At one with CRM

By Lucy McNulty

At its formation, as a result of a three-way merger in 1999, asb law modelled itself as a law firm that would take pride in placing the needs of its clients above everything else.
Six years later, however, limitations in the practice management system were hindering effective client relationship management (CRM) within the firm. Marketing director Susan Arnold decided it was time for change and set about designing and implementing ‘engage’, a firm-wide CRM programme, which if successful, would foster greater understanding of, and closer relationships, with clients.

Data-capture challenges
Business growth in law firms, as with all professional-service firms, depends on two linked factors: the provision of high-quality services and an understanding of client need. Clearly the latter requires the development of close relationships through regular client/lawyer contact. But a key detriment to this understanding is ultimately the firm’s ability to capture appropriate client data. Without a clear, rounded picture of individual clients and their activities, it becomes very difficult to respond to their needs and, crucially, to sell additional services. If little significance is placed on the need for accurate data inputting for each client, an inability to effectively profile customers ultimately causes the firm’s business growth to suffer.
“As business development became the heart of the strategy of the firm, so it became essential that we had the tools in place to understand in greater details the true business value of our clients,” says Arnold. “Our practice management system has no means of holding enhanced data for analysis of customer profiles so it became imperative that a CRM system capable of this was embedded into the business. The professional services have been lagging behind the commercial sector in many marketing techniques over the years, which is why I was keen to ensure that we improved our overall approach to marketing and business development.”

Planning ‘engage’
Arnold’s first step was to address the client information issues within the firm. The quality of data gathered by partners and fee earners was a particular problem. “We really wanted it to become a core asset of the firm but the reality was that our data, like many firms’, was in a challenging condition,” explains Arnold. Incomplete addresses and a significant number of duplicates in the system resulted in poor client data, which made any form of consumer profiling for the firm’s private client base or segmentation on the business services side virtually impossible. This poor data quality coupled with system constraints, insufficient data-handling training and a lack of ownership (no one in the firm regarded client data as ‘theirs’, encouraging a lack of accountability) resulted in inadequate customer data and, by extension, poor customer relationships. “We couldn’t really holistically view our client relationships as there was no single source of client information,” says Arnold. “This became particularly clear around the collaboration between our private client and business services sectors – often, we would be acting for an individual in their private needs, not appreciating that we were also acting for them as a director of business.”
We weren’t providing the management information that one would expect of a firm of this size and out of that came the general understanding that we needed to improve.”
An all-embracing system, which could assist CRM, improve client retention and new-client conversion rates, and provide confidence in conflict checking was needed. Furthermore, the system would need the flexibility to drive the ‘sales pipeline’, a means of identifying opportunities for cross-selling that formed a central part of the firm’s business growth scheme, as well as the ability to determine at the outset a potential client’s creditworthiness.
Client credit checks are a constant and time-consuming problem for a professional firm like asb. Although some firms run electronic credit checks, there is often no provision for automated client ID and credit checks within many client engagement processes. Off-the-peg CRM systems were therefore not going to fit the criteria.
“I was very concerned about overlaying another off-the-peg CRM system onto our existing practice management system without ensuring that it was fully embedded into the business – that would provide no value to the business whatsoever,” says Arnold. “The ability to work with our current system was absolutely key as we weren’t about to change it. It had to be something that could work alongside our existing system and be used on a daily basis by everyone across the business.”
Above all, the system had to provide everyone within the firm with a comprehensive, single client view, which could underpin all client contact and remove any barriers to understanding the client as a whole, which are often caused by the development of information silos relevant only to individual service streams.

Building the system
After dismissing current CRM packages, asb undertook an exhaustive search for appropriate partners to create a custom-built system for the firm, eventually choosing to implement a tailored version of Microsoft CRM v3.0 because it provided the flexibility and bespoke element necessary to create the desired system.
Working closely with two third parties – aspective, a systems integration company, and Experian, a risk-management service – the project took 18 months to complete. The first phase of engage, which involved the development of a client-centric CRM system and the unique customer credit checks as developed by Experian, was rolled out across asb over a period of two months in May 2007.
Phase two, which will incorporate the focused sales tools into the existing system, will be launched soon.“It is essential that our partners have a sales tool to support them so pipeline management, and all the workflows and activity tracking surrounding that, is very much at the heart of the next phase of engage,” says Arnold. “Clearly defined sales targets both in terms of developing existing clients and prospects will be key to the next phase.”

Overcoming obstacles

Accepting the need for change
Inevitably, introduction of a new initiative requires a certain investment in time to become part of the culture of a business. In order to bring about a more client-centric approach, asb first needed to ensure the business was prepared for the behavioural changes that would be necessary. With a project such as this, the challenge would be persuading a firm to adopt a new way of working in a relatively short space of time. Recognising this, Arnold set aside a significant amount of time at the beginning of the project to tour the firm’s five offices giving presentations, roadshows and team talks. This investment ensured that everyone in the firm understood from the beginning the need for change; and appreciated that change could in fact be beneficial for the business.
“In any firm there are bound to be some people who are more reluctant and others who are more willing to accept the need to change, so from the outset we suspected getting everyone to buy into the changes we proposed could be our biggest challenge,” says Arnold. “In reality we found that the obvious gaps in our existing data and the number of duplicates on the system made it clear to all that change was very necessary.”

Training
Having spent time promoting the need for change, Arnold’s next challenge was to rally support for internal training courses. These courses included a first round of half-day training sessions, followed by a series of refresher courses to ensure that everyone used phase one of the system to its full potential before phase two was rolled out. “When you run internal training courses you can guarantee that a number of people are always too busy doing fee-earning work to attend,” says Arnold. “But we had spent so much time over the past 18 months ensuring we had taken the business with us every step of the way that a much lower number than I had anticipated cancelled courses.”
With the business on board, engage could truly have an effect on the way business was conducted at asb. “When we did roll out engage the anticipation was there and people were genuinely excited about the prospect of being able to see their client’s information in a way that was meaningful to them for the first time,” says Arnold. “As it was built around a Microsoft CRM system, people found it very easy to use. Feedback was good; any fear or reluctance to adapt was quickly quashed.”

Technological problems
As with any IT project unexpected challenges were par for the course. “Inevitably there were things that came out of the woodwork that no one had anticipated,” said Arnold. “We had to go back to the drawing board a fair few times to adjust or review certain aspects of the project.” These included:

Integration – The firm has embedded its business-critical client-engagement process. This required a higher level of resource than expected for user-acceptance testing of the integration. The firm needed to ensure the front-end engage system and the back-end practice management system allowed the user to move seamlessly through client engagement to case management;
Data – The firm took the opportunity to extract its client data, clean it and import it to the new system. The pain point here was the realisation that the firm was accountable and responsible for the quality of the data and that it is going to be an ongoing task to eliminate duplicates and keep the data integrity high.

Human error
A degree of human error is expected when becoming accustomed to a new way of working. Arnold was keen to ensure such mistakes did not do any lasting damage, setting up a monthly audit programme and spot-check system to make sure everything runs smoothly. “One of the necessary behaviour changes was for partners and fee earners to collect client information up front.” she says. “It takes a while to understand the importance of ensuring that they have collected every aspect of that data. We are constantly checking that this is done and reinforcing the importance of asking the right questions from the outset. I think this will be an ongoing process.”

Implementation benefits
A properly implemented CRM system can bring significant benefits to organisations. But a properly implemented system is not just an application running on a computer, it is the complete package – the consortium of people (employees, culture), and procedures and programs (supporting applications). Engage has the potential to be the complete package. In providing all within the business – from secretaries to partners – with a clear, single client view, engage should not only improve client relationship management and marketing functionality within the firm, but should also better its understanding of the take-up of services across the client base as a whole.
“On the private client side we now have the ability to enhance all our data with additional information,” says Arnold. “We can look at all sorts of demographics, such as the age and geographical profile of our client base, then build this information back into our consumer targeting. Now we can offer relevant services to our clients, instead of the broad-brushed attempts we offered before.”
Tightly focused sales and marketing efforts encouraged by engage will help to streamline activities at the firm – improving overall targeting, particularly around analysis and the interrogation and reporting on its client base.
“We are starting to talk to clients far more holistically than we did before,” says Arnold. “Driving client programmes has become so much easier as a result. It has provided the business with a whole new impetus.”

Looking to the future
The system has been instrumental in addressing issues specific to asb’s business development, while also fundamental in supporting cultural change within the firm. As the name implies, it has helped to encourage staff to become ‘engaged’ with their clients and their needs and, through that, to enhance service levels and facilitate business growth.
Just as importantly, the entire system has been designed to foster staff engagement at all levels with the firm’s strategy and business objectives.
“The notion that everyone has a part to play in the development of our business is something we really want to get entrenched into the business,” says Arnold. “Engage is really helping us to drive that change through. It is far more than just a CRM system.”
At each stage of the project Arnold took steps to ensure that the businesses objectives and processes involved remained at its heart, and the technological solutions did not cloud the focus of the project or dominate its implementation. As a result a system has been developed that enables each member of staff, whatever their role, to play their part in the firm’s development programme. Interaction with engage is deliberately non-hierarchical; staff members at all levels can and will use the system in future client contact. Already, the firm’s secretaries are training as ‘super users’ in the system and are being encouraged to take an active part in improving client interaction. “They are starting to feel that their suggestions will be of value, which they are without doubt” says Arnold. The ability to see single client views enables users to see at a glance the number of clients represented by the firm; who is targeting who; and the take up of services. Communication and the transfer of knowledge between departments, within divisions, and across the firm has markedly improved as a result.
“It is a work in progress and we are in the early stages,” says Arnold. “But once phase two is rolled out I think we will see a real return in investment.”
Behaviour change undoubtedly takes a long time but I really am excited by the evidence of what has happened so far.”