Earlier this week, Lee Rosen penned a post about law firm intake calls on his Divorce Discourse blog entitled,True Story: Law Firm Phone Answering Gone Badly Awry. It detailed his experience as a referral source for an attorney in another city whose intake process left a lot to be desired.

In short, the person answering the firm’s inbound calls was irritable. He’s put on hold. He’s disconnected. He calls back. He’s put on hold again. He leaves messages for the two attorneys he knows there.

When they return his calls, they offer an apology and an excuse. The intake person was a temporary. They’re trying to replace her. Their intake system usually works great. Lee’s not a believer.

Long story short, that attorney is no longer on Lee’s referral list.

Sorry to report, but Lee’s experience has been repeated over and over again by law firms across the country. I know, because we secret-shop a lot of law firms — over 1,000 in the past year alone.

We make careful notes of each call. Here are some of those notes — each from a different firm:

The phone was not answered. The first time I called, the phone rang four times, then stopped. I called again and the phone rang 10 times with no answer. No answering machine picked up either.

The phone was answered by voicemail that said, “Please leave a message.” No firm name was given.

Called the firm three times and each call went to voicemail.

Called to report my horrible accident (with injuries). She said, “Hold on” and transferred my call. I sat on hold for a couple of minutes and was disconnected. I called back and she told me she worked for a national phone answering service. I asked for the law firm’s website and she said she couldn’t find one.

I asked the woman who answered if the firm had a website. She said she “didn’t have it memorized” and asked me to hold so she could find it. I was disconnected.

After holding for over two minutes, the appointment setter came on the line. When I asked about the firm’s website, he said, “It’s not very good and I think you’ve got all the pertinent information.”

I asked the woman answering the phone if the law firm had a website. She said she didn’t know and suggested I Google the name of the firm.

I told the woman who answered the phone that I lived out of state but owned several commercial properties in the firm’s state. I said based on experience, I usually spend $50K-$100K in legal fees on disputes of this nature. I told her a friend had referred me to the firm. She asked me for the name of my friend. I told her I did not want to give out that information at this time. She told me the firm is not taking any new clients; only attorney or client referrals. She would not put me through to an attorney.

As they say, you just cannot make this stuff up.

Now I know that each of these law firms is spending good money on lead generation. I also know that this money is just being wasted for the lack of a good intake process. Far too many firms have the wrong people in the wrong positions that are poorly trained to interact with potential clients.

And it’s such an easy fix.

Do yourself a favor. Enlist a spouse or a friend to secret-shop your own firm. Give them a story to tell and see what happens. Then fix what’s wrong or you’ll continue to flush that lead generation money right down the toilet.