A Guide to Improving Law Firm Client Relationships
Running a law firm is a bit more intricate than it might seem. Aside from needing in-depth knowledge and a thorough understanding of the Law, client retention, which does not occur automatically, as explained in our recent article Law Firm Success, forms a critical part of the daily operations of any law firm. As the world continues to evolve and industries embrace the shift towards digitization, there has never been a more critical time for law firms to capitalize on their client relationships; not only focusing on creating new relationships but sustaining their existing ones.
This article supplies a brief overview of our findings, based on observational studies gathered over the past 40 years, addressing pain points experienced by legal firms. These challenges have helped us build our different legal software technologies, with the core focus aimed at streamlining Client Relationship Management (CRM) processes.
Understanding Client Relationship Management (CRM)
Although the concept of CRM might seem straight forward, it is critical to understand that it is detrimental for relationship building. For most parts, CRM has played an integral role in law firms, as it involves the use of strategy and tech to manage engagement with current and prospective clients. Being able to track, analyze and build relationships with the bedrock of your law firm business, your clients, allows you to check sales, increase your profits and improve the client service experience with your law firm.
Unpacking the Benefits of CRM
The real win for any law firm is not only to get new business, but to retain existing clients. What CRM, more specifically CRM software, does, is to improve key law firm client relationships, which in turn has a positive effect on your retention rates and increases your profitability. Other benefits of CRM software include:
- It allows your law firm to operate more efficiently by automating and streamlining processes
- Enables your firm to perfect interactions (whether externally or internally) and make the most of every engagement
- Facilitate cross-team collaborations
- Better and more data to perform analytics on the following:
- Internally:
- The ability to cross-check any potential conflicts of interest because of a broader set of data available across the firm
- Making more informed decisions on case allocation and distribution by analyzing the different data available for the types of matters, clients, and internal workload.
- Externally:
- Assists in the management of clients through understanding them
- It gives potential and current clients better ways to engage with you as a firm, and a secure two-way communication platform to receive updates on their matters, and supply required information too.
- Internally:
Practice Manager Pro and CRM
At Legal Interact, our flagship legal practice management software solution called Practice Manager Pro has been helping law firms improve their operations for decades, in a cost-effective way. This software solution boasts impressive features, one of which is the ability to foster meaningful client relationships without the added costs of integrating other CRM solutions. Here is why:
Practice Manager Pro has the following functions:
- The software allows easy access for authorized personnel through its “Supply Centralized Documentation Repository” functionality
- Confidential information can be shared safely and securely, including the ability to check for potential conflicts of interest.
- Ability to individually record and structure fee arrangements with each client, allowing you to manage your relationship more delicately, especially when it comes to money matters.
There is an increasing need to find ways to remain personal and connected with our clients, especially in a world that has become more digitized. Through our Practice Manager Pro solution, we have found the perfect balance. If you want to find out how our solution can help improve your relationships with your clients, email us on in**@le***********.com, or call us on +27 11 719 2000.
