Tuesday 9 April 2019

Proclaim software earns long-term loyalty from QualitySolicitors Lockings



Proclaim’s evolution has led to long-term loyalty from QualitySolicitors Lockings

QualitySolicitors Lockings is part of a national network of law firms dedicated to customer service excellence. Covering Hull, Beverley, Hessle, Hedon and the surrounding areas, Lockings offers a range of legal services to both individuals and businesses, from Conveyancing and Wills through to Employment and Litigation. The firm prides itself on responsiveness and making access to legal services easier. In 2005, after reviewing internal IT processes, Lockings made the decision to implement the Proclaim Practice Management Software Solution, and over a decade later, the firm remains a satisfied Eclipse client. Richard Swaine, Operations Director at Lockings, explains the reasoning behind the firm’s long-term loyalty to Eclipse.

Lockings has been an Eclipse client since 2005 – why was Eclipse your chosen provider?
 We undertook an extensive selection process, which included demonstrations, product reviews and meetings with our chosen shortlist of suppliers. In the end, we opted for Eclipse for many reasons, but two of the standout aspects were Proclaim’s feature-rich toolsets and its user-friendliness. At the time, we had a growing need to maintain high service levels and client retention rates due to stiff competition, and Proclaim’s features, including the reporting and the ability to send text messages, not only helped our team to achieve these high standards, but also enabled us to offer transparency – both to our clients, and our internal teams. Additionally, Proclaim stood out as being easy-to-use, which meant our staff were able to get to grips with the software quickly, and were therefore able to maintain large volumes of cases. Over 10 years on and Proclaim’s adaptability, and its ability to move with the times has meant we are more than equipped to deal with the changing demands of the legal industry, whilst also developing the system for our firm specific requirements.

How configurable do you find Proclaim?
 Very configurable – and I think that particular feature of Proclaim has been one of the key elements in terms of its longevity within the legal sector. When we initially implemented Proclaim, we opted for Eclipse’s out-of-the-box Conveyancing case management system, which was – and still is – well suited to our wide range of clients. An important factor for us was to ensure that our standard of work was kept in line with our brand at all times, and Proclaim’s flexibility has meant we can build workflow steps, documents, calendar entries and reminders to suit our staff and our clients, and at any time. As a result of this flexibility, and following the successful implementation of the Conveyancing system, we extended Proclaim’s use into our other teams. We’re also able to develop the system further based upon staff suggestions and requirements. As an example, we’ve been able to adapt and streamline our retainer process for our Conveyancing team, and we’ve created an entirely new system for Service Charge Debt Recovery. This would have been more difficult without Proclaim. Crucially for us, we have been able to build the system around our way of working.

How has Proclaim evolved over the years?
I think Eclipse has faced many expectations to develop Proclaim and create a system that can fit most areas of law. Over the years it has become more intuitive and increasingly advanced in dealing with the ever-changing legal sector, and therefore the ever-changing needs of clients. Eclipse has managed to simultaneously build a robust platform, but with room for flexibility so that it’s by no means a ‘one size fits all’ solution. It’s adaptable to fit in with businesses’ bespoke requirements. It’s no longer purely an office-facing platform, but has evolved into something that our clients can understand and benefit from.

What are some of the benefits you see day-to-day?
For a busy firm like ours, one of the biggest benefits is the adaptability of Proclaim – whether that’s to accommodate different work areas, or changes in existing work types. The in-built toolsets available to us mean that we can develop the system in-house to suit the needs of our business and clients. Additionally, Eclipse is regularly rolling out updates or upgrades to Proclaim, which makes maintaining the software so easy. Proclaim’s user-friendliness is also good. Since implementation, we’ve rolled the system out over a number of departments, equating to over 80 staff, but its logical layout of screens and case stages, coupled with its ease-of-use has meant our staff have always been able to continue delivering a high standard of work with minimal disruption. Another benefit is that Eclipse is used in a large number of firms so when we recruit it means many of our new staff members have previously used Proclaim in other roles which in turn makes our staff induction process easier.

How well does Proclaim suit your ongoing needs as a business?
 Very well – it’s a good fit for our firm and has evolved with us as we’ve developed our service offering, as well as enabled us to mold it to our changing and practice-specific requirements.

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Wednesday 3 April 2019

How to keep your clients coming back for more


Darren Gower (pictured), Marketing Director at Eclipse spoke to LPM Magazine to discuss how law firms can better engage with clients.

Few firms look closely at ways to shift how a service is delivered, as long as they feel they’re keeping up with the status quo. That’s especially true for SME firms who don’t have the enormous resources that big, international firms have to throw at innovation initiatives or business development. And, the sector being what it is, the shadow of regulation is a constant threat. Taking a more proactive stance towards delivering the very best service for your customers can become a matter of self-preservation, because one cost-effective way to tackle uncertainty is to get existing clients into the repeat business loop. But ultimately, it’s about improving services for clients.

There are plenty of things your firm can do to keep clients coming back. A few tweaks to the way that things are done when onboarding and looking after clients can actually make a law firm stand out from the competition to a surprising extent.

To start, you need to take a look at whether your systems are up to scratch. I tend to see too much underachievement in SME law firms – many opportunities aren’t taken. For example, firms aren’t taking advantage of how clients interact with them online. The vast majority of experiences with a law firm are manual, whether you’re buying a house or making an injury claim – it can be like wading through treacle. Making things easy and reliable for clients is key. Unfortunately, very few firms in the SME space have fully embraced some of the basic tools that can make their services slicker and simpler. These may not necessarily be cutting-edge, but they aren’t hideously expensive. Put the destiny of the client’s case file in their own hands and enable them to see what’s going on with their matter online. Uploading documents to a portal rather than posting them through a letterbox can make a world of difference for clients – as well as cutting down time taken to respond.

To better engage with clients, you should be collecting as much data as you can, which will help you to spot opportunities and better cross-sell. But to achieve that you need someone within the practice, whether that’s a partner in charge of growth or someone similar, who can take on these responsibilities. It’s up to that person to know which information is relevant to the business, how it’s stored and can be used going forward, and to make sure it’s accurate. The best time to collect data is during onboarding, but don’t just rely on an over worked paralegal or whoever is dealing with the case to collect it. It should be approached as a key exercise – you need people who are trained to do it, with the proper tools to get that information in a useable format.

Once the right questions are being asked and the correct data is being gathered, the next step is to have that data recorded in a centralised location. You can’t have silos of information where you’re asking the same questions but storing the information in separate places – that’s messy and terrible for your strategy; keeping one, central source of truth to work from is crucial.

After data is collected, the firm should have a clear strategy for how it’s used and, if possible, apply it to your processes. The objectives need to be quite tight and well-defined, whether you have a routine review to try to support opportunities, or a technological solution – it’s important to make the most of the clients you have.