Responding to enquiries at a professional firm before the others do

Aug 27
3 min read

Updated: 5 days ago

Introduction

Someone with a legal, accounting or advisory problem rarely contacts one firm. They contact three, usually in a single sitting, and frequently outside working hours.

The firm that responds first with something useful gets the conversation. Everyone else is then following someone else's relationship, and in most professional practices nobody has measured how long that response actually takes.

1. Responding to enquiries at a professional firm is a race, whether you treat it as one or not

The prospect has no relationship with any of you.

Whoever replies first with a real answer establishes it. This is unglamorous, has nothing to do with technical ability, and is the largest single improvement available in most firms — where enquiries wait until a fee earner is between matters.

2. Measure your actual response time before changing anything

Almost no firm knows it.

Pull a month of enquiries and record the time to first substantive reply — not to an automated acknowledgement. The number is usually far worse than partners believe, and it is worst for enquiries arriving on a Friday afternoon or at the weekend.

3. Have someone whose job it is

Enquiries sit unanswered because responding is nobody's specific responsibility.

Assign it: a named person who checks and responds within a defined window, with the ability to answer basic questions, give fee information and book a meeting. Fee earners handle the substance later; the response cannot wait for their availability.

4. Answer the question they asked

Generic replies inviting the prospect to telephone the office are the commonest failure.

If they asked whether you handle this type of matter, confirm it. If they asked about cost, give a range. Withholding information to force a phone call does not work — they simply read the firm that answered instead.

5. Give the fee information you can

The most common question and the most frequently deflected.

A range, a fixed fee where one exists, or the cost of an initial meeting. "It depends" is accurate and useless. A prospective client with a number can decide; one without assumes the worst.

6. Offer two specific appointment times

"Let us know when suits you" adds an exchange and a decision.

Two concrete options convert markedly better, and most people take one of them. Every removed round trip is a chance for a competing firm to get there first.

7. Cover the hours enquiries actually arrive

Personal legal and financial problems are dealt with in the evening and at weekends.

Compare your enquiry timestamps with your staffing and you will find a gap. Even a single check of the inbox on a weekend evening captures enquiries where nobody else replied either, which is the easiest work available.

8. Use automation to hold the line, not to replace the reply

An immediate acknowledgement stating when a person will respond is worthwhile.

It prevents the prospect assuming they have been ignored while they wait. It is not a substitute for the human reply, and firms treating it as sufficient still lose the enquiry.

9. Track enquiries, responses, meetings and instructions

Four stages, and the gaps diagnose the problem.

Few enquiries means visibility. Enquiries not becoming meetings means response speed or the fee conversation. Meetings not becoming instructions means the meeting itself. Firms that measure only new instructions cannot tell which of the three is failing.

Conclusion

Treat the enquiry as a race against two other firms reading the same message, and start by measuring your real time to a substantive reply.

Give a named person responsibility for responding within a defined window, answer the actual question asked, provide the fee information you can rather than deflecting, offer two specific appointment times, cover the evening and weekend hours when enquiries arrive, use automation to hold the line rather than replace the reply, and track enquiries, responses, meetings and instructions separately.