With technology as a friend, a lawyer can redefine how to entice and hold clients. Having a good understanding of the law no longer serves the purpose of success for a law firm. It is increasingly becoming vital for professionals in the legal world to broaden their prospects and master other aspects, such as Administration, Marketing, and Staff Management. Just providing legal services can be too basic these days; thus, surprising your clients with performance and innovation is a factor that can influence their decisions.
In addition to attracting more clients, an entrepreneur lawyer also has to retain those already there. To help you meet the challenge of winning and keeping clients, we’ve shared some tips to reinvent your legal practice.
Tips for lawyers to Win Clients in 2021
Have a Clear Focus
Choose the area of law you want to pursue your career in and invest in becoming a reference. Studying hard is the basis of legal professionals. Therefore, a significant differential can be how you share your experience: produce videos, participate in conferences, contribute articles in books and magazines and mark your presence at events. When choosing between a general lawyer and one who has a strong and specialized name in the market, the client will undoubtedly take a closer look at the second profile.
Invest in Your Office
In addition to acquiring knowledge and maintaining active participation in events, investing in positioning is another critical factor. The brand, the logo, the business cards, and the digital presence are the elements that will create in the client’s mind the first images they will have of you, and the more impressive and consistent, the better those memories will be.
Invest in Bringing Professionalism in Yourself
Dedicate yourself to your personal presentation. With the transformation of the corporate sphere, it is not always necessary to dress formally. It is an opening to show personality and experience in your style without losing harmony and elegance. The environments are also part of this image; The organization of your workspace and your schedule (and punctuality in meetings and deadlines), for example, can say a lot about what your routine is like and weigh on the client’s scale about which professional to trust for their case.
Beyond this first aspect, the way you interact with customers helps build and consolidate a positive image. Always behave cordially, show that you understand the problems of those who seek you, and show interest in the topics discussed. Be accessible: your commitment as a lawyer is to facilitate access and the application of the law. Use the proper legal terms, but make sure the client comprehends what you are saying.
Know Your Audience
In a society strongly influenced by design thinking practices, knowing the needs of your clients is essential. From the legal segment chosen by you, study the behaviors of those who seek you: what their problems are, the types of cases they seek help for, age, social class, and income. The more you show that you know your customer’s reality, the more they will trust you to solve their case.
Invest in Your Digital Presence
We live in the Information Age, and, naturally, people turn to the networks to investigate before making decisions. Therefore, investing in your digital presence can be very useful. Social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are tools that will ensure greater visibility of your work, provided you use them correctly.
Be Prepared
When a client comes to you with a question, you must show that you have mastered the subject. So, study and read about related areas or even outside the law to have insights and understand the points that can lead the public to hire your services or not, creating approach strategies or battle sheets with information about the competition. Show that you are a profound connoisseur of the current context and that you are confident in yourself.
Retain Customers
Solving the customers’ problem may seem to some people to mean the end of that working relationship, but this is not true. Staying close to the customer is creating a partnership that can be very long-lasting because, in the future, they may need you again. Next, we highlight some points to strengthen the relationship with those who are already office clients.
Be Proactive
At the end of a process, project, or contract, present a report to your client with insights on work, costs, and efficiency. If your office uses legal management software, this type of survey will be quick. It will allow you to continue with the next step:
- Propose initiatives to mitigate future risks.
- Optimize flows (whether legal or administrative).
- Anticipate the future scenario quickly.
This will show the client that the time you spent on their work was productive.
Be Memorable
Be kind, attentive, and helpful with your former clients, as they will remember your services and become more likely to refer you to their friends and family as the right professional who provides excellent client experiences. Invest in knowing your areas of action and topics of interest and, with the help of a competent legal information system, share relevant and first-hand content.
If You Can, Consider Content Marketing
Make it a habit to feed your social networks with varied content, not only from your office or personal authorship. For example, if you provide services to the employment sector, create a blog and write about the subject, about the changes, relevant issues, and curiosities. Go the extra mile; act like a real content curator, share research, white papers, and other content, always from trusted and verified sources. It will become a reference on the subject, and even those who are not your customer will seek you out when they need to read something about the segment you are in.
Be Accessible
Serving a particular segment also opens up the opportunity to partner with other law firms, and such partnerships can be invaluable. If a tax lawyer receives a client with a family problem and it is the area they serve, if there is an association, they can refer their services to you, just as you can refer your clients to your closest colleagues.
Impress Old and New Clients
Disseminating services can be challenging for lawyers as they have specific rules for such action, but this is not impossible. Always remember to delight your new and old customers, treat them with respect, be cordial, and show spontaneous interest in each case. For you, it is only an action, but for the client, hiring a lawyer can be a unique situation. Make a good impression and believe that your potential is what can redefine the legal market.
Conclusion
The above-shared tips will help you do the groundwork essentially required to attract and retain clients. However, since you might usually be busy dealing with numerous cases and catching up with your set schedule, you might not find enough time to focus on all crucial aspects of client retention. Therefore, it is recommended to seek professional help provided through reliable legal support services. With this, your partner firm will handle tedious, repetitive, day-to-day back-office functions on your behalf, and you will get to get more time to invest in building marketing and growth strategies for your legal business. Consequently, you can direct your focus toward attracting new clients and retaining the existing ones in 2021.