“What the hell is going on in your state? I called all 6 referrals and only one secretary answered…and it was a terrible call!”
That was the quote from a person whose recent family member was hurt in an auto accident in Colorado. The family member lived in California and was provided 6 attorney referrals to contact in Colorado from two different people. He decided to call each on a weekday between the hours of 5pm and 6pm Colorado time. The results?
- 5 Voicemails – of which only one call was returned…24 hours later!
- 1 Secretary who answered and started out by asking him who the opposing counsel was on the case.
Guess who got the case? NONE OF THEM!
Surprised?
Well, the potential client certainly was! Sadly, this happens so often I need to continue to publish stories like this one (names excluded of course) to nail this point home. Attorneys spend A LOT of money on marketing, advertising, and attorney referral efforts but they continue to fail at doing the one simple thing that will end up making or breaking their businesses…
ANSWER ALL OF YOUR CALLS!
Now, if this sounds a bit obvious, ridiculous, and abrasive, well, it is meant to be. This problem continues to plague the legal community despite the fact that we now know that…
- 72% of consumers indicate that they will retain THE FIRST attorney they contact
- Around 80% of callers will HANG UP when they receive a voicemail and nearly the same amount will never leave a message when calling an attorney.
- 74% (and growing) of all law firm contacts are by phone – 18% of which take place during off hours.
- Consumers will become agitated if it takes more than 3 rings to answer their calls to you.
So unless you want to continue to losing valuable clients and cases due to this SIMPLE PROBLEM, here are six questions you need to answer for your own practice and steps you can take starting now so you don’t lose these future cases…like these 6 Colorado firms did!
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