Many software pieces and tools are essential to a law firm’s practice. From your basic Microsoft word and excel tools to document drafting software and workflow tools, many pieces are needed to run a successful firm. But there is one that stands out from the rest. One that is not only essential but is also NOT used by over 40% of law firms. If you’re reading this blog, probably already know the answer – a law firm CRM solution.
Law Firm CRM: What is it?
The term CRM stands for customer relationship management. A CRM helps law firms collect data and manage their intake and customers alike.
We all know that relationships are an essential part of any law firm practice. Depending on your practice, you’re constantly building relationships and/or maintaining relationships. This is exactly where a legal CRM solution plays an important role. It not only enhances your ability to nurture relationships, but it also helps collect valuable data, streamline processes, automate tasks/marketing, and many more things that are essential to your lead and customer relationships.
Why do you need a law firm CRM?
Now that we’ve established what it is and some high-level reasons why you need it, let’s dive into some of the finer ins and outs.
Centralize your lead and client information
First and foremost, one of the biggest reasons a CRM is useful for your law firm is it helps collect, organize, and centralize all of your customer/lead data. We all know that getting leads is an essential part of any law firm. With a CRM, it easily allows you to collect and track all information of any new contact you receive or input into the system. A good CRM will give you the ability to input not only who they are, but also where they came from, any new communication, notes, and more. Having all of your contacts, leads, and clients in one place will help ensure better intake and accuracy so nothing falls through the cracks.
Optimize your inbound and referral lead processes
Getting new leads is important, but what you do with them after is another big reason lawyers (and their team) need a CRM. Efficient processes are an important part of any business, especially when it comes to sales. As you get more leads, a law firm CRM can help with several things:
- A complete visual of your entire sales/lead pipeline. Understanding how many leads you have is important. But a CRM can help show you a much better representation of what is happening with all your leads.
- Build better and more effective communication with prospects. Creating effective follow-ups is an important part of effective lead nurturing. With a CRM, everything is there at the click of a button. Calling clients, emailing clients, scheduling appointments, and more can all be managed directly within your CRM. Which helps build more effective communication on your side, and makes your team more efficient.
- Marketing automation can help nurture leads . A good legal CRM allows you to pre-build automated tasks for your team, automated emails, call recording, and more.
- Ability to set reminders, add notes, and assign deadlines, and objectives for prospective clients. Keeping a record of all your interactions with a customer in one place can help your team be more organized and set clear expectations.
Manage all your documents in a single place
As a lawyer, there isn’t a day that goes by where you aren’t writing up documents or filling out paperwork. As your firm becomes more digitized with document management, you must have a centralized place that keeps your files organized and secure. A good legal CRM solution will give you all of that, plus allowing you to share documents with clients. Giving clients the ability to sign documents through your CRM can also expedite cases and improve your customer experiences. In the long run, you’re saving time and money by utilizing your CRM to manage your legal client document processes.
Leverage your data to optimize your processes (and make better business decisions)
Improving your lead processes and client communication can often be a learning curve. With a CRM, many of those things are at your fingertips with the insights and analytics they provide. A good CRM solution can arm you with data points that help you identify:
- Who are your top-performing people are
- What lead generation strategies are working (and what are not)
- What lead follow-ups and processes work (and what are not)
- High-level insights/details on your customers (to help you understand who has the best/worst margins)
Making data-driven decisions behind your customer and lead data will improve performance on all ends of your customer’s journey. Ultimately, you’re maximizing profits and making better decisions to take your firm to the next level.
Build stronger customer relationships
As the name suggests, a Customer Relationship Management solution helps build stronger relationships with your clients. Having all of your customer data at your fingertips gives you or your employees a better way to answer questions and support your clients. Ongoing Marketing automation, reminders, newsletters, and more allows you to regularly keep in touch with clients, ask for referrals, and more. In the end, you’re improving your customer satisfaction and building better relationships.
So, do you NEED a law firm CRM?
The simple truth is that a CRM solution, paired with a great law firm website and digital marketing, will exponentially help you grow your law firm practice. In more ways than one, it will give you more efficient ways to manage your contacts, close leads, and take care of tasks for your team. Like most software, there can be a cost, especially if you move to a CRM that is strictly legal specific. For small law firms, there are plenty of affordable solutions. With Clio, Smokeball, Ringy, and many others, you’re only looking at a monthly investment of a few hundred dollars depending on how many users you need. That investment can easily pay off while helping you modernize your processes and business overall.
