If your law firm already uses a timekeeping and billing software to track and invoice for billable hours (and there are plenty of reasons to do so), you know how instrumental the right tech can be in keeping your firm running smoothly.
But here’s an important but often-overlooked fact: you can’t bill the clients your firm never manages to sign. And when it comes to preventing qualified leads from falling through the cracks, your firm may also benefit from a robust legal CRM.
While a timekeeping and billing software like TimeSolv improves billing efficiency and helps you ensure every hour gets tracked, a legal CRM lets your firm efficiently manage leads and sustain positive (and profitable) client relationships.
And the best part? Many legal CRM solutions will integrate with your law firm’s existing timekeeping software. Here are just a few of the advantages the right CRM can bring to your firm.
What’s a legal CRM?
CRM stands for customer relationship management, and a CRM software is designed to help your firm do just that.
A good law firm CRM will include a range of client intake, marketing automation, lead tracking, messaging, and analytics tools to help you manage every stage of a client’s journey with your firm. When properly implemented, a CRM allows you to:
Find and nurture new leads
- Sign those leads as clients
- Care for those clients as you work with them on matters
- Keep those clients coming back to your firm for future needs
How can a CRM help my firm grow?
Not all legal teams relish the thought of adapting to new technology, and you may be wondering whether a CRM software is a worthwhile investment for your firm.
Thankfully, a CRM tool can seamlessly and effortlessly integrate with your current time tracking software—and the potential benefits for your firm shouldn’t be overlooked.
Find and nurture more leads
If you’ve ever lost a lead because you were just too busy to follow up, you’re not alone.
Attorneys are already busy enough attending to their billable hours, and reaching out to every new lead in a timely manner can be hard (or even impossible).
That’s where the automation tools included in a legal CRM can help. A good CRM software can automatically send responses and follow-ups within seconds—before your leads decide to move on and sign with another firm.
Your legal CRM should also include marketing automation tools that let you schedule automated:
Email drip campaigns
- Text message marketing campaigns
- Pre-recorded voice calls
- And more
Many leads take more than a few follow-ups before they become responsive to hiring a lawyer, and the more “touches” you can create with your leads, the more likely you are to actually sign them as clients.
A CRM software can keep your leads in the pipeline by allowing you more points of contact with them than you could ever accomplish otherwise.
Streamline client intake
Another common cause of lost leads? Inefficient, ineffective, or inconvenient intake processes.
The legal client intake tools included in a CRM can ease the burden on your intake staff by streamlining and speeding the intake process—and help you sign more leads by making client intake as painless as possible.
A CRM’s document automation tools can allow your firm to easily generate customized, logic-based intake forms that will guide your leads through the intake process.
Rather than asking your leads to fill in countless fields that may not even be relevant to their needs, logic-based forms will consider a lead’s previous responses and ask only the questions your intake staff will need answers to.
As an added bonus, your CRM can automatically upload intake form information to your law firm’s knowledge bases and use it to populate fields in future matter-related documents, saving time and eliminating the risk of errors from double data entry.
The logic-based intake forms included in a CRM can even be configured to automatically qualify or disqualify new leads, so any team member can handle client intake, regardless of experience.
Never lose track of clients or leads
Getting new leads to reach out to you and fill out your intake forms are just the first steps in growing your firm. A CRM software can also help you build strong, long-lasting relationships with your clients and leads.
Intake dashboards allow your firm to keep tabs on exactly where each of your leads is in the intake pipeline, so you can give them the personalized attention they need to sign with your firm. And once they do become clients, a CRM can help your firm:
- Build trust and brand awareness with personalized communications
- Avoid no-shows with convenient appointment reminders
- Keep clients engaged on the platforms they prefer with text and video messaging
You can even use your CRM’s marketing automation tools to solicit more referrals and positive testimonials. For example, your firm can easily set up email campaigns to automatically solicit reviews or advertise new services to clients who have given you good reviews on previous surveys.
Start today with TimeSolv’s seamless Law Ruler integration
These are only a few of the many benefits a legal CRM integration can offer your firm.
That’s why TimeSolv is excited to announce our new integration with Law Ruler, the #1 CRM, client intake, and marketing automation software built specifically to serve the needs of law firms.
In addition to the features mentioned above, Law Ruler’s robust CRM software also includes:
A unique built-in softphone that allows you to prioritize and make calls from within the CRM
- Effortless, one-click e-signature
- A fully optimized cross-platform mobile app and mobile-friendly intake forms
- Exceptional, experienced software support to help you implement and customize the software to your needs
To see for yourself how Law Ruler’s CRM tools work with TimeSolv’s time tracking and billing capabilities to boost your firm’s bottom line, contact us or sign up for a free trial.