As the legal profession slowly comes around to digital transformation, personal injury firms are continuously searching for innovative automation technologies to convert personal injury leads to clients. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a powerful tool that has become an essential technology for firms ranging from solo practitioners to large international law firms.
Ackert, Inc. recently completed its annual survey, “The State of CRM at Law Firms.” The survey found that 78% of law firms use CRM. Among those that do not use a CRM, the most common reasons given for avoiding CRMs include a lack of buy-in, thinking they do not need it, and other initiatives taking priority.
While most firms use CRM, lawyers are rarely the ones using them. For instance, the survey found that 50% of firms reported that only 0-5% of their lawyers regularly use a CRM. Perhaps not surprisingly, the lowest rates of CRM use among lawyers occur in large firms (201-700 attorneys), or those that are large enough to have their own marketing teams.
The hesitancy among lawyers is largely cultural – a lack of technological proficiency and/or sales orientation. Yet most CRMs are easy to use, boost efficiency, improve client relationships, and can produce more high-quality personal injury leads.
What is a CRM?
Salesforce defines customer relationship management (CRM) as “a technology for managing all your company’s relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers.” A CRM tool helps businesses to manage customer relationships across the entire customer lifecycle. For personal injury firms, this means managing client relationships from the time they enter your firm as personal injury leads until after their cases are settled.
Why do Personal Injury Lawyers Need a CRM?
According to another survey of 2,915 legal professionals, lawyers spend 48% of their time on administrative tasks, such as office administration, invoicing, and technology. They spend another 33% of their time on business development, with 41% of all participants indicating that they would spend more time on generating legal leads if they could. And some two-thirds of the lawyers polled acknowledged that there never seems to be enough time in the day.
Managing a law firm will always be a challenge. The solution is not to scale back on critical components of your practice such as business development to devote more time to other areas. Rather, it is doing more with less by leveraging automation solutions. A CRM tool can reduce the amount of time that you spend on administrative tasks while helping you to generate more personal injury and auto accident leads.
Benefits of Using a CRM to Convert Personal Injury Leads to Clients
CRM tools offer a broad range of benefits for personal injury firms.
Client Management
A CRM helps you organize your contacts and simplify client correspondence. Many leading CRMs offer templates and forms that you can use to automate communications with prospective, current, and former clients. Moreover, you can easily schedule meetings and appointments, track payments, record meetings, and integrate with your email service provider.
Track and Convert More Personal Injury Leads
An effective CRM helps you build and manage your sales pipeline. You can identify potential clients and identify bottlenecks and issues in your processes that are hurting performance.
Improved Communication and Data Visibility
A CRM streamlines communication between stakeholders. Everyone in your firm can access client profiles and receive notifications when client profiles are changed.
Improved Team Management
Again, reducing the time spent on administrative tasks is crucial to allowing you to spend time on higher-value tasks such as business development. With a CRM, you can easily track team member schedules and track performance without the need for continued follow-ups.
Key Features to Look for When Choosing a CRM for Your Firm
Returning to the Acker survey one more time, certain CRM features were highly rated by marketers. These include contact management, list segmentation, mobile CRM version, and lead capture and management.
There are many CRMs to choose from. When deciding which CRM is the best solution for your personal injury firm, be sure to choose one that includes at least the following features.
Lead Capture and Management
A CRM that has lead capture and management capabilities allows you to collect contact info and track actions that leads take in your sales funnel. You should be able to score your leads and filter them to the responsible party to follow up and turn leads into clients.
Real-Time Data
The ability to view data in real-time allows you to make more informed marketing decisions. For instance, you can see which marketing channels are producing the most profitable legal leads and reallocate your marketing budget.
Client Database and Sales Automation
Correspondence is among the more time-consuming administrative tasks. A CRM should include client management tools to streamline client communications. This includes sales automation features that handle follow-up correspondence with prospective clients.
Customer Life Cycle Management and Segmentation
The software should track clients throughout the entire client life cycle. This feature helps you to evaluate your marketing and client relationship strategies to convert more personal injury leads into clients and improve client relationship management. Moreover, segmentation allows you to separate your contacts into groups with similar attributes. This allows you to send relevant and personalized email marketing campaigns.
Multi-Device Support
Mobility is more important than ever. With more and more people working from home and managing communications on the go, your CRM tool must be accessible from multiple devices including mobile phones, tablets, and desktops.
Take your time researching CRM tools. Read reviews. Get to know the features. Identify the ones that are important to your firm. Ensure that the CRM that you choose is capable of scaling as your firm grows. Once you have made a choice, ensure that everyone in your firm is onboard. Explain the importance of your digital transformation initiatives and the role that staff will play in helping your firm to become more efficient, cost-effective, and profitable.