Whether you have an entire intake staff or you follow up with leads yourself, your follow up process can make or break how many leads turn to clients. Without proper follow ups, you may not be converting as many leads to clients as you could, causing you to discredit viable lead sources. Here are some common mistakes made when following up with leads and how to avoid them:

1. Lack of Actual Follow Ups

Trying only a few times to follow up with leads can hurt your conversions. It can sometimes take up to 10 follow ups before getting in touch with a lead. The more lead follow ups you do, the more likely you’ll finally get in touch with a lead. That said, if you haven’t been able to get in touch with a lead after 15+ attempts over three weeks or so, it may be time to move on to the next lead.

2. Taking Too Long To Follow Up

The ideal time to follow up with a lead is as soon as it comes in. Because the lead is actively seeking legal assistance, it’s best to strike while the iron is hot. eGen offers a live transfer feature. This feature connects your firm with a lead as soon as they fill out a Free Case Evaluation form, allowing you to get on the phone with a lead as soon as possible.

3. No Empathy

Whether you’re following up with those trying to apply for disability benefits or someone filing a complaint against their employer, empathy is key in follow ups. Showing compassion and that you understand their situation can help influence a lead’s decision on working with your firm. Leads may not understand the process for filing a claim or are still shaken up from an accident, so demonstrating empathy can go a long way with your leads.

4. Not Tracking Follow Ups

While following up with leads, having a system put in place to help track your follow ups and lead progression can help make the follow up process easier. Tracking when and how you followed up with lead will help ensure you sent enough follow ups and that they were frequent.

Complimentary with our leads, you’ll receive access to eLuminate, our lead and case management system. Here, you can track your follow ups, adding in any necessary notes along the way. If you prefer emailing leads, you can do so through eLuminate, with the email automatically recording as a note. Using eLuminate to track your follow ups will also allow you to track the success of your marketing campaigns and lead conversion. When you do get a lead on the phone, you can use eLuminate as your intake form. (/client-management-software/intake-form)

5. An Extensive Intake Process

Once you get ahold of a lead, maintaining the lead and not having your follow up efforts go to waste can depend on your intake process. Having a long, intensive intake process can be a turnoff for some leads. If you require a phone interview followed by an in person interview with someone from your intake team then an in person interview with an attorney from your firm, followed by signing various documents, a lead may lose interest or overwhelmed by the process. To try to make the signing prcoess as easy as possible for your lead. For example, you send your fee agreement to be signed electronically so that the relationship between your firm and the lead is quickly established. Then, you can proceed with your thorough intervies and the signing of any documents with wet signatures. By streamlining your intake process, you can make sure that your time and effort spent on follow ups don’t go to waste.