Client Relationship Management (CRM) is an important business strategy that differentiates a law firm from its competition. Firms that pay attention to clients and take actions to improve the client experience gain a competitive advantage.
Historically, law firms built structure around the services they provide. The focus was on:
> Achieving economies of scale through size – numbers of partners, numbers of practice groups
> Service innovation
> Mass marketing and firm branding
These are important considerations, but they do not take the client experience into account. Clients are not loyal to firms that focus on these areas alone.
The goal of CRM4Legal is to provide a complete view of the client experience with the firm. When a law firm understands all the relations that form the client experience, it gains important information about its clients’ needs. The firm can then use this information to be more effective at meeting clients’ current and future needs. It can also identify clients whose needs cannot be met profitably.
When a firm can anticipate and respond to the needs of clients, and aligns its services accordingly, it can begin to build client value. When client value is achieved, it is possible for a law firm to successfully offer new services to existing clients. This opportunity to “upsell” and “cross-sell” existing clients is how CRM4Legal allows a firm to compete with competitors that may have a larger market share.
It is important to understand that CRM is a business strategy. CRM4Legal is an application designed to help a law firm achieve this business strategy. CRM4Legal provides the tools that help a law firm move forward, but to achieve the maximum value, the firm must develop a CRM strategy and then use CRM4Legal to execute the tactics that will achieve its business goals.
CRM4Legal supports the entire law firm through a set of modules organized by functional area: marketing, business development and client care. These modules form the centralized database through which all of the practice groups and service areas in the firm can access the information and the tools they need to be more effective with clients.
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