Why Online Reviews May Be the Most Powerful Part of Your Firm's Marketing
To get the Online Reviews Bundle mentioned in this video, please visit https://www.consultwebs.com/consultwebs-online-reviews-bundle. In this video, Tanner Jones discusses why online reviews are such an important part of any law firm’s online presence, and how firms can maximize the benefits of online reviews.
Click to download the Online Reviews Bundle
Online reviews for law firms are the new word of mouth
Law firms have built their practice on word of mouth marketing and client referrals over the years, but with the explosion of the Internet, online reviews are said to be the new word of mouth marketing. We want to cover why it’s important to get online reviews, and how to build systems in your practice so that you can get more reviews, which ultimately is going to lead to more cases for your law firm.
We’re going to cover proven systems on how you can get more online reviews for your firm, but before we do that, let’s discuss the reach that an online review generates for your firm. In the past, when you had a happy client leave your office, you can expect that they’re probably going to tell a family member or a friend, but that’s the extent of it. It’s fairly limited, typically a one to one ratio. With an online review, you can expect a 1 to 100 plus ratio, and that’s because when they leave this review, over the course of a week, three weeks, a year, or three years down the road hundreds, if not thousands, of prospective clients are going to come across that review and consider your law firm.
Studies are showing that online reviews are making a huge impact on law firms today. Consider that 90% of people are reading reviews before making a hiring decision of a law firm. In fact, 88% of people are trusting online reviews as much as they are a family member or a friend. That’s trusting a complete stranger, someone they’ve never met before, using those words to decide whether or not they’re going to hire your law firm. Assuming you have a minimum of five Google Plus reviews, those reviews are showing up alongside your search result in Google.
Major benefits to law firms of having reviews online
There are two major benefits to having reviews online. First and foremost, when someone sees these reviews online and they start reading those, that’s going to maximize the conversion rate. They’re going to trust your law firm enough to call your office, or click into your website and allow your website to convert those visitors and the callers. The second benefit is that Google is actually using these reviews as part of their ranking algorithm. So, the more positive reviews you have, the more trustworthy your business appears, and so that’s why they’re serving up your search result higher in the local pack. There’s a huge opportunity there to use these reviews to grow your search presence and drive more traffic to your website.
We’ve talked about why online reviews matter for your firm. Now let’s discuss proven systems on how you can get more reviews. Now, understand this has been a real challenge for a lot of law firms throughout the country. There are obstacles in getting people to go take the time to leave a review, but I can assure you that if you implement these next three systems, you will maximize the chance of getting these reviews to stick.
How law firms can get reviewed more often
You first and foremost have to build a culture within your office. Every single person in your office needs to understand the impact that these online reviews bring to your firm. It has to be as routine as someone waking up in the morning and getting ready, or as routine as pouring a cup of coffee, something that if you pull it out of your schedule, it feels missing. That, in the literal sense, is what you have to accomplish within your firm from a culture standpoint to be able to maximize the chances of getting these reviews.
Before you start asking all of your clients to leave an online review, I encourage you to have a qualification process in place. One of the best places to do this is through your client exit interview. Now, you can simply ask one question that asks, “Would you recommend our office to a family member or a friend?” And it can be on a scale from one to five. Those that answer with a four or a five, those are great candidates to be able to ask for an online review.
One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a law firm is trying to automate this entire process. Now, there are certainly softwares out there that allow you to mass-communicate with clients, requesting these reviews, but we found the success rate of that to be dismal. The best approach is a personal touch, asking someone within your firm to make that request. Now, I encourage you to understand your individual state bar requirements before you do that. You have to understand the ones who have built the personal relationships with the clients, the associates, the paralegals, the attorneys in your office, those are the ones best suited to be able to make this request of having someone take the time after they leave your office to go and leave the review.
If you found this information to be helpful, click the link in the description to gain free access to the online reviews resources bundle, provided by Consultwebs. You have the systems in place now to be able to get more reviews for your firm, but to turn these concepts into cases, you have to act.
