Tag: Leads

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CRM Focus: Law Firms

CRM Focus: Law Firms
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The legal industry faces unique challenges in marketing and client retention. Attorneys need to sell their time in order to make a living, but there are only so many hours in the day. Luckily, there is a universe of software applications out there specialized to help firms manage their practices, stay within the regulations, and make money.

Practice Management Software

The primary innovation in legal software has been the rise of Practice Management software. Practice Management differs from traditional CRM in that it focuses on managing day-to-day firm operations. This includes client communications, case management, billing, and court rules (usually as an add-on service). A firm’s attorneys, paralegals, and legal secretaries will log into the system to manage cases and update files. In essence, the Practice Management software becomes the firm’s virtual office. This can allow a firm to operate entirely remotely and eliminate the overhead of maintaining a physical office. It also makes it much more efficient for firms to communicate with out-of-state associates and specialists. What’s more, time tracking can be done entirely within the Practice Management interface, making oversight and revenue targeting very simple. This is all tied together with quick access to the firm’s financial information, including accounts and invoices.

Practice Management software as a concept is nothing new, however it has been adopted and developed largely within the healthcare and financial industries. Conversely, many in the legal industry have stuck to traditional paper filing systems (sometimes out of necessity). The good news is that now there are quite a few modern Practice Management solutions available. Two of the best that we have been working with are CLIO and PracticePanther. 

CLIO vs. PracticePanther

CLIO is perhaps the best-known legal Practice Management platform. They’ve been around for 10 years and have been at the forefront of developing a design language and philosophy that uniquely caters to the legal industry. PracticePanther is a bit newer, but have developed a solid product. Both pieces of software offer all the tools you need to run your firm. In terms of pricing and support, both are at about the same level, with PracticePanther being a little cheaper overall. When it comes to integrations, both systems offer LEDES billing support and access to court rules. However, CLIO comes out ahead in this area, offering integrations with many pieces of billing, legal research, document management, and practice-area specific software. We would recommend either platform to a firm looking to start using Practice Management software.

What About Marketing?

All this may sound great, but what about getting clients into the system in the first place? That’s where CRM comes in. Just like there is specialized Practice Management software for the legal industry, there is special CRM software out there, too. Legal CRM is generally focused on automating the client intake process, but this doesn’t mean getting rid of the human touch. Automation is intended to allow your staff to focus on letting incoming clients know they are being taken care of while intake paperwork processes are automated. Lexicata, Captorra, and Law Ruler are all great options offering some wonderful innovations, but there are many more out there.

Next Steps

Even if you are a small firm or have a solo practice, you probably need some form of Practice Management software. Ask yourself – can you see a record of all communications with a specific client on a moment’s notice? Can you pull up the firm’s current accounts receivable vs monthly overhead with the touch of a button? Is every moment you spend working a particular case immediately attached to billing for that case? All of these things can be done with Practice Management software. If you are already using some form of software for your firm, ask yourself – is my firm actually using it, or do we still do much of our work outside the software so that it must be manually entered or even gets lost? Is it helping us increase billable hours and meet revenue targets? Is our current software more than just another monthly debit decreasing our bottom line? Honest answers here will help you determine if you need new software or help with the software you have!

Let YTA Business Services Help!

That’s where we come in. Aside from being CRM experts, YTA has over 30 years combined experience supporting the legal industry. Let us find the software that works for you, so that you can do what you do best – help your clients and get paid for it. !

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CRM Basics: What Can My CRM Do?

CRM Basics
What Can My CRM Do?

When people think of CRM software, they are likely to think that its uses begin and end with the sales team. While lead tracking, lead conversion, and customer service might be the primary intended use of many CRM systems, that is hardly the only way to utilize them. Even the simplest CRM system can do so much! Utilizing it to its fullest potential is the key to maximizing your ROI.

Bread & Butter – Sales & Leads

Tracking sales and leads is still the primary focus of CRM software. After all, without making sales, you can’t have a business, and wouldn’t be able to use all the bells and whistles that come along with a CRM system. A CRM system at its core will keep track of a customer from their inception as a lead, through the opportunity stage, into their transition to customer, and beyond. Historical data will be maintained so that you can make sure that your customers are being taken care of and that no sales opportunities are being missed.

Marketing & Partnerships

Through integrations or built-in functionality, a good CRM system (or administrator!) will allow you to run marketing campaigns and gauge their effectiveness. With the right setup, you’ll even be able to give your partners access to your system through third-party portals and give them an easy way to send you referral leads.

Keeping Your Customers Happy

Once a lead becomes a customer and the sales team has moved on to other leads, you’ll want to make sure that your customer stays a customer. CRM systems can be used to track customer service requests, and most will integrate with third-party software such as Zendesk. Through social media integrations, not only will you be able to get your message across to your customers, you’ll be able to keep track of what they might be saying about you online. And many CRM systems have self-service portals, allowing your customers to create their own tickets, monitor the status of open requests, and even purchase new products or services from you.

Analytics

Accessing all of this data would be useless without a means of converting it into something that is understandable and relevant. With a good CRM system, you’ll be able to review your data using analytics – charts, graphs, and detailed reports. You’ll be able to see if your marketing campaigns are working properly, if your last trip to an expensive industry conference had any results, and which of your customers are spending the most. You’ll know better where and when you should spend your time and money.

Financial Tracking

The ability to send invoices directly to customers is built right in to many CRM systems. You’ll be able to see if it’s time for them to be billed, how much they owe or have paid, and whether or not their subscription status is up to date. Integrate your CRM into your financial software and everything will update seamlessly in real time.

Business Processes

Finally, outside of direct customer management, you can use your CRM to keep track of your team. You can assign tasks and automate processes, facilitate team communication, allow collaborative document editing, and even track individual team member’s workloads. This will increase your organizational efficiency and allow your team to spend more time on making sales and making you money!

And more!

What are you using your CRM for? Drop us a line and let us know!

If you like what you’re reading here but don’t have a system in place, you need help! YTA Business Services can help get you set up with a system that will do all these things and more. Let’s talk!