The goal of all law firms, regardless of size, is to establish efficiency and control at all levels of the organization. That means never wasting money or letting potential customers slip through the cracks.
As your practice grows, you’ll learn that keeping track of existing clients and prospects is just as challenging as attracting new ones.
An effective legal customer relationship management (CRM) system can help streamline this process in more ways than you can think.
What is a CRM?
A Client Relationships Management (CRM) is a platform used to handle all client interactions and relationships. This CRM keeps track of all possible leads and current clients, enables automatic messaging, saves and shares electronic documents, and many more.
The primary goal of a CRM is to assist your law firm in establishing and maintaining customer relationships. The following are some of the primary advantages of having CRM software:
- Assists you in improving your entire sales cycle.
- Customizes processes and creates one-of-a-kind follow-ups to boost client satisfaction.
- Deploys marketing initiatives that are tailored to the demands of your customers.
- Streamlines operations within your law firm and gives customers a single, detailed picture.
Why is CRM important to your law firm?
Your law firm’s most valuable assets are its clients and business contacts. Using a CRM system can help you manage and nurture relationships more successfully, retain and expand your client base, as well as strengthen your relationships with your most valuable referral sources. Using a system like this can help you better your business development efforts, which can lead to more revenue for your law firm.
When businesses are small and only a few people work together, the process of leveraging relationships happens naturally through human interaction. Firm meetings, casual encounters in the hallway, and conversations around the water cooler are enough to keep everyone informed about major developments within the law firm, important contacts being made, work being offered to prospects, and current engagements.
These natural human contacts, however, become impossible to maintain as the company develops in size and expands. As a result, one of the most natural and effective dynamics for utilizing people and relationship expertise breaks down, jeopardizing the firm’s growth potential, image, client service, and retention capabilities.
Successful businesses supplement the human network with a CRM system capable of replicating it on a wider scale to avoid the inevitable breakdown that comes with success and growth. CRM provides a centralized architecture capable of aggregating, managing, and distributing Relationship Intelligence to users when and when it is needed, in whatever technology environment they want.
Key benefits of investing in CRM for your law firm
Every interaction you receive, from the first time a client contacts you to ten years later, should be saved and monitored.
CRMs are utilized for more than just practice administration; they help you cultivate connections, provide the correct support at the right time, and tailor communications for maximum impact.
Let’s look at why your law company should use a legal CRM and what the main benefits are.
- Organized Client and Lead Information
Organized Client and Lead Information Organization are some of the most important advantages of a structured system, and your CRM solution implements it from the start. You can quickly gather and store your new client’s information by starting with an automated client intake process.
You can also collect and store lead information using CRM software. By sending emails or SMS messaging, marketing automation on the CRM can help nurture your leads. With just one system, these integrations can help you grow your law firm’s clientele dramatically.
- Effective Client Communication
Your firm has access to a secure client portal through your law firm CRM software system. This online portal allows clients to send confidential messages to their lawyers about any concerns, legal or otherwise. Secure papers can be safely shared with clients, colleagues, or other collaborators via the portal.Your clients will benefit from more timely and effective communication now that they can message their lawyer at the click of a button. You may share deadlines, reminders, and updates with them at any time, making them feel like they’re truly a part of the case.
- Digitized Document Management
Many law firms are attempting to go paperless, which means that all legal team documents have been digitized. Even if your company isn’t completely paperless, being able to access files right away from wherever you are is a major time-saver. This is especially true if you continue to work from home. Instantly share or modify documents with clients, coworkers, or team members.Though digitizing your files will take some time and effort (it doesn’t have to be yours—you can hire a professional to do it for you), it will be well worth it in the long run. Your legal documents will be stored, organized, and safe with a CRM system. By ditching off-site file storage and instead, using a CRM to store and retrieve protected documents, you’ll save time and money.The option to digitally sign documents is available with digital files. Most advanced CRMs include eSignature, allowing you to quickly have documents signed by clients. This can help speed up cases and provide a better client experience.
- Capabilities for Scheduling and Reminders
A law firm CRM system can help guarantee that your attorneys aren’t overbooked, and sending out individual confirmation messages can eat up a lot of your time. A CRM system can take care of those activities for you and, more importantly, with greater accuracy. Attorneys can set up automated follow-up communications, payment deadline reminders, and appointment bookings for all attorneys at their company.Your team members will never miss a work meeting or a client appointment thanks to an integrated calendar feature. You’ll never have to deal with a lawyer who is already booked. Automatically invite clients or leads to meetings based on the information gathered during the intake process.
- Automated Email Campaigns
Email processes can help your organization in a variety of ways. It’s also easy to schedule these marketing initiatives now that everything is on one platform. A customer relationship management system may track and categorize leads.And even though social media is increasingly used as a marketing tool in many industries, email marketing continues to have a considerable impact. Email remains to be the most effective way of nurturing and converting leads so if you want to expand your law firm, you should use automated email marketing through a CRM.
- A Simplified, Streamlined Platform
Many law firms already have programs in place for most of the benefits mentioned above, but they use a variety of platforms and apps. With a CRM, you have access to everything on a single platform. This system streamlines your processes as well as your finances. Your team will be more efficient as a result of having all important data and payments in one location, which will make your clients happier.
Grow Your Law Firm with LawStripe, a Robust CRM System
There are many CRMs on the market, but only a few are specifically designed for law firms, requiring the use of a variety of other software to effectively promote their practice.
LawStripe is a CRM platform that allows you to take a holistic approach to lead generation, nurturing, management, and conversion. LawStripe is perfectly tailored for law firms by Australia’s leading law firm marketing and technology company, Practice Proof.
To learn more about how LawStripe can help your law firm grow, you may book a demo here.
