Monday 3 December 2007

The evolution of marketing in law firms

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Twenty four years ago law firms in Britain were freed from legal constraints and allowed to market their services for the first time. Guilty of poor practice in the early years, marketing staff spent their time booking places on IBA conferences for annual partner jollies and organizing seminars with such heady titles as “the legal implications of food dustings for manufacturers.” A few things happened to move firms out of this rut. Law firms started to operate in an increasingly competitive environment, then skilled marketing directors were hired from outside the industry. The legal press also started to take an interest in maverick partners and their negative affect on firm performance until marketing took on a more professional look by the late 90’s. Part of this development was the emergence of customer relationship management software. Now CRM technology is a staple purchase in law firms, along with strategic plans, measuring how successful marketing is and gathering information for analysis from fee earners and clients to increase bottom line profits.

Dan Von Weihe who dominates the CRM software space, heads up the seventeen strong team at Lexis Nexis InterAction. Lexis Nexis bought InterAction two years ago and hold trophy site Berwin Leighton Paisner. Janet Day their IT Director can show that InterAction is second only in use to Outlook. It is viewed widely in the industry as the most successful CRM implementation achieved to date. Dan says vendor competition is the big change for him but having the likes of Microsoft pitching their software is increasing awareness of his. “Ten years ago there wasn’t anyone in the market but the last five years has seen, Microsoft CRM, Client Profiles who partner with Microsoft, Pivotal, SalesLogix, Aspective, legal practice management vendors providing marketing modules and Goldmine arrive. Our sales are up because of the increased awareness with a recent eleven office win from the Maitland Group.”

Reed Smith’s, Meirion Jones who is Executive Director of the firm’s Clients & Markets Group and CRM selection committee has a career that spans top law firms like Allen & Overy. His team recently signed Client Profiles. “CRM technology is a facilitator, nothing more. Relationships are built between people and always will be. However as law firms become larger it becomes more difficult to manage client relationships and build them. An average client might be advised by ten different departments in ten different countries. If a law firm is trying to say it will be consistent then this is where CRM technology can help. It can capture all the insights from client and store them in the system. It takes away the feeling that clients are dealing with a complex organisation and creates a village feel.” The Client Profiles system is just one tool amongst a number that they use. “We also have client plans, dedicated training and investment bank style business analysis. A client plan looks at tactical ways to develop the relationship. So if data security is an issue, we can go speak to the client and say we have this expertise ask who we should speak to and put an individual in to develop the relationship.”

Whit McIsaac, President and CEO, at Client Profiles, who has spent twenty four years in the business says law firms need to expand the use of CRM technology beyond simple mailing lists and event management.” They need information relating to the people, companies, clients, matters and entities that they deal with on a daily basis.” Client Profiles now have nine implementations under way in law firms across the UK and USA.


Susanne Pugsley, Head of Marketing at Winckworth Sherwood, who have nine IT staff and two marketing staff, soon to be three, is an unusual combo of e commerce and marketing. “I did some dot.coms and media before spending time at Norton Rose, Hammonds and Morgan Lewis but my roots are classic marketing” She says. When she joined Winckworth Sherwood, they didn’t have a strategic function so Susie is in the midst of reviewing CRM systems. Her primary task once a system is selected is to improve internal communications. “I’ve already built a weekly reporting system on the intranet to have everyone tell us what they are doing. This way we can let everyone know about client wins, lunches, speaking opportunities, accolades and what deals are closing. It’s been eye opening for the partners.”

Time is the main constraint with use of CRM she thinks. “The simplicity of a CRM systems is important because if partners can’t do it by three clicks, you’ve lost them.” On the client side she says. “It’s important to be targeted and have a data cleansing process with a careful eye on best practice. We ask clients to self select their news letters from our internet because we don’t want to blitz people with emails anymore.” She uses a company called Concep an email marketing provider to monitor effectiveness. “You can see what is opened and analyze success. It’s all a two way communication these days.”

She adds that clients do want information by emails and tells me about a recent innovative move “We sent our partner with a e brochure on a data stick to a conference. It meant they weren’t giving away heavy brochures and we could amend the information right up until the last minute. Although she admits it is a pricey option because prices of data sticks vary but adds “you can track how people use the sticks.” Of other new ideas like blogs she says most law firms really mean microsites which is something she did previously for Morgan Lewis. Winckworth Sherwood also have a blog where trainees talk about life at the firm. Susie tried podcasting in the past which costs around £3000 each time. “I think it works best for private client law firms because of the people element.” One thing increasingly being used she says is webinars at the desk which is becoming a hot tool because of bandwidth capability. “You don’t have to travel and can sit with sandwiches and catch up on important topics.

As to whether partners should be involved with marketing or left to professionals, she says this it is essential they are fully involved. “Clients all say they want technical excellence, a communicator, value added services, sensible billing and fixed fee. Fee earners really do have to call their clients and go for dinner to keep relationships alive.”

Susie points out that marketing is still illegal in Italy and says “there are so many cultural things to look out for with global campaigns. The French like raised paper with thick print. Germans want a website in German or they won’t deal with you. Spain has the highest data protection of anywhere and in France you have to have individual consent from each member of staff to profile them on websites. There is a lot of thinking to do before a global marketing push.”

Taylor Vintner case study














Taylor Vinters, IT Director Steve Sumner, who has worked in the technology field for twenty six years, started his search for a CRM system after a Business Development Manager hire was put into the firms business plan. “We needed a system that would help support the person in what they had to do” says Steve. Starting with a clean slate he reviewed the leading market offerings and arrived at a listthat included Goldmine, Microsoft CRM and Lexis Nexis InterAction. Although the incoming Business Development Manager and Marketing Director had used Goldmine previously, after further review the product was discounted. Lexis Nexis InterAction was eventually also discounted because of costs associated with integrating the software with their Oracle based Miles33 practice management system.

Steve, who has worked for firms such as IBM and Avis Rent-a-Car, says he then looked more closely at Microsoft CRM which he eventually chose. “I felt what we were doing with SharePoint and the intranet would open up a wealth of possibilities for the future and offer exciting ways to deliver information to our people. We talked to a few Microsoft Partners, Microsoft themselves, had some demo’s and a number of project determination meetings. We believe we were one of the first law firms to do so.”

He liked the Outlook style which he says: “is a natural extension to what people are using already.” The project also fitted in with a three year licensing platform Taylor Vinters had which offered good cost savings and flexibility in the budget.” Now we have the core system and integration in place, the plan is to embellish that core to add layered security, improved mail merging, event management and put in place data processing procedures and use InfoPath to get quality data into the system. We are talking to people like Client Profiles and C360 to see where their add-ons fit into our plans.”

Steve chose reseller consultant ISC Software Services to partner with Taylor Vinters for the implementation and integration development work. Steve says “ISC are a local company who have supplied Taylor Vinters for some years with hardware, software and DR services so we knew them well, they have reasonable rates and the people knew us and what we did as a firm, this was instrumental in choosing them. We gave them a spec’ and invitation to tender document, asked for a fixed price and a four phase plan. They costed it, agreed it and delivered it in six weeks.” He does add that there was a refinement process and prep time before the green light.
In order to facilitate the project Steve has astutely seconded one of his team to marketing for a year. The IT member is demonstrating procedures for data entry and showing marketing staff how to configure the system and key in effectively.

Inititally work was focused on consoliating existing databases and matching the information to their accounts records. “It’s partly to validate client details.” says Steve. The marketing team is now adding new client information and checking for accuracy. “It’s going to be a major cleansing process as well as adding client history which should help everyone understand the contact clients have had with the firm. The plan is to help us to make better decisions by having client documents, data and billing available and ultimately to surpass client expectations, all through a SharePoint interface, and where detailed information is needed then the native CRM screens can be used.”

Taylor Vinters, who are based in Cambridge, have five IT staff . Steve is the IT Director, there is a network manager, helpdesk, IT manager and a developer is just in the process of being hired to reduce costs on external consultancy work and to further develop what the firm can do with SharePoint 2007. Taylor Vinters are an award winning law firm and on the Easyjet and OGC preferred panels.






www.interaction.com/
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http://www.microsoft.com/dynamics/crm/default.mspx

http://www.clientprofiles.com/

http://www.iscnet.co.uk/
http://www.iscsoftware.co.uk/

http://www.concepglobal.com/

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