Managing Your Law Firm’s Reputation
Simply stated, this is the future. There are an enormous number of people utilizing online reviews and ratings prior to making purchasing decisions… and professional service providers such as law firms are not immune. That’s not to say potential clients will abandon a personal referral, but the very best type of client will also take the additional step to become informed about what former clients say about you and your attorneys. And the amount of trust consumers put in Internet information is growing exponentially.
There are plenty of places to read client feedback about attorneys. For example, the following online properties offer client reviews, and there are dozens more: Martindale.com, Lawyers.com, Avvo.com, Kudzu, Yelp, YP.com, Google.com, Yahoo.com, Bing.com, Manta.com, City-Search, and Lawyerratingz.com. One poor review (even if bogus) can be the reason a lucrative client chooses another law firm over yours.
Proven Law Marketing identifies, monitors, and implements programs that maximize the number and impact of positive client reviews. We are also familiar with the criteria and processes for having negative reviews removed from each Internet property, and how best to handle poor reviews when they can’t be removed. (For a detailed analysis of how to best handle a bad online review, check out our blog post You Got a Negative Online Review. Now What?) And we know the answers to questions clients may ask about anonymity and other concerns that hinder the ability of law firms to establish a great online reputation.