We love chatbots, but only when the objective has been identified!
We’ve been designing and deploying chatbots for the last 12 months and we’ve learned one or two things! They’re not a one size fits all solution and they need to be tested.
So, How Should We Use Them?
In the context of law firms, we see two distinct roles. One, front of the house, the other, back of house! Front of house is client-facing and is primarily about lead generation, nurture, and conversion. Back of house is about optimising workflows, some of which may derive from front of house.
What’s All That Mean?
Well, what it means is first understanding what the role of the chatbot is. Let’s talk about front of house first!
A lead focused chatbot can do a number of things. It can greet potential clients, identify what they’re looking for, act as a concierge and usher them to specific pages, posts, ask them questions, pose solutions, then engage them in a more detailed lead conversion sequence.
The back of house objective is to automate processes that you once did manually, but now, can potentially have a chatbot take care of.
Here’s an example, your estate planning lawyer meets a client to prepare a will. The lawyer can use a chatbot, or the client themselves if your firm is so inclined, to provide answers to key questions. The answers to those questions are routed through to a document creation sequence, so all that needs to be done in closure, is peruse and have the client sign it. The completion of non-disclosure agreements etc are another example.
What’s the Best Chatbot For Our Law Firm?
Once you have identified the objective there are numerous platforms. One important consideration before we link you to our recommended chatbots is if you have a CRM in place. If you do, then you need to ensure that the Chatbot will integrate seamlessly via API with your CRM. If you haven’t a CRM, the fact that you’re now considering a Chatbot, it may be time to think about a CRM. At Fast Firms we can discuss with you the best CRM to suit your firm’s purpose.
Something else you need to consider in choosing the integration of a chatbot is the software support. There is an absolute avalanche of chatbot on the market, so it’s wise to ensure they have both great traction in the market place and aren’t going anywhere and they also have a roadmap of continuous updates and improvements. The latter we see as a significant tell-sign if the company is going to be around in the long-term.
For front of house, look at these Chatbots.
For Law Firms specifically:
For back of house (law firm-specific):
Botscrew
What Do We Do Next?
Consider chatbots in a much broader conversation about the objectives, in particular, whether its front or back of house. In our experience, when deploying chatbots in front of house, conversion rates have in fact dropped in comparison to funneling a potential client to a contact or smart form. In relation to back of office, ensure you get complete firm buy-in. We’ve historically been engaged by practice areas or tech-savvy partners to deploy or integrate technology be in the guise of chatbots or smart forms, only to find that the firm hasn’t yet reached a consensus to replace manual input with automation or AI assisted functionality and hence, it all gets stuck in a holding pattern.
How Can You Help?
We have good relationships with all the relevant software companies and if we haven’t worked with them directly, we’ve conversed with them about their solutions. But, the starting point is to nail the objective and to this extent, we can help. We can also assist with the integration of your preferred solution.
