Why Your Law Firm's Chatbot Might Be Costing You Clients: The Case for Human Responses

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Why Your Law Firm's Chatbot Might Be Costing You Clients: The Case for Human Responses"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Maximum Lawyer
• Host/Author: Tyson Mutrux
• Episode: Why Your Law Firm's Chatbot Might Be Costing You Clients: The Case for Human Responses
• Release Date: July 15, 2025

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Introduction to the Guest: Ted from Juvo Leads

Timestamp: [01:29]

Tyson Mutrix welcomes Ted, a professional with a JD and an MBA, who now runs Juvo Leads, a company serving over a thousand law firms. Tyson expresses interest in Ted’s journey and the experiences that shaped his path.

Ted:
"I’m a kid from Martha's Vineyard, third generation, grew up on a little island... I really liked the business stuff."
— [01:52]

Early Life and Background in Martha's Vineyard

Timestamp: [03:05 - 06:42]

Ted shares his upbringing on Martha's Vineyard, highlighting the island's secluded nature and the unique social dynamics between year-round residents and summer visitors. He describes his family's small hotel business and the economic environment that allowed him to earn substantial wages as a teenager.

Ted:
"It was fun to have that dichotomy... There’s always good jobs out there because the housing is so expensive."
— [04:33]

Impact of LSAs (Local Services Ads) on Law Firms

Timestamp: [06:42 - 09:27]

Ted discusses the significance of response time in LSAs, emphasizing that faster message responses can improve a law firm's ranking and lead generation. He explains how manually handling LSA messages allows for quicker lead engagement compared to automated systems, giving firms a competitive edge.

Ted:
"When you answer messages fast, Google really rewards that behavior. So you rank your ad higher."
— [07:20]

Human vs. AI in Chat Responses

Timestamp: [09:27 - 15:24]

Ted advocates for human responses over AI-driven chatbots, arguing that humans can provide empathetic and nuanced interactions that AI currently cannot match. He acknowledges the future potential of AI but maintains that, as of now, human agents deliver superior results in lead conversion and client satisfaction.

Ted:
"Nothing beats a person. So let's use people at it and just throw people at it to solve the problems."
— [09:56]

A/B Testing in Legal Marketing

Timestamp: [17:40 - 22:31]

Ted explains the importance of A/B testing in optimizing law firm websites and marketing strategies. He provides examples such as testing the color of call-to-action buttons and the placement of chat widgets to determine what effectively increases lead generation without compromising user experience.

Ted:
"A B test is just when you take... you send traffic to your website and you want to see what call now button works better."
— [18:09]

Common Marketing Myths and Best Practices for Law Firms

Timestamp: [22:31 - 27:28]

Addressing misconceptions in legal marketing, Ted emphasizes the necessity of tracking and analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs) rather than merely increasing lead volume. He highlights that many firms overlook the importance of lead intake processes and effective follow-up strategies.

Ted:
"If you don't measure it and you're going off your gut, you're going to have a hard time managing a big enterprise."
— [25:40]

Key Metrics for Law Firm Success

Timestamp: [27:28 - 28:23]

Ted outlines the crucial metrics that law firms should monitor to gauge their marketing effectiveness:

1. Wanted Leads: Quality of leads that fit the firm's target criteria.
2. Wanted Lead to Case Signed Rate: Conversion rate from desired leads to actual cases.
3. Average Case Value: The revenue generated per case.

Ted:
"We like leads, wanted leads, wanted lead to case signed rate, and then average case value."
— [27:31]

Future Trends in Legal Marketing, Intake, and Client Communications

Timestamp: [28:45 - 31:36]

Looking ahead, Ted anticipates a continued integration of AI in marketing while maintaining a pivotal role for human interaction in client communications and intake processes. He predicts advancements in platforms that facilitate better client-firm communication and the persistent need for human oversight in lead management.

Ted:
"I still think there’ll always be a need for person."
— [30:48]

Closing Remarks and Contact Information

Timestamp: [32:01 - 35:19]

Tyson and Ted wrap up the conversation by highlighting the benefits of Juvo Leads' human-powered chat services. Ted encourages listeners to reach out via email or through the Juvo Leads website to explore their offerings and take advantage of a 30-day free trial.

Ted:
"Start a chat on our website. We'd love to show you how a 30 day free trial works."
— [32:06]

Final Thoughts and Excitement for Future Endeavors

Timestamp: [35:19 - 36:10]

Ted expresses his passion for supporting law firms in achieving better outcomes for their clients by delivering more effective lead generation and communication solutions.

Ted:
"We can help people make their lives better by helping the law firm serve them better and more of them."
— [33:06]

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Notable Quotes:

• Ted on the importance of human chat responses:
  "Nothing beats a person. So let's use people at it and just throw people at it to solve the problems."
  — [09:56]

• Ted on key metrics:
  "We like leads, wanted leads, wanted lead to case signed rate, and then average case value."
  — [27:31]

• Ted on future of human interaction:
  "I still think there’ll always be a need for person."
  — [30:48]

---

Conclusion: In this episode of Maximum Lawyer, Ted from Juvo Leads underscores the critical role of human interaction in legal marketing, particularly in managing LSAs and client communications. Through sharing his expertise and experiences, Ted provides valuable insights into effective marketing strategies, the limitations of AI in client engagement, and the importance of data-driven decision-making for law firm growth. Law firms seeking to enhance their marketing efforts and client acquisition processes can benefit significantly from the human-centric approaches advocated in this discussion.

Transcript

[Tyson Mutrix]

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[Ted]

This is Maximum Lawyer with your host, Tyson Mutrix.

[Tyson Mutrix]

So, Ted, you've got a JD and an mba and now you're running a company that serves over a thousand law firms. But before we get into all that kind of stuff, because I think there's a lot of interesting stuff that you can talk about because you're, because of your experience, what I want to know is like, who, who were you before Juvo Leads and, and what sets you on the path that you're on now?

[Ted]

Who was I before Jubilees? It's a great question. And Tyson, thanks for having me on the show. Just a kid from Martha's Vineyard, third generation, grew up on a little island, went to college, went to law school. When I was in law school, I didn't really like it. My 1L writing teacher kind of sat me down after her first assignment. She said, ted, are you sure you want to do this? So what do you mean? She's like, well, this isn't really looking pretty good. I'm like, all right. And I kind of saw the writing on the wall, saw what the professors were telling me, and was like, all right. Wasn't really excelling in law school, but I really liked the business stuff. But I hated writing briefs and doing Constitution Law. I just kind of found it. Found it boring. So My school also had an accelerated MBA program so I could stay in law school, but while doing it, also get my MBA as well. So instead of, you know, switching courses, I'm like, why don't I just do both? So when I got out of law school, I also had an MBA as well. I really like the law school stuff because it really helped didn't train you how to be a lawyer, it helped taught you how to think like a lawyer. And using that analytical ability to kind of look at both sides of a situation really helps in business. So I don't regret law school. I loved it for kind of how it trained my brain to help be better at business and it truly did. But the, the business side is what I really always had a passion for.

[Tyson Mutrix]

You know what I want to hear talk about is Martha's Vineyard. So tell me about Martha's Vineyard. What was it like growing up there? I don't know anything about it. Otherwise. I, I know that it's a place that sounds like it's really fancy and it's a great place to visit, but other than that I don't know anything about it. So tell me. I'm very curious of Martha's Vineyard.

[Ted]

So a fun place to grow up, very sheltered. So like, you know, you're reading about stuff in the news and people going to like McDonald's and like having malls and we'd have to go on a trip off island so that you're, you live on island. Everything is off island. Oh, where's that? It's off islands. So the whole concept of off island was this foreign mystical place until you go to college basically. But it was fun, but it was very secluded and everyone thinks Martha's Vineyard like, oh, you know, stick their nose up. Like if you're from there, you don't have a house on the water, you have a house in the middle and you are in the economy serving the people that come down in the summer. So like, you know, my family had a small hotel growing up, 15 rooms. My mother was a 8th grade math teacher. Small businesses and a teacher. But it was fun. Like for sports in high school we would have to take the boat and it would take like, you know, eight hours to get there to have a football game, a baseball game, whatever it was. But then the summer, like a whole new slew of people came in. So you'd have your, your year round friends and the summer friends that would come. So it was kind of fun to have that dichotomy. And there's always good jobs out There because the housing is so expensive. So, you know, I was making 20, 25 bucks an hour at, like, 17 years old, thinking that was normal. So it was a good economy for. For young kids.

[Tyson Mutrix]

So that's interesting about the summer kids and all that. Did that make you become better at, like, befriending people and establishing relationships because of that?

[Ted]

I think so. But there was kind of a. I want to say yes, but the reality is it kind of created a townie vibe. So when the kids would come down from off island and they'd say in their summer homes, like, my summer home was also my winter home, my fall home, and my spring home. So we didn't have summer homes. So there was somewhat of a. A little bit of a dichotomy between the people that would summer there and live there. And it kind of just kind of made me understand that there's a difference and if you work really hard, you can have a summer home, I guess, and that people do have that lifestyle. So there was that. But you kind of just got good at talking to the girls a lot because there's a whole different group of girls that would come down and it kind of got you out of your shell and learned that, hey, if you get good at making friends, you know, you can get more dates.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. And that's very important. Very much so. Last. This is last Martha's Vineyard question. Maybe. Maybe. I'm gonna say maybe to give myself an opening for later, but what do the. What do the townies think of Jaws? The movie Jaws?

[Ted]

Oh, they love it. We all love that movie. So the kid who got bit by the shark was one of my assistant football coaches.

[Tyson Mutrix]

No way.

[Ted]

And they hired a bunch of locals because they didn't think the movie was going to be what it was. So they gave all the locals and they gave them all a piece of the action. So he got points on that, and he always said that it paid for his roof. He had, like, two lines in the movie, but he had, like, substantial revenue streams from that movie his whole life. So the island, love it. They actually just celebrated was this. A few weeks ago, they just did the 50th anniversary of the movie. So, like, they had a bunch of the actors come down. They did, like, big showings all around, and they even have, like, an Amity island, the name of the vineyard, in the. In the movie weekend, where, like, they have all these setups and, like, tour buses come through and film it. So the island loves it. It's a fun movie. Like, my parents are actually Extras in Jaws too, so you can see them running on the beach, but they use a lot of local talent for talent. A lot of local people in the movie.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That's cool. That's really awesome. All right, so I want to shift gears. You had said, because we were talking beforehand, you'd mentioned something about LSAs and how. How benef they've been. So tell me about that. What. What's. What's going on with LSAs that's working so well for you?

[Ted]

Sure. Well, what we discovered probably about two, almost two years ago now is that message response time is a ranking factor in LSAs. So a lot of firms will, you know, try to get as many LSAs as they can, but they can't just get up in the rankings. And then, you know, we looked and said, all right, well, yeah, your messages are off. So what happens is Google, when you turn on messages and you answer them fast, Google really rewards that behavior. So what they do is they rank your ad higher. So not only do you get more LSA messages, and you get a heck of a lot more LSA phone calls, but Google even goes so far as to putting a little badge on your LSA ad that says, typically replies in. It'll say a day, a few hours, a few minutes. And you always want that few minutes because the faster you reply, the higher they rank you and the more leads you get. So what we've discovered is that when we answer messages for our first firms is that they rank higher. So they got a lot more traction in lsa. The other thing that LSA does that is a little bit sneaky is when a user submits an LSA message, Google takes that same message, and they try to get it to three other firms. So now Google is charging four firms for one lead.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Wow.

[Ted]

Very sneaky. But, so, you know, I always tell firms, don't be mad at me for that one. Get mad at Google. But what we discovered is that how we do it is we manually log into the LSA accounts. And by doing it manually, because we have a team of real people doing that for our firms, by doing it manually, we're able to get the phone numbers of the LSA lead before all the other companies are using autoresponders. So when firms use us, we get them on the phone with leads before anybody else. Since four firms get those leads, that's a huge advantage because now we're beating all the three of the leads to those. The three of the firms to those leads. So, like, in the past two years, like, you know, we've, we've had at least 100% growth of the past three years. We've attributed our growth pretty much a lot to LSA because like firms really want to rank high in lsa.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Oh, that's, that's incredible advice. I hear a lot of say, people say LSAs are great, which I agree with them. You also hear people say, oh, LSAs have never worked for work for me. I wonder how much of it has to do with the fact that they're not being proactive about responding to those leads.

[Ted]

If you don't respond quickly, you Google won't rank you. So like it's a feast of famine world, you're either crushing in our LLC or you're yelling at your marketing company because they're not doing what you should really be doing, which is answering the phone calls fast and turning on messages and either answering every message in a few minutes, you know one, or hiring a company to do that. So if you're not doing it, you're going to be losing out to those that are.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. I do think it's interesting that that's the way you were as someone that owns a chat company. I don't know if you'd call it that, but you put it that way. But it is kind of interesting because you all manually do respond to so quickly that I think that's pretty cool. But that I wonder how much that has to comes from how you kind of started things because you were, you, you became frustrated with the chat services that were out there, so you basically just started firing them and you're like, I'm just going to start answering these chats myself. So do you think that it comes from that?

[Ted]

Partially so for the most part because we always said like you can use automation and AI to do things, but if you can do it better with person, these leads are worth so much in the speed to which a firm needs to get a top of matters. Such a great deal. If you can help a firm get to a lead 3 minutes faster, 5 minutes faster, or show an empathetic conversation and you can show through data that results in more cases if it takes a little bit more effort by using real people, it's worth it. So these are all pain points I had when I was running an agency and you know, they go between the chat companies and the firms and I just realized that it's nothing beats a person. So let's use people at it and just throw people at it to solve the problems.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Do you think that AI will get good enough at Some point, right. It's not there now, but like in 10 years, do you think it'll get to the point where it is good enough just as like where people feel like they're talking to another human?

[Ted]

Absolutely. And you know, three years ago we've had people tell me when, you know, when I started coming out, Ted, you're not going to have a business in six months. Said yeah, maybe we'll see what happens. So you know, I've been hearing that every few months for the past three, maybe four years now. And it's getting closer as it gets, keep getting closer. We keep iterating. We don't use anything with AI on the front end, consumer facing. We use a ton of AI and data analysis. So like if we want to figure out what script works better in this situation, we can run a million iterations through AI and help us look at our existing data to help figure it out. And they can do it across multiple clients. It can do data analysis that we can't conceivably do in a, in a short period of time. But in terms of human powered chat, take it over. It absolutely will. And then it's going to be a race to who has better data to feed it. So whoever has a ton of data to feed it to say hey, we ran a million iterations using this, many iterations using this, it's just going to become a training algorithm. We have a ton of data because you know, we've answered a few million chats at this point. So we're hoping we'll be at the forefront. But of right now, every time we do experiments to see, hey, let's try AI, let's try that. We just see AI isn't as good as a human right now.

[Tyson Mutrix]

What do you think about the idea that it's actually going to make human connection stronger because it's going to take care of all the unnecessary stuff. The AI can take care of that and it's going to force more human, well, human connection because people are going to want to talk to each other more. They're going to have the opportunity to talk to each other more, have the opportunity to see each other more in person. What do you think about that thought?

[Ted]

I like the idea. And when the iteration we've always thought of about, well if, if everyone's going AI, well what if the next iteration of chat isn't just a communication but up pops a little window and it's like a zoom with a person. So we got so far as to a B testing some of that and it didn't work out now. But we think that when everyone's bought and bought chatting, there might be a better opportunity for a market for just proving that it's human. We haven't seen it yet because it's not quite there yet. But we think it's just a matter of time.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That's. I, I think that, that it's funny because we just don't know where it's headed. I think that that's definitely something that is a possibility. I don't know if you saw this recently about Google, how they're not banning AI voices, but they're only monetizing human voices on their platform starting in mid July, which I think is a really interesting thing.

[Ted]

You mean like YouTube videos?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, YouTube. So YouTube videos? Yes. So it sounds like it's going to completely Collapse the faceless YouTube channel marketing that a lot of people have been doing lately. At least they claim that they've been making millions of dollars on. I'm sure some maybe have, but I think a lot of it's overblown.

[Ted]

It's a few making a few bucks and then everyone selling courses.

[Tyson Mutrix]

He's exactly right. That's what it is. But it makes me wonder how many, how many companies are gonna start writing policies to make things human only as opposed to using AI?

[Ted]

We're seeing some stuff in California about that. So we have to be very careful in certain states about how we do it. And I know what's the bike company Peloton, they got in trouble on the chat for, in California for how they handled it because they. Part of it was they were using AI chat. And when you use AI chat, you have to be more upfront about how you disclose it. So we had our lawyer look into it, make sure it doesn't apply to us. And it's very specific about AI chat. But different states, California in particular, they do have different regulations about how you interact with bots on a website when you're representing a company.

[Tyson Mutrix]

We had a conversation internally and leadership team meeting last week I think is what it was. And it was about how, how less effective AI chat has been from the. Whenever we were doing human only chat and it's not even close. And so I think that that's kind of an interesting thing where I do think you're going to start to see in situations like that, people are going to start to shift back to human chat because AI is just not as effective in some things.

[Ted]

Yeah, I, I think AI has a million use cases. I use it all the time. And by that I mean not as my executive team. I probably use it the least. I have. My team members are on it 24 7. I can take a lot of great data and do a ton of things with it. But right now, if everyone's zigging going AI, let them go that way. All our data and every time we do testing against other modules and other chat companies and even if we set it up ourselves to try to ab test against ourselves, against AI, we're just not seeing the same results. So we're very data driven and we just know we get paid on a per lead basis. So if we do less effective, not only do our clients do less, but we like make less money. So we always want to maximize leads for our clients. So we know with humans we can maximize the leads.

[Tyson Mutrix]

It makes me think about a few years ago, we got this pretty good case through our chat and it was the person kept using the phrase traffic attorney. They need a traffic attorney, traffic attorney. And it, they thought that an injury attorney was a traffic attorney because it was a car crash. And but through asking some, some more questions about it, they were able to determine, oh, this is, this is about a car crash. They don't need a traffic attorney. They just thought that's what they were called, what we were called. And so they were, the human was able to ask an additional, a few questions to get to the bottom of it. Right. Okay, well it's not just do you need a traffic attorney? Like what are you actually calling, what's, what's the situation? Whereas I don't, I think the AI might get, oh, I need a traffic attorney. Because the AI, here's what the AI is really good at is filtering out cases that we don't want. It's really good at that. But in a situation like that, there might be a really good case. They just are using the wrong terminology. So the AI is then filtering it out. And so that, I think that that is a, that is a concern of mine when it comes to use an AI chat.

[Ted]

Completely agree. You can use AI to filter out what we find is the biggest boon for using humans is so, you know, we're on a lot of PI sites. So 62% of our chats start with a question, here's something bad that happened. You know, I was in a car accident, got injured, what do I do? Most people are looking for a PI attorney. They haven't hired a PI attorney before, or if they have, maybe it was one time, long time ago. So we start all our chats with oh my goodness. We try to show as much empathy as we can up front. Oh my goodness. I can't believe what you're going through. That's horrible. Just so you know you're in the right place, we can definitely help you. So by having that empathetic way to build trust with clients, what we're seeing is that we can still filter all the bad ones, but we're having a better conversation with the really good leads. And not all of them are really good, but when we have that conversation with all of them, by the time they get to the point where they're ready to give us their contact information, we, we've already had a, built some rapport with them. So then we hand it off to the law firm. The chances of them showing up for the consultation, becoming a case has increased versus a lot of the AI and foe AI, which is really just like filling out an online form. So we're able to have better, longer conversations that turn into more cases and leads for our clients.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah. This is an example of, you know, why you like AB testing so much. You're a huge believer in a B testing and so can you explain to people what that means for like. And so I, I bet a lot of people don't even know what a B testing is when it comes to law firm owners. Some of you do, I'm sure. But I bet the A big chunk doesn't know what AB testing is. So can you explain what it is and then what, what kinds of. Maybe some simple tests that law firm owners can run to improve their, the performance in their firm?

[Ted]

Sure. A B test is just when you take, you know, I do it in my garden as much as I do it in my, on my websites. We're probably running about 30 A B tests right now at any given time. So what that means is you send traffic to your website and there's a few ways to do it. Let's say you send everyone to your website and you want to see what call now button works better. Does it work better if you put it in the top in red or. No, the top in red or the top in blue. So you want to see if red or blue does better. So basically you run 100% of the traffic to your website, but 50% of the traffic see the red button, 50% see the blue button. And then you let it run for 30 days or until you get a statistically significant amount of data and then you see what button generated more calls. And if you can say, hey, I got 50 calls when it was red and 25, it was blue. Shoot. You make sure your button's red. So in the same way you can test red versus blue, you can also test other things. So, like, we have a lot of firms that we're testing. Do I get better results when I drive PPC traffic to my homepage or do I get it when I drive it to my landing page? The first test we ever did was do I get more leads when I have chat on or when I have chat off? So we ran the bunch of those for our firms. But nowadays, pretty much all law firms know chat is on 98% of the top 500 law firms in the country. So now it's less about chat or no chat. It's more about does this chat company does better or does that chat company does better. So oftentimes when we go live, if a firm gets a lot of traffic and they're not convinced that human can beat a bot, we'll say, all right, let's do a split test. We'll give it to you for free for 30 days. Try it, and then after 30 days, you tell us who got you more leads. So we do those all the time. We're running them right now, probably about 30 or so. And basically we just give it to them for free and say, don't make a decision based on your gut. Make a decision based on your data. Based on the data, and you pick the winner after the 30 day free trial.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That's pretty cool. Have you, have you seen any testing where it shows that a chat that pops up is more effective or one that stays down? It gives them the option of clicking on, like the size of it, the colors, like anything like that.

[Ted]

Yes. So there's a million different iterations. So we've tried all of them and we started with one thing and then we iterated. Iterated. Iterated. Long story short, you can get the more aggressive you are with the chat pop, the better you'll do. But it comes at a caveat. So what we do is if you be too aggressive, Google won't like it. So one of our competitors, I won't say who, on mobile, when you pop up, it takes up about 50 to 60% of the screen. And it's like, well, okay, yeah, it's good for chat, but that's horrible user experience and it decreases the amount of phone calls you get. So if you run an AB split, an AB test against anyone, never just track if you're doing it against chat, never just track the amount of chat leads you get. Look at the overall leads. Because like, yeah, I can put chat up, block your phone bar, block your contact bar, and then, hey, look how many chat leads you get. But yeah, your phone numbers tanked. So don't look at the chat alone. If you're looking at leads, look at total leads. So you want, you know, that's true for anything. So make sure you take the holistic approach when you're doing a B test. So you're looking, if you're looking at leads, you're looking at how many total leads you got. So it should never just be about just chat or just red versus blue, but look at the whole picture when you're doing a B split test.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't thought about that. That's interesting. I never thought about maybe you getting penalized for something that's really more effective. But then in the long run it's not because it's going to take away from your traffic. So that's, that's a really interesting thing.

[Ted]

It's sneaky. So the companies, when I had, when I wasn't having a chat company, I was using their chat companies and I was tracking calls because I had a small agency and I was tracking calls and I'd put these channels on my websites and I like the leads. The firms like the leads. But my, my call rail volumes were bottoming and out. I was like, what happened on my phone calls? And I couldn't see it on desktop. But then I, you know, this is seven, eight years, eight years ago. So phone wasn't as big, but now it's, you know, 80% of traffic. I'd go on the phone and be like, wait a minute. I'd have to like click all these buttons before I could get to the call now button. I'm like, okay, that's where my phone leads went. I was getting chats, but they were stealing my phone calls. So if you're doing that, don't do that. If, if you have that on, tell your chat company to stop doing it.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Wow, that's good advice. Really good advice. So I'm going to shift gears a little bit and talk about just like legal marketing in general. So because you've been in legal marketing for over a decade and I, I wonder what some of the biggest myths or misunderstandings that you see in the legal space.

[Ted]

Sure. Probably the biggest one is in from an agency. Well, a lot of firms listening. If you don't think you're not getting enough leads, that might be the case. But check your intake. Listen to Your phone calls. When your agencies in your leads are coming in, what is your follow up process? If you have listened to 100 phone calls, are you happy with what percent of them? 90% of firm owners never listen to phone calls. Don't understand the process. Before you start yelling at your agency to get you more leads, make sure you're maximizing the value you can be getting with the leads you have in. We see the biggest gains that firms make aren't so much when they double the lead volume, but when they really get a handle of what's happening to leads that do come in. So the scariest thing a firm can ever do is listen into a random assortment of 20, 25 phone calls and seeing if they were handled properly. Next, what happens is, okay, well what happens when you get a lead form, submit a chat, a phone call and they tell you they'll call you back? What is your lead chase down process? So the biggest opportunities and the quickest wins I've seen for firms are the ones that really get a grasp of those so they can make sure they're following up with the leads and answering the phone when they call and not having it go to voicemail.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Is there any sort of drop off in the leads where they hear the message, you know this is going to be a recorded call, yada yada yada, where they just drop off because it intimidates them or whatever? Is there any drop off that you've seen?

[Ted]

It could be. I haven't jumped into CallRail data in seven, eight years. I think I'm pretty standard nowadays. Pretty much. If you're using, if you're spending money in marketing, you're probably recording your phone calls. If you're not, the payoff of the 1%, if that of leads you use of you'll lose because they hear that recording is more than made up for it by the fact that you can track your marketing. If you can't track your marketing, you can't manage it. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. So any offset of, of having people hang up because they hear that's being recorded I would argue is more than made up for it by the sense that if you measure it, you can manage it.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, so I mean you've, I mean you have access to a lot of data yourself. You have access to seeing a lot of different firms and how they operate. And I wonder if when you're looking at firms that are crushing it online versus let's say like those are just kind of like just Exist, they just kind of are there. What do you think is usually the difference? Is it, you know, is it draw driving a bunch of traffic? Is it the messaging on their websites? Is it the like their offers something else like, like where, like what is that difference between the ones that are crushing it and the ones that are not?

[Ted]

The ones that know their numbers. So that's kind of the phrase I like to use. Firms that know their numbers and treat their law firms like a business. As you know, this is what the business does. I just happen to be a lawyer. They're the ones that tend to grow the business slash law firm. The lawyers that want to be lawyers and kind of get annoyed by thinking about business stuff, they're the ones that kind of have, don't have as much long term success. So if you, if you're the, the managing partner of a law firm and you're, you think of yourself as a CEO and you're looking at KPIs and the KPIs aren't strictly case data but more on the marketing side as well, those are the ones that tend to have the success.

[Tyson Mutrix]

What about when it comes to like the mindset or the behaviors of law firm owners that are, that are growing consistently versus those who just kind of get stuck?

[Ted]

Great question. I don't know too much about the mindset of lawyers. My main contacts are all the big firms are the, you know, the CMOs, the chief marketing officers. At that point, I think what they do is they're trusting their team and they're not trying to do things that they don't like doing. So when you get to the point where you can hire a CMO and let them steer the ship in terms of the marketing side and just hiring the right people around you to do it and not trying to hold on to everything.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Let's focus then on the marketing, like the cmo, the marketing people. So are there, are there some that just kind of like get it and like. And they're like okay, we got to do this, this then and here's why. And do they have any there are they common ribbons or common themes with those that get it? And then the ones that are just the marketing doesn't work for them because they've got some sort of mental block.

[Ted]

I wouldn't say it's a mental block. I'd say when I'm start talking to somebody and I'm saying when I'm asking data questions and when I ask data questions because I, I'm only effective if I can prove to the firm, I get him more leads. So when we sit down in a. In a meeting, I'm like, all right, well, how many leads you get last month? Oh, I don't know. You know, the phone rang a lot. Like, all right, it's gonna be hard for me to prove. Prove a percent increase when. When you tell me I got a lot. Like, well, what does that mean? So the firms that know their. Even the CMOs that know their numbers and have some data to share, those are the ones that you see grow. Because if you measure it, you can manage it. If you don't measure it and you're going off your gut, you're going to have a hard time, you know, managing a big enterprise.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Like, what are the key numbers you think the firm should focus on? So when leads are coming in and I mean, I'm not talking about all numbers, they should focus. I'm specifically when it talks to, like, marketing comes to marketing. Like, what are those? What are those key numbers? If there's. Let's pick three. What are, like the top three things they should be looking at?

[Ted]

Likes, retweets, and thumbs up in YouTube.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, I was like that. No way. No way. As look at your face.

[Ted]

Those are the vanity numbers. Those don't matter. The ones we like, leads, wanted lead, wanted lead to case, signed rate, and then average case value. So you know how many leads you get. So let's say you get 100 leads. Well, how many of those are wanted? So a lot of firms know how many leads they got, but then they get into, oh, that was and wasn't a lead. Well, it's either a wanted lead or it's not. All right, so then of the wanted leads you have, how many did you sign into? Cases, what percent of those? And then from there you can back into a lot. So total leads, wanted leads, signed cases, average case value. So those are the ones that I'd focus on if I were running a firm and the ones that the big firms focus on and tell us about.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Okay, so if you had to kill one of those and you. You had to keep the other three, which one would you have to kill?

[Ted]

I'd kill total leads. I think wanted leads is more important.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Oh, interesting. Okay, that's. I would do. I would not have guessed that. So it's. Yeah, very interesting. All right, so let's shift gears again. We're going to stay in when it comes to marketing and online marketing, but marketing, intake, client communications, things like that. If you were to project over the next three to five years where do you see online marketing intake and client communications headed?

[Ted]

Well, marketing first it's going to be going how are people figuring out how to leverage AI more? And when consumers use AI more, how are you going to get in the top of the chat GPT rankings? Hanging on top of the Gemini, the Grok, whatever you know, is a new cool one on the block. So I think that will come with a shift. We're already seeing a pretty downward trend in SEO traffic for a lot of long tail searches, informational queries that now just is showing up in Google with the answer. And from AI, we haven't seen the leads drop off, but the informational long tail queries are changing. So with that change means less traffic. With that traffic change means you have to figure out more ways to get your ads in front of those eyeballs. So you suggest driving to the page and then run retargeting ads to them and hopefully get them in the long tail. But that's changing quickly because of the AI stuff. So that's going to continue to shift more to ott, of course, more to AI figuring out how to get on the top of those algorithms and those will be a continual change. What was the next one after marketing?

[Tyson Mutrix]

Communications, Client communications, Client communications Marketing and then intake.

[Ted]

Client communication. We're seeing a lot of cool platforms on the market come around in terms of helping clients better communicate with their firms in terms of where they are in the current status of their case. You know, case status, they're one of the ones we're seeing a lot of success. Our clients see a lot of success with and just being able to communicate with that. But I think AI makes their platform a whole lot better. I like those guys. I've seen those guys have great success with our clients. So more and more platforms like that or just case status taking up a, a bigger of the market share.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, Hona. Hona has been doing a really good job with that too. Honest. I was out at Disrupt a couple months ago and they're, they're some pretty good guys too. I like, I like those guys. When it comes to. What about intake though? Do you think intake is going to change at all? I know, I know that AI is going to be, you know, become bigger and bigger, but do you think it's going to come down to still the same thing and follow up, making sure you're staying on top of those leads, making sure that you, you've got some way of reaching out to them? Is there anything that you think is going to change when it comes to intake.

[Ted]

Sure. There's a whole bunch of intake AI platforms out there and they can send text messages, they can send emails. I've heard of phone intake. I have not been impressed with any phone answering services that are using. You can filter out some stuff by the end of the day. For most phone you still need a person. As that gets better there'll be more automations around there. I don't think there'll be a way to take out a human touch from intake and I think still the firms that manage that the best and train their team properly and get people up to speed so they can track that lead to wanted lead to case signed rate, those will be the firms that win. I think there'll be a lot of ways instead of maybe you don't need it, you won't need a team of 10 anymore, you can get by with a team of 7 and using a lot more automation there. But I still think there'll always be a need for person.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Awesome. So before I get to my last couple questions, you are a sponsor of maxlock on and I, I really appreciate it. You're gonna be jo us in October. We're super excited about it. We're super, super excited to bring it back but also super excited to have you. So if people want to reach out to you and ask you questions about marketing or about leads or chat or whatever or if they're interested in juvo leads, what's the best way that they can get a hold of you?

[Ted]

Sure, shoot me an email. Ted leads or just go to joovoleads.com and start a chat on our website.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Well that's, that's simple enough. Very good you get. I mean I think that's kind of cool is like you can test out the product with the product, you know and, and, and see kind of how the company does it. I think that that's, that's pretty cool because it's cool cause you can show off your own skills too. Like you can, it's almost like a something where you can sort of brag as to how good you are with your own chat.

[Ted]

I'll be honest, it's a double edged sword. So people come on and they'll ask like these very detailed questions and we don't train the chat agents to be sales agents so they'll ask super detailed questions and the main response is that's a great question for Ted. I'd love to set up some time for you to chat with them. They're like well no, I need to know what's your average blah, blah, blah, SEO numbers. And we're like, all right, well you know, that's a question for Ted. Let's chat with him. So it's a double edged sword. But yeah, test us out. See the videos on our website, see how your video would look on your website and start a conversation. We'd love to show you how a 30 day free trial works.

[Tyson Mutrix]

That's really, really cool. Here's what I want to know. I want to know what excites you most right now about the work that you're doing.

[Ted]

We have a lot of firms that we can add a lot of value to. So when we first got into this and I was on the marketing side doing PI SEO, I didn't really understand what the clients are going through. The more PI firms and the more firms I'm working with, I'm realizing how bad these insurance companies a lot of times are really screwing people over. So like to a lot of these people, like lawyers are really being heroes. Like they're saving people's skin, they're getting them money to get back to work or giving them money when the insurance companies are absolutely screwing people over. So the fact that we can contribute to lawyers being heroes to more people kind of makes me excited. Like I read a lot of the chat scripts and like there's some horrible situations and the lawyers we're helping are the ones that are helping these people get better outcomes for their lives, for their family. So just to be able to contribute to that kind of makes me excited. Like we can help people make their lives better by helping the law firm serve them better and more of them. So it really makes me excited every day when I know that at the end of the day we're helping more people get justice for their results.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Gotcha. Are there any new features, new tools, anything, anything you're experimenting with that you can talk about? I'm very curious.

[Ted]

Nothing I can talk about. I can give some hints. We're toying with some different ways to communicate with leads that have not been followed up with. So we're toying with those. We have a few different A B tests rolling out, a few different product features that will be launching into into alpha in the next month or so. But stay tuned. But the next feature for us is now that we get firms leads. How do we help firms chase down leads that they haven't been able to get a hold of? So we have those features that are being rolled out in the coming months.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Here I thought I might be able to squeeze one little secret out of you, but I'll, I won't push you too hard, so. Well, Ted, I appreciate coming on and doing this, really. I, I just kind of enjoyed having the conversation about talking about the stuff you're doing with like, and talk about marketing and everything else. I just think it's a lot of fun. So.

[Ted]

Likewise. Tyson.

[Tyson Mutrix]

Yeah, thanks for coming on. I can't wait to see you in October. And so if anybody has any interest in online chat Juvo leads, they do an amazing job. They're, I mean it's humans. They're humans that are actually doing it. It's not AI and it's. Ted's got the, the data to back it up. So reach out to him if you, if you need, if, if you're interested in Juva loots. But thanks Ted. Really appreciate it.

[Ted]

Awesome. Thanks for having me on. Look forward to seeing you. October.

[Tyson Mutrix]

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[Ted]

If you've been feeling like your law firm is solid but you know you're capable of more, this is your chance to tap into that. Maxlock on is happening this October and we just released the full speaker lineup. These are law firm owners and industry experts who are in the trenches, sharing exactly what's working to grow, lead and scale. This is two days designed to challenge your thinking, recharge your momentum, and help you walk away with a strategy you actually want to execute. And here's the heads up. July is the last month to save $500 off your ticket. Once August hits general admission pricing kicks in. So if you've been waiting, now's the time. Go check out the full lineup and grab your [e-mail] we can't wait to see you there.