Podcast Episode 198: How Technology and AI Can Effectively Address Pain Points in the Legal Intake Industry

Hello and welcome to the legal marketing 2.0 podcast. I am your host guy Alvarez from good to be social. And today we're going to be talking about how long do firms can maximize their intake systems are guess today is Josh. Hosolo. Josh is the lead docket and Vine sign product manager at file Vine. Josh has extensive background in mass volume law firm operations previously. He was a VP of operations of mass volume personal injury law firm, and he specializes in growing optimizing and effectively running businesses. Welcome to the show Josh.

Thanks for having me on.

Thank you for being here. So before we get started give me a little bit of background on yourself. How did you get to be where you are and specialize in this type of stuff?

Yeah, so in 2006 got out of college in a little bit know what to do in and started a business. I have baseball in the background. So I started a business working with kids in the local community just doing private lessons and travel baseball in that business for 9 years and eventually was approached by law firm about growing their Law Firm some form of 2015 to 2022. I worked in every Department in a law firm in to completely learn how a math volume from work from the beginning to end.

In the process, I agree that burn from three offices 213 offices and tripled Revenue over those seven years as well and really just working through the efficiencies of it from the beginning very point of intake all the way down to the settlement process. So yeah, that's that's how I got to hear now that I'm the product manager for Lee talking in buying buying Lee docket is an Intex call Bryan bond funds in East signature software my background at the law firm also lent to the technology side of things and really again growing efficiency, and I was able to really learn these products at one point that I realized. I really wanted to be in the tech world and and help grow these products as well. And so I've been here a little over a year again growing this product just like I've done in previous business.

That's terrific. That's quite a story. So obviously intake is extremely important at personal injury firms and especially important with nice volume personal injury law firms work for any type of law firm that has you know, working with consumers and has the need for intake. So talk to you a little bit about intake and intake department operations. What is said an how do we make sure that they are officially being run?

Absolutely, you got to think through the process and you guys think this at the end of the day you need a way to make sure that none of your leads are falling through the cracks. So, you know, the first thing I'll say no matter if you're bringing, you know, five leads a month or $5,000 a month. There has to be a way to officially track them writing them down on paper putting them in an Excel spreadsheet. At least. It's just not as long as it's going something's going to get law. Somebody's not going to get a return to call or return to message. And so it looking at is a software looking in technology and how that can help you make sure that your clients are reached every time that they reach out to you that they get a response again is he departments can be in a small they can be one person making all the also be a 50 to 100 people taking calls and responding to text messages another email in other ways that your marketing or marketing you have to have a response.

Typically the from what we saying is that you have to have about you got about 90 seconds to respond at or they're on to the next firm or you know, the next business that they're looking for.

Yeah, answer the question. I was about to ask which is. The response time matter when it comes to intake and in your experience, you mentioned you have about 90 seconds. Why is siding and then why does it matter so much?

Absolutely. So, you know you think of it back in the old days we had fun books and you know people look through the phone book for every every type of service whether that was a plumber and electrician all the way down to an attorney and they went down the phone book and they just called right and now we have the wonderful tool on Google and that's where honestly that's the new phone book. That is where everyone is looking only through Google and they're clicking on an attorney and I see these great braving reviews and are calling the first thing that they hope that happens that they get somebody on the phone if they don't get somebody on the phone. What what happens with your right it is there a response text message because out if they don't get somebody that says you'll be reaching out to them immediately immediately calling him back those things matter. The reason is because it only takes in a roughly between the 32nd called that they made to the 30 seconds are searching for the next person to someone else answering my phone calls within 30 seconds which adds up to 90 seconds.

Do you know we've seen that between efficiency gross when are within firms that are using our services and really like driving Ford that response and getting to someone will wait a little bit longer. If they get a text message back when you've missed their call on their immediate baby form was filled out and wait a little longer to look for that next firm. But but if you're not responding within the next one.

I love it. And I know I get this question from law firms all the time. Should they email or text potential clients when they are responding and then which is more effective text or email your experience.

Do you know honestly at the end of the day? I think Texas is way more, you know efficient the response rate just for just a common Google search if you go out there and look you're going to see that SMS or Tech opened 98% of the time versus an email have a 22% open right if you have both it's great to send both. It's great to kind of breach Outlook email at work and they can see that most likely, you know, they may not take their phone sometimes but they're open right shows that the text message open rate is much higher again for x + higher and throw, you know, I definitely believe they should be texting their client. We all have phones. We all text. We are flax we responded there's a lot quicker than we respond to email.

Makes a lot of sense. So you mentioned that you know keeping leaves in an Excel spreadsheet is probably not the most effective way to manage leaves.

How would a firm know when it should be using a lead management system if you're spending any marketing money, they're spending any money from your firm whether that is in Grassroots going out and in having events or that is a billboard or that is you know, even if you have a website and you have a form on there, there should be some way to track a sheet. Isn't that way in Excel sheet or Google sheet to track it because at the end of the day, there isn't a way to respond from those sheets. So I believe if you are spending a single Dollar on Advertising you should have some way some form of software to track those leaves and get an instant response to those leads are reaching out.

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You know, you mentioned some perms have one person in charge of intake sometimes have multiple people, you know, obviously, you know, how how do you grow that like what what is the ratio of leaves two full-time people that you've seen with Farms?

Yeah, you know, I think the technology helps right to keep the headcount where where is efficient and where it makes sense for your firm, but I would say, you know, what a typical we intake Personnel can take somewhere around a hundred calls a day and then in a really if you're getting more than that, you need to start to look to branch that intake apartment out in really build something. There's also a third-party services call and maybe even qualified leads and just qualified leads but I will say I like the Personal Touch is always the best right like you're always looking for the best way for your firm to have a personal touch and someone who knows your business and then you know, the hometowns that you're in always believe that that is is that least the first step in the best route to do have a third-party calling service or things like that. Just make sure they have the background and what you're needing nothing in my previous careers that tell your air intake specialist someone who is trained in your businesses can take somewhere close to $100 a day.

That's really helpful. And I was going to ask you about third-party services cuz I know that there are call centers that you can Outsource and you know, obviously you said that they have to know your business so that that I completely agree with that. So let's talk about a I right they eyes changing the whole world. How can law firms you say? I when it comes to intake

yeah says the first thing is that there's very simple tools out there that give you summarization but really it's right as you look at you have all these lead-filled you have all these things that you're asking me questions, you're asking each one of your leads to qualifier disqualify them. And so there's numerous tools out there that allow you to summarize all those details and there's some paragraph form if we think about it at it from the very best kind of basa 70 in like a motor vehicle accident there. Like there's an accident report and on that last page of that accident report. There's typically a a narrative and that narrative gives the police officers you of what happened in the accident. And then also if anybody's place at fault and some of the other details that need to go along with it, we think of the summarization piece of intake is the same thing, right? It's the attorney review on the lead that they've received and that that helps them number one kind of qualifying disqualify lot quicker. They're not going in and reading in numerous sets of qualifying or just called.

Questions are getting a very brief summary and then Additionally, you know, there's some tools out there. Now that's give you a prediction. So it's trained on data whether that be from a different case types, but there's the data set is a train on the other than is allowed to give you her diction whether you should take that case or not. Take that case any predictions things like you might need more information may be the field that you've introduced to the prediction models. It hasn't been trained on or there wasn't enough information for it to make a decision. So I think again like having ways to make yourself more efficient as an intake department on really providing, you know, all these data sets have been trained on hundreds of thousands of leaves and in millions of datapoint and that just allows your team to be more confident in the answers that they're giving your potential client, but then it definitely doesn't need review from an attorney. They have that pair got that summarization really drive, you know the efficiency within them and being able to read it.

Quickly and get a bigger sense of what's going on in that lead and make him a pretty prompt decision.

That's pretty cool. So what is the future that you see in Ai and legal intake systems? Where is this going?

Can I see a great future in that she got to think of it as like you think about these chats spots that people have on their website, you know the way to connect them to your particular forms and based off of the potential leads answers the AI is able to qualify and disqualify your leads, but it didn't really give give the least some feedback on what it may need the information needed to help qualifier to call buy, you know, that the non-human intervention from the time that the lead is coming into the time you get this new case in the door. So just looking at that efficient process. I say that AI all the time is not a headcount reducer. It's a headcount. It makes your head count more efficient right through your actual intake agents can spend more time talking to your clients and showing empathy. The hard part about AI is that we haven't seen in a very empathetic. There's not a lot of empty applied to even the voice so, you know

King hat as it moved down the road that ability to help your firm understand the questions that are being answered and really had a tailor the questions to to get the most out of every one of your leads, but it definitely help your team have more of a work-life balance and be confident and in what they're doing everyday and not you know, I'm not worried about every little decision made in the intake process.

That is incredible. What's going to happen? That's great. Alright Josh. So we all have on ports may run out of time. But before I let you go, is there a word of advice you can give our audience, you know, if there's any lawyer for law firms out there thinking about upgrading their intake system or you know, taking the first steps. What would you recommend for them? What what is it that they should be thinking about doing right now?

Yeah, I definitely just say, you know, make sure when you're looking into different software and different Technologies. Look at the ones that integrate with different project different types of other software. You want a software it is open to other software that you're able to connect to other software to be able to make your team more efficient think of ways where you're connecting to, you know, your Google ads or Facebook ads and really bringing them all into one location to point of an intake software is really to bring everything into one central unit so that you can work from that and your team can work from that. It's really just do the research look at the different prospects out there and in just make sure that they work with with everybody, you know, every one of us have questions every day about you know, what when different products. Do you know, there's a lot out there and I'll save it, you know spend the time to do the research on it and it takes a little bit of time because there's so many but getting the right one if it is important.

When you talk about growing your firm.

Great advice. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been a pleasure to have you to our listeners. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you want to make sure you don't miss any future episodes. You can subscribe at good to be social.com podcast. You can also check out some of our great past episodes Josh. Thank you again for your time. We will make sure to add your name and your contact information on the show notes so that if anyone wants to reach out to you, they can do that. I appreciate the time you thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. We will see you next time.