5 Ways To Get More Google Reviews For Your Law Firm

Many law firms often operate in competitive markets and everybody wants to hire an attorney with a proven record.  You’re well aware of the impact that Google reviews can play in the promotion of your business reputation but you simply don’t have the time to go hunting them down or building your reviews at scale.  Not to mention, you may want to grow your reviews across multiple profiles (Google, Facebook, Avvo, etc.). 

In a recent study conducted on Amazon, it was found that 92% of shoppers were hesitant to purchase a product due to a lack of reviews.  Furthermore, more consumers were willing to purchase a product with an average rating of 3.5 stars than they were a product that had not yet been reviewed.  Reviews are extremely important, not only do you need them, you need a lot of them.

In this article we’re going to introduce to you 5 great tools to automate your review collection and improve your law firms business reputation online.  It’s time to let the world know you’re the best lawyer in the business and the way we’re going to do that is by growing your lawyer business reviews.

Let’s get to the tools:

Law Firm Google Review Handout

Let’s paint a quick picture and let me know if you’ve seen it before.  You do a kick-ass job on a recent case & the client is thrilled with the outcome.  You ask the client if they would mind leaving you a review to help grow your practice and they, of course, say, “I’d give you 100 stars if I could” (in your head you’re thinking, just five will do).  Days, weeks and months go by and you haven’t received the review.  You even asked them again at a follow-up meeting and they promised they would get to it.  Unfortunately, life catches up to them and they simply forget to review you.

The fix for this is easier than you think, a one-page Google review handout for your law firm.  The great thing about the Google review handout is it’s something physical they can take home and put on their fridge, on their desk, etc. as a reminder to complete the process.  Secondly, it’s very easy to use for non-tech savvy individuals.  They simply punch in a link and it takes them right to your review popup.  You don’t have to bother with complicated instructions or telling a client to ‘look up your business’.

The best thing about the attorney Google review handouts is they are free to create and take literally minutes to do. 

Here are a few great FREE websites where you can generate a one-page PDF handout to get more Google reviews for your law firm:

• https://arrivala.com/google-review-handout-generator/ ( our favorite 🙂 )
• https://whitespark.ca/review-handout-generator/
• https://reviewhandout.com/google-review-handout-generator/

Create A Google Review Link For Your Law Practice

Another great (and free) marketing tool you should utilize is a Google Review link.  A Google review link makes it easy for a past client to click on a link you provide them and be sent to the exact location to write a review for your business.  Without a Google review link for your law practice, it can often be difficult to explain the steps to leave a review, especially if the client is not tech-savvy.  Even if you do explain the process, what if the client makes a mistake and selects the wrong law office or perhaps a law office in a different state with a similar name.  The possibilities for error become multiplied.  Use some of the free tools below to create a free Google review link.  Once created, you could use the link in your email signature, in emails you send out, on your website, etc..  Anywhere you can paste a link you can provide a way for the receiver to get direct access to review your law practice on Google.

• https://arrivala.com/google-review-link-generator/ ( our favorite 🙂 )
• https://whitespark.ca/google-review-link-generator/
• https://www.brightlocal.com/free-local-seo-tools/google-id-and-review-link-generator/

Create A Review Collection Process For Your Law Firm

A key for every successful business is processes.  Processes that make your business run smoothly.  Sometimes these processes are designed for the owner, other times they are processes designed for employees to ensure they stay on top of to-do items.  Common processes in businesses are often things like how to shut down the office for the night and include locking doors and turning on the alarm.  A process that you may not have thought of is one for the collection of Google Reviews.  Believe me when I say, every company on Google that has more than 30 reviews has a process in place to collect them and more often than not they are very simple to implement.

While I don’t have an online tool I can recommend for creating a Google review collection process for your law firm, the process will often go something like:

• Upon case completion, thank the client for selecting you as their attorney and ask if they would be willing to write a review for your practice.
• If yes, hand them our law firm’s Google review handout and point out where the review link is so they can submit their review.
• Furthermore, ask them for their email address and ask if they would mind if you followed up to send them more information on how you can write a review.  Write down the email address and store it in your CRM, planner or review collection software for automatic follow-up.
• If the client has not written a review within one week, send out the follow-up request that includes your law firm’s Google review link that you created in the last step.

Automate Review Follow-Ups At Your Firm

A process for collecting reviews can be great but it can also be extremely time-consuming.  Keeping track of which clients have submitted a review and which ones haven’t requires lots of reminders and potentially manual followups.  If dealing with a small number of clients, this may be manageable but if you work with a larger client base or simply enjoy the thought of automating these procedures then it’s time to look for a review collection automation service.

While the majority of these services cost a bit of money, they are often well worth the cost is manual labor saved. 

Let’s back up, what is review collection automation?  Simply put, it is a piece of software that can automatically follow up with your past customers to get them to write a review.  It knows when the past client has written a review and can track the responses and give you statistics on the results.

There are a few different services on the market that offer this kind of platform.  Here at Arrivala, we have some fantastic plans designed for the law firm in mind that begin at $29.99/month.  Our plans were actually originally created for law firms and therefore our feature set includes things like integration with Avvo that many other services don’t offer.  While there are some other platforms available that you can explore, many cost $200- $500+/month and are simply too expensive in my opinion for what they provide.  Below is a list of a handful of these companies that you can explore.  I’ve done my best to compile pricing info when it was provided:

• https://arrivala.com/pricing/ ($29.99/month)
• https://birdeye.com/pricing/ (kind of hard to tell but looks to start at about $200/month)
• https://rizereviews.com/ (don’t provide pricing but based on info we obtained, looks to cost between $250-$500/month)
• https://reputationstacker.com/pricing/ ($79/month for a plan that includes SMS requests)
• https://www.grade.us/home/plans/professional ($180/month)

In Conclusion

I hope this information can help guide your law practice to successfully receiving dozens if not hundreds of positive, five-star reviews on Google.  Make no mistake, reviews will be one of the leading sources of new business development over the next decade.  Reviews will become mandatory for many law practices to be successful and those that don’t get on board early, will be playing catch up in years to come.

For full transparency, I am the founder at Arrivala and we offer many of these services & tools (both paid and unpaid).  If you think Arrivala could help your law practice using our automated review collection suite, please don’t hesitate to give us a call, send us an email or sign-up for one of our plans (we even have a free plan available).

Best of luck to your firm as we move forward into the new year.  If you have any questions about the above tools & tips, please feel free to email me at cabe@arrivala.com.