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How Live Chat Enhances the Mobile Experience for Law Firm Website Visitors

Manish Bhargava — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:05:01 GMT

If your website is optimized for mobile devices, you will undoubtedly make your mobile visitors happy. But that's only half the battle. What extra step are you taking on your mobile sites to engage with the ever-growing traffic?

Today, there are more than 125 million smartphone subscribers and more than 50 million tablet users in the U.S., according to a recent study by comScore.* However, to capitalize on that mobile traffic and to increase conversion rates on your mobile optimized sites, you need an application that can truly engage potential clients who arrive at your mobile site.

Martindale-Hubbell® Live Chat, which enables prospective clients to interact immediately with specially trained chat representatives (24 hours a day/seven days a week), is an excellent way to convert mobile traffic into quality leads. Regardless of where they are or what time of day it is, people who use mobile optimized Live Chat can speak with a knowledgeable operator who can quickly set them up with a lawyer.

Real-World Example of Live Chat on Mobile
Say, for example, a potential client has just had a fight with her spouse. It's 2 a.m., and she decides that it's best for her to leave the house. She needs help right away and has no access to a computer, but she can use her smartphone to search for a lawyer. If she finds a law firm mobile site that does not have a live chat feature, she will seek help elsewhere, and that law firm will lose a potential client.

In these types of situations, people don't want to send an email to a lawyer or to leave a voicemail after hours. If there is no option for them to interact with a human being immediately, they will likely turn to a law firm website with a live chat offering, so that they can get the customized attention they need immediately.

To learn more about Martindale-Hubbell Live Chat and what it can do for your firm's mobile optimized website, request a free consultation by contacting a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

*Source: "2013 Mobile Future in Focus," comScore, Feb. 2013

Not All Live Chat Operators are Created Equal

Manish Bhargava — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:56:24 GMT

Law firm websites that feature live chat functionality engage more visitors and benefit from increased lead generation. But what, exactly, makes live chat effective?

The key ingredient for the success of any live chat solution is having specially trained operators (available 24 hours a day/seven days a week) who know precisely what to ask your prospective clients. For instance, if you are a personal injury lawyer, the questions on an operator's script might read:

"Are you looking to make a claim or defend against a claim for injury made by someone else?"
"When and where did the claimed injury occur?"
"Can you describe the nature of the injury?"
"Were there any witnesses?"

The answers to these specific questions can enable you to make a decision on whether or not to pursue the lead.

When working with a live chat solution provider, you should be able to create a customized list of questions, specific to your law firm's area of practice. A customized script can serve as a kind of filtration system, weeding out the potential good leads from the bad ones.

If a personal injury law firm, for example, is exclusively targeting larger cases (e.g., a client with a broken neck), it could create a customized script that requires operators to ask the following supplementary questions:

"Have you been hospitalized?"
"What did the doctor recommend?"

In addition to asking the right questions, it is also imperative for operators to refrain from imparting any legal advice and to deflect all legal questions. Inevitably, these types of questions arise, and the live chat operator should be trained on how to respond, such as: "I am unable to provide any legal advice, but I will send this information to one of our lawyers right away."

Interested in live chat? To learn more about Martindale-Hubbell® Live Chat and what it can do for your firm, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

Live Chat: The Legal Paid Search Campaign Accelerator

Manish Bhargava — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 13:32:40 GMT

A paid search online advertising campaign can increase your website's visibility and help you attract more visitors. But once prospective clients "land" on your home page, how will you ensure more of them actually contact your firm to request a consultation?

The answer is live chat.

Live chat is a tool that immediately engages potential clients by enabling them to speak with a live, specially trained chat operator (regardless of the time of day or the day of the week).

In a paid search campaign, of course, you are paying for your ad to appear whenever someone performs an online search using keywords related to your area of practice and geography. When you consider that last year there were more than three billion daily searches on Google alone, it's easy to see how a sponsored ad that appears on a huge search engine could lead to more traffic.*

That traffic, however, does not necessarily result in more leads, and that's where live chat can help increase the return on your investment in paid online advertising.

Let's say, for example, that your law firm ran a three-month paid search campaign last year in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, at a cost of several thousand dollars per month. The keywords you specified in your paid search campaign included "Sandy," "lost house" and "insurance lawyer."

Instead of relying solely on your landing page's design to inspire visitors into a consultation, if you had live chat on that page, specifically trained live chat operators would have captured their case details and contact information, turning paid search traffic into qualified leads. Without live chat, you would have risked losing many potential clients, hoping they would fill out a form or send you an email.

Meanwhile, since live chat boosts your bottom line, it not only improves your ROI but makes it easier to measure. Say, for example, 35 prospective clients contact your business with an actual case as a result of live chat. Those leads are tangible, measurable ROI on your paid search campaign.

So the next time you run a paid search campaign, make sure that your landing page features live chat.

To learn more about Martindale-Hubbell® Live Chat and what it can do for your firm, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

*Source: Google Internal Metric, August 2012.

What a “Live Chat” Operator Can Do for Your Law Firm

Manish Bhargava — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 21:56:16 GMT

Receptionists — really good receptionists — are often the backbone of a small business.

They welcome visitors, politely answer their questions, comfort them if they're agitated, forward their information internally and help schedule appointments.

Live chat operators do virtually the same thing. They welcome visitors to your website, answer their questions, collect important information about their situation and pass it along to you the moment the session ends.

The difference, of course, is that live chat operators are available 24/7, 365 days a year.

Here are some must haves for a live chat operator:

Have legal industry experience. Firms can choose to handle live chats in-house, but if the firm prefers to outsource, it is recommended to have a legal-focused chat service provider who has significant experience working with law firm clients and prospects. For instance, a live chat operator should not provide legal advice — he or she should be specially trained to avoid potential attorney-client privilege issues.
Proactively engage visitors. The attention span of a website visitor, on average, is a few seconds at best. In those few seconds, your website should be able to serve what visitors are looking for, or else you will lose them. A live chat operator can proactively engage with a pop-up window that says something like, "Hello. Excuse the interruption, but we are available to answer your questions. Would you like to speak to a live person?"
Ask customizable questions of visitors. Live chat operators welcome visitors, answer questions and gather basic case-specific details in real-time. You should have complete control over the live chat transcript, similar to how you would train the office receptionist who greets your prospective clients. The reason is simple — the script for a firm specializing in family law, for example, should be different from a firm specializing in personal bankruptcy.
Assure potential client of follow up. Before a chat session concludes the operator should ask the visitor for contact information and assure him or her that someone from the firm will be in touch (within a business day, for instance).
Instantly deliver chat leads. Timely delivery of chat leads increases the chances of your firm being the first to respond to potential clients. This dramatically improves the odds of signing a client. Operators should forward leads — only those with a prospective client's email and/or phone number — to your selected email account(s). Emails should include the full chat dialogue, the potential client's name, how they accessed your website, and the time span of the chat. The chat dialog should be especially helpful because it often reflects the client's sense of urgency, emotion and other important insights.

How cool is that?

Live chat operators give you a round-the-clock interactive website presence that lets you focus on what is most important — converting more website visitors into paying clients and building your practice.

Further, comparing how many of those leads are converted into clients at the end of each month helps you measure the ROI of your website and other online marketing activities.

Ask your provider whether a live chat operator is right for your website. It may be a conversation well worth having.

To learn more about our Martindale-Hubbell® Live Chat solution, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

While Your Office is Closed for the Holidays...

Manish Bhargava — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 17:05:49 GMT

Legal problems don't take "holidays"! Your potential clients need help right away when faced with legal issues. They can't wait until after the holidays to call your office. Your website has your phone number, but who is picking up your phone while your office is closed?

If this gives you pause, you would probably benefit from a live chat feature to make sure those important leads are captured with personal, real-time interactions with your website visitors.

To give you an idea how this type of feature works let's look at Martindale-Hubbell® Live Chat, which is available 24/7/365 — no holidays!

Here is how Martindale-Hubbell Live Chat works: A potential client comes to your website and within seconds is politely greeted by a live U.S.-based operator who has specific instructions for chatting with your firm's prospects. The operator welcomes the visitor to your website, asks some questions about his or her legal problems (without offering legal advice), gathers contact information, and immediately emails a complete transcript of the chat to your preferred email address. So whether you're traveling to Grandma's or out on the town for New Year's Eve, your smartphone will notify you of the lead, and you can determine if it is important to contact the potential client right then.

Holidays, inclement weather, staff out sick ... none of these are reasons to miss an urgent lead. If you are interested in learning more, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist today about Martindale-Hubbell Live Chat.

How Live Chat Turns Law Firm Website Visitors into Potential Clients

Manish Bhargava — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 00:56:48 GMT

To generate more clients for your law firm from your website, that site needs to attract visitors AND convince those visitors to contact you and request a consultation.

Let's say you're succeeding in driving visitors to your website with referral networks, a Google paid search (pay-per-click, or PPC) campaign, your search engine optimization program, a blog and other marketing techniques.

Congratulations!

But that is just half the battle.

What happens when after investing all that time and money to draw traffic to your website not enough visitors are calling or emailing to ask for a consultation? You have a "conversion" problem.

The solution: live chat.

Here's why:

1. Round-the-clock engagement.

Live chat operators can proactively engage your website visitors before they abandon by addressing their questions immediately, in real time, 24/7, 365 days a year.

Think about it: A potential client under stress, possibly upset and impatient, is searching your website but can't seem to find what they're looking for. Up pops a live chat window with an operator — not a software program, a professionally trained live operator — who answers questions about your firm.

Rather than abandoning and moving to another site, the visitor sticks around and is now engaged with your firm. Chat operators ask specific questions that are carefully placed in the transcript by you. The operator, after the chat session ends, forwards the information collected "as is" to you immediately, even after hours and on weekends.

2. That, in turn, makes it easier to screen and subsequently convert quality leads.

You (or an attorney from your firm) review the chat and if it looks promising, respond immediately by phone or email directly to the prospective client and possibly schedule a consultation the very next day.

Talk about getting a jump on the competition! If you're the potential client and you've just made an appointment to meet with an attorney, are you going to continue searching other law firm websites?

You may also be able to place a chat icon on attorney blogs and a select number of social media platforms, including Facebook. Live chat is a great way to complement your other online legal marketing efforts and turn a higher percentage of website visitors into paying customers.

So don't just "wait and hope" that your website visitor will call or fill out the contact form. Talk to your provider — in fact tell them you want to have a chat — about how to make live chat part of your online marketing toolbox.

To learn more about our chat solution, contact a LexisNexis Law Firm Marketing Specialist.

HOW TO: Get Clients to Rate & Review Your Law Practice

Manish Bhargava — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 21:53:37 GMT

Are you asking your satisfied clients — lawyers and consumers alike — for reviews or testimonials, and actively posting them on your website?

Do you ask clients to leave recommendations for your services at online legal directories and on your social media profiles like Google+^TM, LinkedIn®, Facebook® and Yelp®?

If not, why not?

Consumer opinions and recommendations are the most effective forms of advertising. Everybody is showcasing some form of third-party validation these days, including lawyers. Granted, some states prohibit client testimonials on law firm websites, so you'll have to ask your provider about that first. But if it's permitted, encourage your clients to rate you.

Here's what you should do:

Proactively Ask Your Clients to Rate You

Prospective clients want to know how they're going to be treated once they hire you. They want to better understand your approach and personality. So ask your existing clients for feedback on your services and communication skills. Ask about responsiveness, the quality of service and value for the money. Was there anything about your service they found surprising? Be sure to solicit reviews in addition to getting rated.

Spread Your Reviews Around on Multiple Platforms

A consumer searching for legal help on Google may find your profile on various online directories like Lawyers.com^SM, martindale.com®, Yelp, YP and so on. So ask your clients to rate you on those platforms as well. Online review forms are found on Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp and Google+. If you and a client have Google+ profiles and the client gives your firm a +1 recommendation (a Google+ "Like"), anyone searching Google for an attorney in your geographic area will see that +1 next to your website link.

Showcase Your Ratings on Your Website

Your website is your firm's face online. Ask your website provider about posting your well-earned ratings on your site itself.

For instance, Martindale-Hubbell^® Client Review Ratings is a rating service for consumers of legal services. It provides comprehensive and objective information about lawyers and law firms. LexisNexis even offers a Web widget that lets its clients display their Martindale-Hubbell^® lawyer ratings right on their websites and link them back to their profiles on Lawyers.com and martindale.com.

Ratings and reviews are a great way to promote your practice. Ask your provider for guidance on how to make client and peer reviews part of your online marketing strategy on your website — in search engine results, legal directories and social platforms.

Want to learn more about how you can leverage ratings and review to promote your law practice? Schedule your free consultation with a Law Firm Marketing Specialist today!

With Mobile Search to Outpace Desktop, Optimization Is Critical for Law Firm Websites

Manish Bhargava — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 15:23:00 GMT

Times have changed and so have the ways legal consumers search for information online.

While desktop browsing still far exceeds mobile browsing, mobile Web usage is expected to overtake desktop usage by 2015, according to researcher IDC. Consequently, traffic to your law firm website will come increasingly from mobile browsers, and less from Web browsers. Consider the following data:

By 2015, more U.S. Internet users will access the Internet through mobile devices than through PCs or other wireline devices. (“More Mobile Internet Users Than Wireline Users in the U.S. by 2015,” IDC, September 2011)
Tablet penetration will increase even more quickly in the United States, from a user base of nearly 55 million by the end of 2012 to almost 90 million in the next two years. By 2014, more than one in three U.S. Internet users will have a tablet device. (“Connected Devices Become Key to Content Consumption,” eMarketer, February 2012)
Nearly nine in ten (88%) U.S. adults own a cell phone of some kind as of April 2012, and more than half of these cell owners (55%) use their phone to go online. Some 17% of cell phone owners do most of their online browsing on their phone, rather than a computer or other device. Most do so for convenience, but for some their phone is their only option for online access. (“A Look at Internet Use on Mobile Phones,” Pew Research Center, June 2012)
Mobile local search volume will surpass desktop local search for the first time in 2015. By 2016, mobile local search is expected to exceed desktop local search by more than 27 billion annual queries. (“U.S. Local Search Market: Mobile vs. Desktop,” BIA/Kelsey, April 2012)

Take This Simple Test
Access the Internet from the browser on up to five different types of mobile devices (including different models of smartphones and tablets). If such devices are not readily available, simply visit a mobile device services provider at your local mall. Then assume the mindset of a legal consumer who found your website through a Google search. When you hit your site, ask yourself the hard questions:

Is the relevance of your legal expertise immediately apparent?
When visiting your firm’s website via a mobile device, does it project the level of professionalism that would inspire a visitor to contact your firm?
How easy is it for visitors to navigate the site, contact your firm, and request a consultation?
If you were a consumer seeking legal advice would you (or even could you) contact your firm through a mobile device?

If you take my simple test and don’t like what you see, you need a mobile strategy for your online marketing.
With the way consumers search for information evolving rapidly, your law firm needs to accommodate mobile browsers accessible within mobile devices to remain competitive.

Can you hear me now?

Talk to your local law firm marketing specialist about how you can optimize your website for mobile browsing and get a free Website Evaluation.