Client Intakes have Come a Long Way by Charles Boyk
Today’s client intake solutions include services and
software to streamline and automate the process of
gathering information from new clients. AI chatbots, online
forms, and document automation promise to improve
efficiency, accuracy, and the client experience.
Young attorneys have no idea how we used to sign up
clients in the “good old days.” Since COVID, 90% of my
sign-ups are over the phone, 8% in-person, and the final
2% meet us somewhere. The convenience of hiring an
attorney is more important to them. We always offer
in-person consultations. Before COVID I met 80 percent of
my clients in person at one of our offices. The remaining
20% of the time, we met clients at their home, a
restaurant, their place of employment, or at the hospital.
In the “old days,” this meeting allowed me to “sell myself, ”
evaluate the client, and set the process in place to turn this
person into a client-for-life and a top-notch referral source.
Currently, the “phone call intake” is tremendously
time-saving, but it does not allow me to “cement” the
relationship.
I was always proud of driving 1-2 hours to close the
in-person sale to the client.
My favorite intake story is 15 years ago, when I was
supposed to meet a lady from Mississippi at our Findlay,
Ohio office. She had been seriously injured in an accident
when a commercial vehicle hit her bus full of rescue
dogs, totaling the bus. I got a call from her friend that she
had suffered a heart attack that day and wanted me to
meet her at Blanchard Valley Hospital, where she was a
patient. I went to the hospital, and she was not listed as a
patient. I walked through the emergency room calling out
her name. She was lying on a gurney waiting to be
transferred to her room. I did the intake, signed up the
case, and a year and a half down the road, settled the case
for a large amount shortly before the trial.
I was proud to be a great “closer.” My job was to “sell” the
client, the insurance adjuster, the mediator, and if needed,
the jury.
