REFERRALS · ANALYSIS
A colleague sent you a case. It reached your voicemail. Neither of you found out.
Referral-driven firms have the most expensive version of the intake problem, because the inquiry they lose was earned, and the person who earned it stops sending. Here is how a referral goes missing between one office on Ponce and another, and what an intake has to do to catch it.
This is analysis, not data. We have not measured how many referrals go unreturned and are not going to invent a rate. The mechanism is what matters, and your own firm can check it in an afternoon.
How it goes missing
A colleague across the Gables has a client with a matter outside her practice. She gives the client your name and number. The client calls at 5:40 PM on a Thursday, gets voicemail, does not leave a message, and searches for someone else. Nobody at your firm ever knows a call came in. Your colleague assumes you took the case, or that the client did not follow through. A month later she has a second referral and, without deciding anything, gives it to someone whose phone she has seen answered.
THE COST IS NOT ONE CASE
Three things the intake has to do
- Catch the call. A missed call triggers a text back within a minute, from the firm’s number, offering a time. The client who was about to search for someone else has a reason to wait. The card goes on the board with the number and the time, so a person can call back that evening.
- Capture the source by name. "How did you hear about us" with a referring attorney option, and a name. On the phone, the voice agent asks. On the form, it is a field. The name becomes a tag on the card. That is what makes the next thing possible.
- Close the loop. A referring attorney who sent someone should hear, within a day, that the person was reached and a consultation was set, or that the person never called. Not the facts of the matter, which are the client’s. Just that the referral landed. That message is one template, sent by a person, prompted by the card.
The report that referral firms need
Inquiries, consults, and signed retainers by referring attorney, for the year. Which colleagues send, how often, and what happens to what they send. And the one that hurts: the colleague who sent four last year and none this year. That row is a lunch, and the lunch is cheaper than the marketing budget that would replace the four cases.
Discretion, because it is the Gables
A referred client in a reputation-sensitive market expects the firm to be careful. No practice area in the text preview, no firm name on the lock screen where a spouse or a colleague might see it, a first reply that offers a time and says nothing about the matter. The same restraint Rule 4-7.15 asks for is what a referred client reads as professionalism.
The afternoon check
Call your own main line at 5:40 PM on a weekday from a phone that is not on your network, and let it ring out. See what happens: whether anything texts you, whether anyone calls back, whether the call appears anywhere the next morning. If the answer is voicemail and silence, that is where the referrals are going.
Questions we get asked about this
Can the firm tell a referring attorney what happened with the referral?
That the person was reached and a consultation was set, or that they never called, is usually shared as a courtesy; the facts of the matter are the client's and are not. What the firm may say is its own judgment under the confidentiality rules; the system prompts the courtesy message and a person sends it.
How does the report know which colleague referred the case?
The source field on the form and the voice agent's question both capture "a referring attorney" with a name, which becomes a tag on the card. The report groups inquiries, consults, and signed retainers by that tag.
Related
See a referral come in and never touch voicemail
A 30-minute demo, at your office if you are in the Gables.