Contactually is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool that markets to Lawyers and Real Estate Brokers. Along with Lexicata, Contactually is one of the most popular CRM tools among lawyers. As a modern CRM platform, Contactually’s bread and butter is streamlining your communication with clients. From setting up meetings to sending reminders, Contactually aims to reduce the amount of time you spend on your email client. In this review, we will talk about the main features of Contactually, its pros and cons, and which attorneys would benefit most from the software.
Contactually’s dashboard keeps you up to date with your clients. It shows you what tasks should be completed today from the automatic deadlines you set for yourself, or you can see what’s “recommended”. In “recommended,” Contactually’s own algorithm will suggest which clients you should follow up with based on frequency of contact and importance of client. With Contactually’s “recommended” feature, clients won’t fall through the cracks if you forget to remind yourself to follow up.
At first glance, Contactually’s contact page look modern and engaging, much like a facebook page. The contact information is customizable; you can create whatever labels or tags your legal practice area requires. As a personal injury attorney, I would include categories like Insurance Company, Defendant’s Insurance Company, and Jurisdiction.
Along with the client’s personal information, the contact page keeps track of your recent interactions with the client. Since Contactually can sync with your email or phone, it automatically keeps track of your interactions throughout the day, and you can send emails and texts through the application. The program even has an app for iOS and Android, so you can work while mobile.
You can import your data easily from your case management software. Additionally, Contactually will scrape the internet for your client’s information based on their email address. The scraping tool can will retrieve links from over 120 social sites (facebook, twitter, etc.). This tool struck me as a little invasive, but on multiple occasions I’ve urgently needed to contact a client who had changed his email or phone number. Having a link to his facebook profile would have been very helpful.
As an attorney, you’ve probably sent the same message over 100 times. Contactually’s templates generate quick emails that you can send off in a flash to multiple recipients, or you can edit the emails before sending it out to make it more personal for each client. If you’ve read our posts on the importance of keeping your clients, you’ll know that regularly keeping in touch with clients is the foundation of improving your legal marketing strategy. I would include templates for periods throughout the legal process, such as “demand letter sent,” “complaint filed,” “settlement check ready,” and “thank you – social media recommendation.”
Additionally, you can track if the client has opened your email or clicked the link inside. You’ll know the truth when the client says they “never got your email.”
If you’re trying to succeed in a small firm, you’ll need to keep track of the multiple aspects of your professional life. As an attorney, you might want to keep track of employment records (if you have paralegals), bar association events, and your firm’s overhead numbers. You can import data from other programs like Quickbooks/Xero.
The name pretty much says it all. Buckets is how you separate your clients from each other. Current clients, Former Clients, and Client Prospects are three buckets every lawyer should have.
Your success and failure with each Bucket is illustrated using green, yellow, and red segments. Again, you set your own goals here. You determine how you would run your firm ideally (in terms of following up with clients), and Contactually will tell you if you’re successful.
Maintaining a good balance between your different types of clients can be challenging. It’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing all of your energy on the most pressing manner and forgetting the rest. Contactually let’s you set your own goals to keep you true to how you want to run your firm. You can create regular reminders for each group of clients to make sure you don’t neglect any of them.
Contactually also tries to make contact organization entertaining with their own “Bucket Your Contacts Game.” I’m a fan of any game where the result is a more organized life, and if the average small firm’s physical office is any indication, most attorneys can benefit from organizing their professional lives.
Contactually comes in four editions, but the middle two are probably the ones you want to look at. The Professional Edition comes without premade categories/labels/buckets or complimentary coaching sessions for $59 per month per user. The Accelerator Edition comes with both for $99. Those are the main differences between the two most popular editions.
The Basic Edition for $39 does not come with enough features for me to recommend, and the ultra-premium Enterprise Edition for $199 per month might be overkill. Enterprise’s main draw is that it comes with a lot of hands-on support, but if you’re somewhat familiar with technology (you can successfully operate your smartphone), it shouldn’t be necessary.
I couldn’t get any discounts for my readers, but if you mention this site when you purchase, you can get a bonus of an Advanced Training Session to cover all the smaller features I couldn’t cover in this review.
Contactually is slightly more expensive than Lexicata, which is $49 per month for the first user and $25 for any additional user.
However, I think Contactually is a better program for Customer Relationship Management per se. If you’re into the best value, Lexicata focuses a lot on client intake for attorneys, something that Contactually does not focus on as much.
So if you’re happy with your current client intake process and you’re looking for a CRM program only, Contactually is your best bet. The price is great for the amount of organization it will provide for your firm, and the aesthetic design makes it fun to use.
Looking for a more detailed comparison between Contactually and Lexicata? You can either read my review of Lexicata, or stay tuned to Small Firm Legal Marketing for my upcoming article on The Best CRM Software for Lawyers.
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