm starts taking in more and more clients, your team will have the speed to manage client intake with ease.
Streamline SMS Reminders for Clients
Sometimes clients get caught up and forget to complete their paperwork. It happens. Especially when a client is going through a change in his or her life. All you can do in these cases is remind your clients to complete their paperwork.
However, emails have a low average open rate of 20%. Clients might simply look over your reminder. With the high open rate of a business text message, lawyers are more likely to reach their clients and successfully deliver their reminder.
Firms can send these reminders en masse. Team members simply select a template, choose a list of recipients, and press “send.” The business text messaging platform will use merge tokens to draw on custom fields and insert personalized information, like names and case numbers.
A reminder might look like this:
Hi, {{client name}}. This is a reminder that paperwork for your case is not complete. Please head to our secure portal by {{date}} to finish it. {{portal link}}
Paperwork reminders can even be automated. SMS drip campaigns empower teams to schedule regular reminders to be sent to a list of clients.
Through a Platform-Based Text Message, Lawyers Can Automate Notifications
When a business has too many web apps, it can be difficult to remember to update each client’s information when something changes. This can lead to inaccurate messages and confused interactions.
If your lawyer text messaging platform is integrated with your case management software, you can automate confirmation notifications. Teams can set up triggers that set off actions in the business text messaging platform.
For example, if you change a custom field to “intake completed” in your client management app, your business text messaging platform can automatically send your client a text indicating that the paperwork has been received.
Automations empower your business to streamline the client intake process—allowing your firm to take on more clients with ease. Plus, once you’ve increased your client base, you can use SMS to improve case management, too.
With the power of the text message, lawyers can easily scale client intake. Try text messaging for law firms today.
