Wilner & O’Reilly is an immigration law firm with eight locations spread across California, Utah, and Idaho. Though the firm has been in business since 2003, they’ve always looked for ways to improve operations both online and offline. Getting found through reviews is one way they have improved their online reputation.
It’s not that Wilner & O’Reilly had particularly bad reviews, or even that their clients weren’t satisfied, they just didn’t have a way for clients to easily leave reviews on the sites that matter most.
“We really had no control over our online reputation,” said Karin Ikeda, Marketing Director at Wilner & O’Reilly. “Once a case was over, we would send our clients a closing letter that also asked them to leave a review. But most people wouldn’t take the time to find our Google or Facebook page to leave a review.”
Karin was always on the lookout for tools that would help the firm get more reviews, and when one of the partners suggested Podium, she knew it would be a good fit. Sending review invites via messaging made it much easier to connect customers to review sites. It just made sense.
“Podium made it easier for our clients to leave a review,” said Karin. “We knew we had a lot of happy clients we’ve served over the years, so our team went back and sent invitations to leave a review and we had a fantastic response.”
In addition to building an online reputation, Karin was looking to improve interactions with clients. Over time, it had become more difficult to connect with customers over the phone. She noticed that customer communication preferences had changed. If the firm wanted to reach a client, texting would be far more effective than playing phone tag.
Not only do their clients prefer texting, it’s also a much better approach for their attorneys. In the past, attorneys would give out their personal cell phone numbers to make themselves available to clients, which wasn’t ideal.
“Now, most of our attorneys have the Podium app on their phone,” stated Karin. “The app gives clients the same access they had before but makes it easier to manage communications..”
The ability to message customers has been a game-changer for Wilner & O’Reilly. It has helped them not only build their online reputation and improve client interactions, but also convert more website traffic through Webchat—making growing their firm as easy as texting back-and-forth with prospects.
“We would definitely recommend Podium to any law firm looking to get more reviews and text with current and potential clients,” concluded Karin.
