Legal CRM Strategy Corner

How to achieve more in the current economic climate

Posted by David

The one question that is consistently being asked by our customers is, “How can Client Profiles help our law firm save money?” Well, the depth and breadth of our products and solution offerings is a huge asset, especially in times like these. We have many solutions that can save law firms money, and we are being more proactive in sharing these cost-saving ideas with our customers.

 

CRM4Legal helps law firms capture and keep track of the pulse of their clients. Having a keen understanding of the mood of the client is important in economic downturns when law firms are especially vulnerable to client churn.

 

Winning new clients in a tough economy is challenging. For those law firms with an eye on success, as opposed to mere survival, this is an ideal time to implement a CRM solution that can deliver client insight quickly, and offer value for the long haul. End users of these solutions are more motivated than ever to learn how to use them, and incorporate them in their daily work routines. Depending on which CRM system is selected, law firms can also achieve cost savings.

 

And when the economy does get back on the rails, law firms that have made investments targeted at managing their client relationships effectively will be the first to take advantage of growth opportunities.

 

In challenging economic times, law firms do not have the balance sheets to justify lengthy and capital intensive CRM system implementations. With CRM4Legal, law firms can quickly and affordably roll out a CRM solution. CRM4Legal provides all the functionality required by law firms to more effectively manage their clients at a predictable cost, on a per-user, per-month basis through Microsoft Financing.

 

Here are the top five value propositions on how CRM4Legal can help your law firm make and save money:

 

Retain clients and revenues

Let’s face it—law firms are especially vulnerable to client churn in a tough economy, which is precisely when they can least afford it. Microsoft CRM4Legal can help ensure that clients stay loyal, and that the firm keeps the revenue they provide flowing in.

 

CRM4Legal:

 

·         Streamlines the management of client relationships.

·         Enables rapid analysis and response to client inquiries.

·         Connects practice management data to improve the client experience.

·         Builds sustained relationships and new opportunities.

·         Drives client satisfaction and retention.

·         Answers the key questions of: who are our clients, what do we do for them, how can we do more.

Increase operational efficiency

Microsoft CRM4Legal can eliminate duplicate data entry, improve demand forecast accuracy and timeliness, and deliver an enhanced client service experience at a lower cost.

 

CRM4Legal:

 

·         Eliminates contact-data re-entry due to integration with Microsoft Outlook.

·         Can be adopted rapidly across a national or international network of offices.

·         Tracks and manages client opportunities and relationships.

·         Gives users visibility into data needed to gain more accurate demand forecasting.

·         Improves performance and cost-effectiveness.

·         Enables rapid response and closure to client inquiries.

Increase law firm staff productivity

With a centralised location for all client data, reliable and instant access to that data, and automated workflows replacing manual processes, Microsoft CRM4Legal improves office and court room productivity alike, as well as reduce overhead.

 

CRM4Legal:

 

·         Centralises client data for easy, reliable access.

·         Offers workflows to eliminate manual, inefficient processes.

·         Improves remote and mobile access and reduces overhead.

Eliminate unnecessary marketing spend

Continued marketing is especially vital in a tough economy, but it is equally important that it be targeted, and that the full marketing value of the Internet is harnessed. Nothing achieves this like Microsoft CRM4Legal.

 

CRM4Legal:

 

·         Allows marketers to create targeted lists and integrate campaigns and client events with practice groups and individual law firm partners.

·         Enables automation via online marketing programs, event registrations, newsletter subscription and statistical analysis – emails opened, click throughs, bounce backs etc.

Leverage existing IT investment/fits with your systems

Tight integration between Microsoft CRM4Legal and other familiar Microsoft tools, such as Microsoft Office, drives seamless interactions with existing applications and helps law firms avoid significant ongoing costs.

 

CRM4Legal:

 

·         Works the way your current technology works, so it fits easily into your existing systems, helping to maximise your current investments in Microsoft technology. The result is greater ROI.

·         Simplifies access to data due to tight integration with a broader suite of familiar Microsoft tools, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

After more than two decades of arming its law firm customers with a competitive advantage, Client Profiles has established itself as one of the leading Microsoft consultancies worldwide.

From aligning law firms’ business and IT strategies and improving business processes to deploying and supporting solutions that accelerate business results, no other technology partner offers more comprehensive information technology solutions and services than Client Profiles. Last year alone saw CRM4Legal selected by law firms in 15 cities and 4 countries, totalling over 7,000 seats, including 2,000 seats in Europe.  Law firms around the world are turning to Client Profiles for strategic legal business solutions and consulting services.  Visit www.CRM4Legal.com to view our case studies and learn how to achieve more in the current economic climate.

Focus - 2009 "Year of the Client"

Posted by David

Whether we like it or not, the current economic climate will separate the weak from the strong.  For many law firms, a key factor will be how well they understand that the core of an effective strategy is aggressive client focus!

 

In a downturn, client assumptions about the future are driven by fear and uncertainty more than objective realities.  Any decline generates the obvious and predictable belt-tightening; clients delay necessary decisions, choose more inexpensive options, and avoid discretionary spending.  However, it’s critically important to recognise that, beyond these generalities, each downturn produces its own unique pattern of changes in client needs, priorities, and behaviours.  As a result, an economic downturn can create opportunities for law firms that can understand these changes, think creatively, and use the situation as an opportunity to strengthen relationships with their most valuable clients.

 

One of the worst things a law firm can do is to take its eyes off of their clients.  However, when threatened, most firms have a tendency to adopt an inwardly-focused, “survival mode,” mentality.   They focus on operational and financial controls and stop investing in what appears like discretionary initiatives aimed at strengthening relationships with clients.  By not being fully focused on the client, they end up accelerating client and revenue attrition while undermining their longer-term competitive strength.  There are three things we recommend based on the work we’re doing to help law firms deal with this challenge:

 

1.     The first priority is aggressive focus on and investment in your best clients and prospects.  During economic decline, a relatively small number of your best clients will provide an even larger share of your profits, while the often larger ranks of marginal or unprofitable clients will create even more of a drain on the firm.   The first thing to do in a recession is to clearly identify who your most valuable clients are and invest in strengthening relationships with those clients.   This includes collaborating with those clients to understand and address their changing priorities, restructuring your offerings around their unique needs and, as necessary, restructuring engagement / financial terms.  It also includes focusing marketing and business development efforts on the most valuable, winnable clients and making sure that you’re not wasting resources on clients that are not going to engage and that are unlikely to be profitable.

 

2.     The second priority is watching, talking with, and listening to clients more closely in order to identify creative ways to address subtle changes in their needs, priorities, and behaviour.  It’s critically important to NOT rely on your traditional assumptions about what’s important to clients.  Instead you need an informed view of how your client needs are changing as dark clouds appear on the horizon.  You need to think creatively about ways to meet those changing needs and address those needs in order to strengthen the relationship, generate more value, make their lives easier, or make their businesses easier to run.  Not surprisingly, client actions will increasingly be driven by emotion rather than rational consideration.  By getting closer to clients you can identify ways to proactively address client emotional needs and reactions. 

 

3.     The third priority is identifying and eliminating the negative experience elements that drive attrition. Most law firms unintentionally frustrate and annoy clients in ways that they can’t even begin to understand.  Recent studies have shown that, while the economy has been weakening, tolerance for bad service has been diminishing.  For example, a recent Customer Experience Study found that 87% of consumers have stopped doing business with an organisation after a bad customer experience, up from 80 percent in 2007 and 68 percent in 2006.  84 percent of consumers indicated they would tell others about a bad experience - up from 74 percent in 2007 and 67 percent in 2006. In fact, blogging about negative experiences is on the rise: 22 percent of consumers this year have posted negative feedback about a company, vs. only 13 percent in 2007. 58 percent of U.S. consumers said that in a down economy, they will always or often pay more for a better customer experience.

 

In many cases, the negative experience elements that contribute to attrition may be relatively easy to fix without major investment.    The trick is to be able to clearly identify these things with an unbiased and unfiltered, outside-looking in perspective.  Over the past decade, we’ve worked with many firms on rapid Client Relationship Management implementations that are designed to deliver immediate outcomes and fast ROI.  Typically, over the course of 4 weeks, we can quickly deliver a solution that provides immediate benefits in knowing who your clients are, what you do for them and how you can do more.  In many cases it comes back to the basics of identifying who knows whom, effective client communications and ensuring quality of data in the systems utilised.  In a recent case, these improvements included new templates for introducing and recording new clients, an ongoing communications program that helped deliver higher retention and expanding the schedule of educational events and networking opportunities for clients.

 

The way through tough times is to intelligently create more value for others.  One of the surest ways there is for making sure that you end up being the strong rather than the weak is avoiding the tendency to become self-absorbed and maintain a clear focus on the clients that are, ultimately, the source of your success.

CRM4Legal Captures LTN Readers Award

Posted by David

Client Profiles has been honored by legal-industry peers as part of the sixth annual Law Technology News technology awards program. Readers of Law Technology News recognized Client Profiles with three 2009 Law Technology News® Awards, representing outstanding achievement in legal technology.

 

CRM4Legal placed extremely competitively, capturing a silver in the CRM category! Finishing second only to Lexis Nexis' CRM entry speaks volumes about how far CRM4Legal has come in such a short period as a relative newcomer compared to the more "established" systems in the market.

 

With our world-class Microsoft-based platform and a growing customer base, we are poised to achieve "leader" status and capture gold next year!

 

The awards will be presented at the LTN Technology Awards Dinner at LegalTech New York on February 2, 2009.