Information is the currency of the world. Having the right information enables people to make the right decisions. Being able to provide information and support to clients regardless of business hours is a necessity for every law firm. This is where live chat software comes in.
Live chat software is an online service that allows your law firm to deliver immediate support and information to clients. Once you install live chat software on your website, potential clients can chat with lawyers from your firm and receive answers instantly.
Should Your Law Firm Use Live Chat Software?
Absolutely yes!
With live chat, you can increase customer satisfaction. In a study conducted by Zendesk, over 90% of people said they experienced better customer satisfaction with live chat than any other forms of customer support. This is not a surprise as live chat software offers your law firm the opportunity to provide instant support to clients.
Great customer support experience is known to boost conversions. Using live chat software, you can create a better customer service experience that will turn site visitors into clients. With live chat, customers can consult with your law firm to find solutions to their legal woes, book appointments and generally get support for what they need.
What to Consider When Choosing a Live Chat Software
Before you choose live chat software for your law firm, here are a few things you must consider:
What features are you getting?
The type of live chat software you choose will determine the features you get. If you choose a chat software specific to the legal industry, you will get chat agents who are legally trained in addition to other features like analytics, live phone transfer, active pop-ups, branded chats, custom scripts, and CRM integration. A general chat software may not have agents to provide live support, leaving you to outsource or hire someone.
Who will answer chat notifications?
Will someone from your firm be answering all chat notifications? Are you outsourcing to a virtual assistant? Or are you using trained chat agents offered by your live chat software?
While it may be best for a lawyer to answer chat notifications, it may not always be the case. Therefore, ensure that whoever is answering chats knows their response could have legal implications.
How are your chats answered?
Will you be providing a script to your chat agent or virtual assistant? Do they know how to handle sensitive information? Are they proficient English speakers? Does your chat agent know the information they can collect over live chat?
The person answering your notifications should understand the ABA’s rules of professional conduct so they know the information to collect and how best to handle it.
Associated costs
You may pay for your live chat software monthly, per lead or even per chat. There is free chat software available but they may not have the full features you need.
Now that you know what to consider when choosing a live chat software for your law firm, here is some great live chat software:
The Best Live Chat Software for Your Law Firm
Legal Chat 24/7
Image Credit: Legal Chat 24/7
Legal Chat 24/7 is a live chat software that caters only to law firms. They offer legal chat specialists who are trained in lead generation and work with clients in all areas of practice. Once you install their shortcodes on your law firm’s website, their chat specialists can converse with clients to collect contact details and case information which they send to you along with full transcripts of each chat.
Features
- Live Chat available 24/7/365
- Legal practice trained chat agents
- Branded chat boxes
- Monthly reports
- Analytics and tracking
- Live phone call transfer to your firm
- CRM integration
- Lead notification via email, a phone call or text.
Pricing
Pay per lead
Free Demo
Yes. They offer a 14-day free trial.
Supported languages
English and Spanish
Apex Chat
Image Credit: Apex Chat
Apex chat is a live chat software provider that has been servicing over 8,000 businesses in the legal, medical and educational industries since 2008. They offer legal practice trained chat agents who are experts in lead generation. Their chat agents are available 24 hours a day.
Features
- Live Chat available 24/7
- Custom chat branding
- Legal practice trained chat agents
- CRM integration
- Mobile optimization
- Geo-mapping and routing
- Monthly reports and analytics
- Office hour tracking
- Live phone call transfer
- Custom chat scripts
- Website visitor tracking
Pricing
Pay per lead.
Free Demo
Yes. Contact Apex Chat to schedule a free demo.
Supported languages
English and Spanish
Cons
The native reporting in Apex Chat may not be detailed enough for some users.
Cugic Chat
Cugic chat has been providing live chat services to businesses for more than a decade. They service different industries including legal, real estate, human resources, and recruitment, travel and leisure, automotive and education. Their software comes with live chat agents skilled in lead generation and customer support. Their chat agents can handle client queries in different legal practice areas like family law, real estate law, tax and bankruptcy, criminal defense and personal injury.
Features
- Proactive pop-ups that invite visitors to chat.
- Live chat 24/7
- Legal practice trained chat agents
- Analytics and Reporting
- Social media integrations (Twitter and Facebook)
- Chat customization
- Geo-tagging
- Multiple concurrent chats
- Website visitor tracking
- Mobile optimization
- Live phone call transfer
Pricing
There are both free and paid plan options. The free plan comes with 2 chat agent accounts and 2 concurrent chat windows. Their paid plans have more advanced features. Pricing starts at $9.50 per month billed annually for the Professional plan, $16 per month for the Enterprise plan and $35 per month for the Enterprise plus plan.
Free Demo
Yes. They offer a 14-day free trial.
Supported languages
Chat widget supports 42 languages.
Client Live Chat
Image Credit: Client Live Chat
Client Live Chat is a live chat software that was created in 2008 by lawyers to help other lawyers handle lead generation and customer support. They also provide live chat and customer support services for medical practices and small businesses.
The software aims to handle all the client queries that will ordinarily take the valuable time of any lawyer. The software comes with chat agents who are trained in legal practice areas like personal injury, mass torts, criminal law, and family law.
Features
- Live Chats 24/7/365
- Legal practice trained chat agents
- Active pop-ups encouraging clients to chat
- Custom chat branding
- Live phone transfer
- CRM integration
- Custom chat script
- Google Analytics integration
- Lead notification and chat transcripts via email and text.
- Monthly reports
Pricing
Contact the company for a free quote.
Free Demo
Yes. Contact Client Live Chat to schedule a free demo.
Supported languages
English and Spanish
Live Admins
Image Credit: Live Admins
Live Admins has been providing live chat and customer support services to businesses since 2002. Web Greeter is the name of their live chat software which serves the legal, travel, hotel, education, real estate, and automotive industries. They offer legally trained chat agents that can communicate in 4 different languages.
Features
- Live chats 24/7
- Proactive pop-ups inviting web visitors to chat
- Legal practice trained chat agents
- Website visitor tracking
- Geo-tagging
- Live reporting via the dashboard
- Social integration (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)
- Customized chat window
- CRM integration
Pricing
Only paid plans are available with the basic plan starting at $20 per month.
Free Demo
Yes. Contact Live Admins to request a demo.
Supported languages
English, Spanish, Arabic, and French.
Zoho SalesIQ
Image Credit: Zoho SalesIQ
Zoho SalesIQ is Zoho Corporation’s answer to effective customer service. SaleIQ is a live chat platform with visitor tracking and top-notch analytics. The platform can be integrated with several other software like its own Zoho CRM, Google Analytics, and WordPress, etc. Their live chat software serves different industries from Financial Services, Travel to Education.
Features
- Proactive pop-ups
- Screen sharing
- Geo-tagging and routing
- Customized chat windows
- Website visitor behavior tracking
- Integrations with CRM, CMS and Google Analytics.
- Reports and analytics
Pricing
There is a free plan that supports 2 chat operators and 100 chat sessions per month. Their paid plans are per month and billed annually. The basic plan costs $17 and supports 3 chat operators with 1000 chat sessions monthly. Professional plan costs $53 and includes 5 chat operators with unlimited chat sessions. Enterprise cost $116 with 10 chat operators and unlimited chat sessions.
Free Demo
Yes. A 15-day free trial is available.
Supported languages
The software has an automatic language translation that supports several languages.
Cons
You have to provide your own chat agents as the live chat software doesn’t have them.
Legal Chat
Image Credit: Legal Chat
Legal Chat is a legal industry specific live chat software that helps law firms handle lead generation and increase conversions. Their chat agents are available 24/7 to handle queries and vet leads before passing them on.
Features
- Live chat 24/7
- Legal practice trained live chat agents
- Proactive pop-ups that encourage visitors to chat
- SMS Chat
- Website visitor behavior tracking
- Geo-tagging and routing
- CRM integration
- Advanced security protocols
Pricing
Contact the company for a free quote.
Free Demo
Yes. Contact Live Chat to schedule a live demo.
Supported languages
The software has an automatic multi-lingual translator.
Live Chat
Since 2002, Live Chat has been in the business of helping companies provide excellent customer service to their clientele. They offer live chat services to over 27,000 companies worldwide education, HR, travel, web hosting, and automotive industries.
Features
- Live chat 24/7
- Chat customization
- Website visitor tracking
- Chat feedback
- Team management
- Integrations with Salesforce, WordPress, Google Analytics, Facebook, etc.
- Ticketing system
- Data security
- Reports and Analytics
Pricing
Only paid plans are available. Their plan is per month billed annually. The basic plan costs $16 with basic chat customization and 60-day chat history. The team, business and enterprise plans cost $33, $50 and $149, respectively.
They all come with full chat customization and unlimited chat history. All the plans Live Chat offers have unlimited agent accounts so many people can share the customer service workload.
Free Demo
Yes. They offer a 14-day free trial.
Supported languages
Live Chat supports 45 languages.
Legal Chat Now
Image Credit: Legal Chat Now
Legal Chat Now is another live chat software created by attorneys for law firms. Once you install the code on your website, the software uses custom chat scripts to gather contact and case information from clients. It does the groundwork before you take over speaking to clients directly. The unique thing about this software is that you can chat with clients via SMS.
Features
- Proactive chat buttons
- Live chat 24/7
- Live chat via SMS without disclosing your number
Pricing
Contact Legal Chat Now for a quote.
Free Demo
Yes. A free trial is available on request.
Supported languages
English
Cons
You have to do lead generation yourself as there are no chat agents to vet potential leads.
Ngage Live Chat
Image Credit: Ngage Live Chat
Ngage is a live chat software provider with clients in the legal, medical practice, car dealership and professional services industries. Over 3 million chats have been conducted on their live chat software since its inception in 2008. Their chat agents are trained to collect information without giving any legal advice.
Features
- Live chat 24/7/365
- Trained chat operators
- Live phone transfers
- Instant callbacks
- Text to chat
- CRM integration
- Google Analytics and Facebook integration
- Lead notification via email and text message.
Pricing
Pay per lead
Free Demo
Yes. A demo is available on request.
Supported languages
English and Spanish
Conclusion
Lead generation is a 24/7 process that never stops. With live chat software, your law firm will no longer be constrained to chasing leads only during business hours. Your office will be available to render help to prospective clients regardless of time.
Is your law firm already using live chat software? What challenges are you facing with your chat software? I would absolutely love to hear from you in the comment section below.
If you need further assistance, feel free to contact me directly.
