Joe Ruotolo:
It always sounds easier to build it yourself than it actually is.
Chris Dreyer:
Your intake specialist has to follow a process.
Joe Ruotolo:
... really want to be able to help those smaller firms compete with bigger firms on a technological level without having to invest tens of thousands or more in their technology.
Chris Dreyer:
Welcome to Personal Injury Mastermind. I'm your host, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io, the legal marketing company the best firms hire when they want the rankings, traffic and cases other law firm marketing agencies can't deliver. Each week you get insights and wisdom from some of the best in the industry. Hit that follow button so you never miss an episode. All right, let's dive in.
When someone lands on your website, you only have seconds to establish a connection that hooks them. Live chat remains an untapped goldmine for proactive connection. On today's show, when I say live chat, I mean a conversation that site visitors can have in real time, with instant responses. There are three main types, human chat, a real person responding, chat bots use AI to mimic human interaction, and chat automations follow predetermined questions. Each has its trade-offs. Humans make errors, bots go off-topic, automations are rigid, but all three come with major advantage, lead conversion.
Only 6% of law firms leverage live chat on their websites. Implementing a live chat tool can help your firm capture and convert more leads. So, how do you pick the right tool? The ideal chat tool should integrate with your CRM, match your brand identity, work on mobile, and stay available 24/7, meaning those criteria is key for an effective conversion tool. The best tools won't disrupt your site's core-web vitals or site speed. If you're thinking, "How would I know what chat does all that?" Don't worry, I've got you. As an SEO expert, I scrutinize each product carefully before recommending. Our top choice here at Rankings is always Intaker. Checks every box, captures leads without sacrificing SEO, and has rock-solid lead qualification.
Intaker offers website chat to convert leads, plus automation tools for marketing and intake. You've likely seen their videos leading to chat bots before. Today we cover how chat decreases friction to increase conversion, how to establish an effective client journey, and why proper information gathering leads to more empathetic client connections. Smart tools will help any firm level up at any stage of growth. Joe Ruotolo at Intaker breaks it down.
Joe Ruotolo:
There's a couple of things that I know are really frustrating for a lot of the attorneys out there who might be trying to aggressively market online, or have tried different strategies. I know that when you get people in the door and they turn out to be low-quality leads, but they're already in your system, they're already taking resources, your staff, time spent talking to these people, and the drag that that can put on the entire operation when you're trying to grow, it can get frustrating. Conversions is one thing, but signing cases is a different skillset, I would say, for a technology. So one of the things that Intaker tries to do very differently than a lot of other live chats and other tools out there, is qualify in advance every potential client that walks in the door. It's different for every practice area, even different depending on the state you live in for something like personal injury.
But if you can get the right information upfront and then use intelligent tools to help make sure that you're only focusing on the right potential cases for your firm... When you're doing SEO, you're getting a mix of results, but how can you go ahead and make sure that, in the different spread of leads, you can really focus on the ones that matter? But more importantly, how do you see those first? How do you see those early, and how do you make sure that if you're getting a potential case from SEO, they don't call someone else, that they talk to you first? Using technology and tools to make that a lot easier than it used to be, that's what we've built so far. That's also where we're continuing to build.
Chris Dreyer:
You've got over a thousand firms using your tool, and you're getting this constant feedback loop of between the agencies, the firms, just the tool and advancing and improving it. The first thing, tell me the difference in logic-based intake versus the live rep, versus maybe the generative AI that people are trying to go to. Tell me the differences and how you are managing that pre-qualification at the very beginning.
Joe Ruotolo:
I'll put the gen AI on the side for now, and I'll focus on the chat automation that Intaker uses, versus a typical live chat, which I know there's still a lot of loyalty and a lot of appreciation and a lot of firms who are getting results doing that. So, not to disparage, but rather to show what the difference is, right? Intaker is chat automation, not true AI in the chat. It is a rules-based approach, but something that, for example, if a visitor lands on a website and it's a personal injury firm, and some of those options to begin to engage would speak more to the needs of that individual.
Now, what that really looks like, is if someone was in a accident with a tractor trailer or if they were just in a normal fender bender car accident or if they were in a grocery store and there was a mess and they slipped and fell, whatever it is that case type upfront, is usually what's going to get their attention. Being able to go ahead and select at that initial outset of a case type, getting the basic information that you would always need to make sure you can get in touch with this person, contact, but the qualifying details are going to be different for a car accident versus a dog bite versus a slip and fall, et cetera.
So, when you have a rules-based approach, chat automation like Intaker, what you can do, is basically go through step-by-step and get all of those qualifying questions the same way that your intake person might ask on the phone, about, "When did this accident take place? Were you hurt? Was the other person? Tell me about your injuries. Did you get any care, any medical care after the accident? What happened?" So, all of that information that typically your intake person might get on that initial phone call, you can get in advance through the chat, without having to worry about someone taking the conversation off the rails. Because let me pause and say what makes this different than both a traditional live agent, as well as some of the generative AI chat tools that are out there now.
So, a traditional live agent would do much the same in terms of pre-qualifying, capturing lead information, but the difference is that the user, being able to chat freely, can take the conversation wherever they want to go. The difference with Intaker and other tools like it, is being able to carve that journey in advance, so when someone begins that interaction 60 seconds later, 30 seconds later, whatever it is, they're going to have given or been asked to give all of the right information that the law firm needs to pre-qualify the case without having to worry about, "Is there's something here, or is there not?" And calling people back when it's a maybe situation, you're not clear and it winds up eating up your receptionist or your intake person's 20, 30 minutes on the phone. These are small things, but they grow into big things over time. So, that's one of the earliest problems that we sought to solve with the technology.
Just a quick note on the other generative AI, I've seen really cool stuff using that for FAQs, summarizing content on websites, but when it comes to conversions, when it comes to getting interested folks in the door, you've got something you can help them with, the generative AI is not really the best tool for the job, in my experience, from what I've seen. Chris, you've probably played around more than I have, so I'm curious if there's any insights that you want to share about what you've seen on the next generation of AI in chat as well.
Chris Dreyer:
So much to unpack here. The first thing, just the human error. Your intake specialist has to follow a process versus where they could just do poorly at it and not follow the process. We all know this, right? We have our standard operating procedures for our staff, and even though we nail them down and have checklists and the checklist manifest, sometimes they're just not followed. Versus the pre-coded logic-based system that they're going to follow through this path. So, I agree with that. I love all that. You get all the information, every single time, that you want, versus maybe you'll get it or maybe there's a rapport element or something goes off the rails. So, I agree with that.
On your generative AI question, look on my cell phone front and center is ChatGPT. I use it all the time. What I've experienced is exactly what you're saying, is it's good for maybe investigative things to narrow options or to do ideation for basic research components, but when it comes to towards the bottom, the sales transactions, and I think this as a whole and how individuals like, "Hey, SEO is dying." You hear that every single year, not for the bottom of the funnel where there's different value props and there still has to be the selection. We're just not there yet. Maybe ChatGPT five or six, who knows? That's my experience, is I think it's good for this investigative, but when, exactly what you said, "These are the questions that have to be answered to understand if you have a case or not," and they're going to be different per jurisdiction, and maybe the person using the generative won't ask the detailed questions that are necessary to do the proper intake. So, that's where I'm with you.
Look, there's Intercom, right? There's Drift. Is it just, you've eliminated the... I don't know they're coding the back end like you do where you've just like, "Look, we work with a lawyers, so we are in all 50 states and we have these prompts already made so you don't have to try to figure it out." How does that play into this?
Joe Ruotolo:
That's a good question, because there are a lot of high-quality bot builders out there. That wasn't necessarily the case even a couple of years ago. There was still a lot of friction. No matter what you're going to choose in terms of if you want chat, if you want to capture potential cases and you're debating, "What should I use? A tool like Drift, or something that is in the industry like Intaker?" Here's what I would say. It always sounds easier to build it yourself than it actually is, and I've seen horror stories. Imagine there are 10 or 15 very small little details that go into a product design that, any one of them individually doesn't really move the needle that much, but all of them together is going to create an effect and an ability to get the job done, better than you would ever expect, looking at those individual features.
I would say that if you're going to go ahead and try to build something in terms of a world-class conversion tool for law firms using a bot for chat, there's a lot more than just the questions. There's a lot more than just the flow of the chat. You mentioned performance is one of them, but even beyond that, there are certain things about how users are going to expect to be spoken to and how that communication journey is going to continue maybe after that initial engagement. So, for firms out there that have already a bulletproof intake marketing automation process that, they're using texting, they're using email and text automation to immediately follow up with people when they come in through a chat lead, that might even be able to say based on whatever type of case or whatever matter they had, really adjust and change the message to make it more personalized... Personalized marketing, automation, communication, if you can do all of that perfectly and go toe to toe with the best, then you probably might not need a tool like Intaker.
But for every other firm who doesn't have the resources, doesn't have the time and the ability to look at all of those little details and make those decisions about the user experience on their firm's website, I know you know this, one of the issues that people have the most with chat is when it doesn't reflect well on their firm's brand. That could be with a live agent or that could be with an automated process if there's anything, any little hiccup. If someone asks the wrong question with a human error, like you said, and that causes a potential case to go out the door, I know the pain. I've seen the pain, I've talked to people who've lived that. But at the same time, if you can use something that's out of the box built for you, able to be useful and start getting you more leads that you can sign to more cases out the gate, that is what we decided to build, and that's a bit of... We can go deeper into the product as well if you want.
Chris Dreyer:
Well, let's do this, okay? I'm Gen Z, Atlanta resident. I just got in an auto accident. I go to an Atlanta injury firm. Let's say we go to Jen Gore's website. As the consumer, I'm the Gen Z guy. I'm not calling up, I don't want a` email. I want less friction, and I go to chat. Tell me what happens, walk me through the moment I get to the website and I start interacting with Intaker, all the way through. Walk me through this whole journey.
Joe Ruotolo:
Really good, really good. Someone goes to Google and they're going to search and they say, "Car accident attorney near me." When they land on that website of maybe the first or second result, whatever it is, they go to that site and they might see the site, but something happens where they'll see something different and they might see a little video just in the bottom right corner of an attorney or someone talking to them and it says, it's interesting. They might click on that video and bring up something where now that little moving headshot before, we'll launch a whole video with sound and it might be attorney saying, "If you were injured in an accident and it wasn't your fault, you might be looking for the right legal team to help you through this. I'm Attorney Joe Ruotolo," not attorney, but, "my team would love to be able to see how we can help you. So please click below, share some information. The more information you provide, the better we can see how we can help you."
Imagine just a 20-second spot video of managing partner, explaining to someone, delivering empathy, inviting them in to share their story so that the law firm can see what they can do to help this person. That's kind of that initial hook. That's the video hook. From there, it's going to be different on the chat. It might not just be a window to start chatting, it might be a couple of options of those most common injury types that would start the process.
Chris Dreyer:
So Joe, they're not going to see me type in who's going to fix my car and pay for my car? They're going to see the injuries and the prompt. So I'll let you continue, I just to interrupt, because that's where it might go off the rail on these live agents. We're not talking lemon law here, or maybe if you're a lemon law attorney, but we're talking about the injuries here.
Joe Ruotolo:
That's a good point that you make, is that there is the ability... When you're highlighting, let's say again, you're a PI firm, what you really care about are those cases that could be low value, high value, you want more high value, but as long as there's a case, you want to talk to them. If there's no injury, probably no case. If someone goes to your website and they see car accident, truck accident, dog bite, slip and fall, another injury, and they have a question about, like you've said, their insurance or lemon law or whatever it is, anything else, they may pause before they try to reach out to you about something that's not an injury.
When you can pre-qualify, when someone starts that process, they start, "car accident," then asking not a ton, anywhere from three to five, typically qualifier questions which are not going to involve a lot of typing, not going to involve a lot of text-based communication because oftentimes you can give someone a pick list of a couple of options to better understand the situation. "Were you hurt? Was someone else hurt? What types of injuries?" Being able to give a quick list where they can go and select and tell you, there's two benefits. Number one, it takes them way less time to get to the finish line, getting the right information in the door. Number two, it really keeps the conversation focused on what the law firm can do to help them.
As a result, when the intake person, when the attorney, when someone gets the lead and is able to call back, there's no longer this gap of, "So, what happened?" They already know what it was. They already, for sure, decided that this person is worth my time right now to stop what I'm doing and call them back. But they can deliver that empathy, they can deliver that sense of compassion, concern, caring, so that you're not going into information-gathering phase right now. You're there to establish that trust, establish that connection, and if it's the case, if it's someone that you want to work with, hopefully sign them up a lot sooner with a lot less friction.
Chris Dreyer:
A lot of newer firms don't. They underestimate how powerful the data is. It gets more and more important as you grow. So talk to me about the data collection component, integrations, attribution, how does data factor in to the tool and how it's used?
Joe Ruotolo:
When you are investing in things like SEO at a higher level, when you're making that investment, being able to use tools that give you insight to where certain leads are coming from, on the technical side, when you get conversions, when people submit an inquiry, whether that's a chat or a form or any of those things that you can track on a web or a phone call, knowing the journey, using a tool that can get you that information, I would say is kind of a must. If you don't know what your data is, if you don't know where your sources are, what is it? What you cannot measure, you cannot manage.
Then there's the second element, which is what happens when they get there? What happens when they get on the website, right? Because not every person is going to land on your website and fill out a form right away. They might take a few steps, they might enter on a certain part of the website such as a blog page from Google, but they may not go ahead and submit an inquiry right away. They might bounce around, go to your homepage, go to your attorney profile pages, I know are some of the best-converting pages on websites for a lot of our clients. And being able to see their journey, that is where they entered, and then where they eventually decided to pull the trigger and make that connection and submit the inquiry. Having tracking data that can show you not just one side, but more of the journey of a user, is going to help your firm understand the pages that are better for conversion.
The nice thing is, using something like Intaker, if you see that trend, if you know that your attorney profile pages are getting you more leads than either your homepage or your blogs or whatever it is, you can also do things like tweak the experience on certain pages. I think the best example is if you have multiple attorneys in an office, and each of those attorney profile pages can have a different video of just that individual attorney giving their 10, 20-second spotlight, so that if someone does come and they may have heard of this individual, want to learn a bit more, they don't have to just be limited to read and copy on a website. They could actually get a sense of their personality, their voice, their energy, all from that same website experience, right there. I would say those are a couple of the factors.
Then beyond that, things like Google Analytics, having a centralized dashboard where they can see all of the information, all of the tracking across different channels, making sure that the data fits well, that there is no issues getting chat lead conversion data into a tool like Google. Chris, you can probably speak to this better. I know with the GA4 rollout earlier this year, it was not always smooth-sailing for a lot of companies. I am grateful that we were able to figure out the bumps in the road early.
Chris Dreyer:
I'm not a fan of GA4. I think they're just limiting visibility compared to... Every iteration, it seems like they're limiting visibility. To me, it seems like, "Hey, the less visible we can make our Google Ads conversions data, the better." That's how it feels, at least.
Back in the day you used to get to see the whole keyword strings. Now you're limited to what's on search console. So it seems like they're just pulling that veil. So your tool, having that visibility of the journey, I know GA has some of those capabilities, but those are the reports that most of the attorneys listing never run, versus maybe having a live chat that spits out a different report that makes it a little cleaner, might be something that they like.
One of the things too, that was interesting about this, that I think, and I think it's really important to talk about it, is just your pricing model. Let me explain where I'm coming from. Let's say several years ago, it was Engage and Apex, that was your options, right? We would look at the data and try to make the most informed decision, because that was the options. That was the only options there were. But the problem with those, is there's a lot of spam. Sometimes they don't do the charge-backs and they get charged for things that aren't cases. So, tell me about your pricing model and how you think about that component of your tool.
Joe Ruotolo:
Time is everything, whether it's your time or the person in your office who's running everything that you're not doing. When you have to dedicate time to fight your vendor for a few dollars that they charged you that they shouldn't charge you... I know a lot of the times people just say, "Forget it. I'm just going to eat the cost of that, because it takes more, it's not worth it to go ahead into the console and started disputing leads and saying, 'This wasn't a real case or this person's out of my practice area or I shouldn't be charged for this.'" So a lot of those initial per-lead chat companies, I still think that people have a lot of issues with having to request those charge-backs or request those refunds, and ultimately that's it is not a good experience for the client. It doesn't really help the end person who chatted and didn't get served. You know what I mean?
What we do differently, is we do a flat rate subscription model that is, it's more predictable. Sometimes people save money, sometimes people save a lot of money, sometimes they pay a little bit more. It really depends on the firm, but what happens, is there is such a different experience on the side of the law firm that is using those tools. Because all of a sudden they don't have to worry about going and requesting charge-backs or getting into a situation where they need to now be a disputing with their company about, "Oh, these are not for me. I don't want to be charged."
I'd say one of the things that is very nice and easy working with clients, is that if you can give them an idea of, "This is what it's going to do, this is what it's going to cost, and six months out, here's the result that you're going to get." Or even one month out, because using chat is an instant conversion boost. There's no ramp-up time like SEO. If you change your tool, and especially if it takes you 15, 30 minutes to get it set up and get it going, then you could start seeing results a lot faster. There's another level to this that other companies are not doing, and that is continuing after that initial engagement.
The other side of it, is I mentioned growth automation technology. It's not just chat technology and it's not just there to capture pre-qualified leads, although that's the main core function, but take people from that initial, "Hello," all the way to a signed retainer. If law firms want to use it to do things like automate their communication pre-client, right? That could be follow-ups over text message, SMS, automatic, as well as ways for your staff to go ahead and continue that conversation manually when someone is engaging. But little things like these workflow sequences where someone comes in, send them a text message that automatically has the contact card for the law firm attached to it so that when someone submits an inquiry on a tool like Intaker, they can immediately get a text back acknowledging their inquiry, but also giving them the contact card for the law firm so that when you do get a call back from an intake department or it could be maybe not the same number, they're already going to know everything, who you are, who's calling and streamline that part of the journey.
The other side of that, is making it very simple. If someone has a conversation with either an attorney intake person after that chat inquiry is done, being able to send them a retainer agreement in one second from that initial email that you might get that has all their information. If you can automate that process from when they first reach out to when they're going to go ahead and sign the retainer. I know that the one-call flows is maybe a bit aggressive for some injury firms, but I heard you talk to Morgan and Morgan and I know that is their goal. You can have technology that backs you up, even if you are a small shop, even if you're a solo practitioner that puts you on a technological same footing as a company like Morgan and Morgan, without having to build this whole crazy process yourself. That's one of the areas that we really want to be able to help those smaller firms compete with the bigger firms on a technological level, without having to invest tens of thousands or more in their technology.
Chris Dreyer:
Absolutely. I love all of that and just making it seamless, especially for the volume players. Tell me about the review component and how that fits in.
Joe Ruotolo:
The goal for most firms is always, get more Google reviews, get more five-star Google reviews, increase that social proof for your firm, and be able to show people when they search for you, that the results speak for themselves and that they don't need to wonder, is this someone who's going to... "Are they really what they say they are, or are they something else?" I think reviews do a great job offering that social proof, we call it turbo review.
What makes Intaker special, unique, is being able to add that warmth and empathy usually with the phase of the managing partner, back into the mix. When it's time to ask for a review, it could be earlier, or it could be later towards the resolution of the case, really depends on your firm, but whenever that is, being able to share just a little link that has the video of maybe the same managing partner coming back and letting them know, Hey, we're so grateful that you've been a client of ours and we'd love to see what we can do to either improve or maybe help you, and this will help others in the community if you're able to share some feedback with us on Google.
From there, just that short little video, is going to drive more reviews than just getting a form saying, "How did we do?" So, if you are already doing video content and you're looking to see how can you use that video content to also drive more reviews, not just lead conversions, but reviews, then this is a tool that, if someone gives you good quality, maybe five or four star feedback, being able to publish that straight to Google, but if it's less, if it's maybe not as high quality, still being able to capture, record that information, but have it go to an internal team, to really see where things went different for this person, and being able to then, hopefully, even turn it around if it's not at the very end of the case, and then see what can be done to turn that into a five-star review.
When things go sideways for a relationship, either with a client or someone else, we might think that's like, "Oh no, we're in big trouble." But in reality it offers an opportunity to maybe find that issue, fix it, and make the relationship actually stronger at the end. So, being able to do these checks, being able to capture feedback not just at the end of the case, but maybe having a couple stages throughout and using tools and technology that, "If it's great feedback, fine, please share it with the world. If it's less, we want to know about it. We want to see what we can do to better serve you."
If you're listening to this, you probably know that AI has taken over a lot of different technology products and everything has an AI add-on to it that will allow a tool like Intaker to do some of the work for the law firm when it comes to not just pre-qualifying cases, but getting people connected to the right attorney at the right time. If you tell AI what a five-star case looks like for you, being able to have the system respond differently and maybe call you right away... If someone has a case, I'm talking seconds after the conversion happens on your website, you the managing partner, whoever's the attorney responsible for intake on your team, and letting them know you've got a very hot case, press one to connect, and being able to do the live transfer feature. I know a lot of people what they love about things like live chat, is live transfer. Take it from a chat to a phone call right away. If you can do that, then you've just cut out so much of the friction in the process when someone reaches out to when they decide to say yes to your service.
Chris Dreyer:
Joe had some incredible insights to share today. Do you want to connect with him or give Intaker a try?
Joe Ruotolo:
You can go to Intaker.com right now, our main website. There's no contact form. You can just fill out a chat, that's what we do. There's one thing, we always ask, "Who referred you?" So on the chat, just go ahead and put in rankings or Chris Dreyer or Personal Injury Mastermind-
Chris Dreyer:
My man.
Joe Ruotolo:
... and we'll make sure to give you the best treatment as one of Chris's friends and listeners. I just want to reiterate, I love what you're doing for our clients, Chris. I know the clients that we have using Rankings, using Intaker, are doing really good, and I'm happy to hear that people are just signing cases from chat, because not every law firm has that experience. I'm just grateful that we can be on the same team and thank you for having me today.
Chris Dreyer:
It's time for takeaways. Time for the pinpoints. Decrease friction to increase conversions, customized chat bots allow website visitors to engage quickly, select their case type, and provide key detail in seconds. This ultra-fast interaction decreases friction substantially compared to filling out lengthy forms. The focused nature of this chat reduces human error and prevents conversations from going off course. By lowering barriers to engagement, keeping visitors focused, chat significantly increases lead conversion rates.
Joe Ruotolo:
Imagine just a 20-second spot video of a managing partner explaining to someone, delivering empathy, inviting them in so that the law firm can see what they can do to help this person. That's the video hook.
Chris Dreyer:
Build a client journey with intent. Determine exactly how you want a visitor to interact with your site, track how they engage and tweak the journey so you can gather information to meet and qualify leads. Tailor your chat automations for information what you want, like case details, while avoiding tangents like car repairs. Chat automation allows for complete control over the customer experience for laser targeted results.
Joe Ruotolo:
When you are investing in things like SEO at a higher level, being able to use tools that give you insight to where certain leads are coming from, when you get conversions, when people submit an inquiry, knowing the journey that someone took to get there, having that information easily accessible for the referring source of the traffic, using a tool that can get you that information, I would say is a must in today's market.
Chris Dreyer:
Create a deeper connection. Gather all critical details up front so the intake team has the full context when they engage with prospects. This saves time, rehashing basics and let staff skip directly to building a rapport with personalized, compassionate conversations.
Joe Ruotolo:
When you can pre-qualify, and being able to give a quick list where they can go and select and tell you, there's no longer this gap of, "So, what happened?" They already for sure decided that this person is worth my time right now to stop what I'm doing and call them back, they can deliver that empathy, they can deliver that sense of compassion, concern, caring, so that you're not going into information-gathering phase right now. You're there to establish that trust, establish that connection, and if it's the case, if it's someone that you want to work with, hopefully sign them up a lot sooner with a lot less friction.
Chris Dreyer:
For more information about Joe, check out the show notes. While you're there, please hit that follow button so you never missed an episode of Personal Injury Mastermind with me, Chris Dreyer, founder and CEO of Rankings.io.
All right everybody, thanks for hanging out. See you next time. I'm out.
