The hidden costs to your law firm’s long-term success

Category: Case Management, Client Management, Guide, Practice Management 3rd May 2023

The biggest competitive advantage for UK SME law firms is how they deliver their service – the client experience. Client expectations for better transparency, clarity on pricing, prompt personal service, and improved collaboration mean that firms must revaluate how client-focused their services really are.

In LPM’s 2023 Frontiers Report, 59% of firms believe that improving their client experience is a fundamental part of their strategic business objectives and vital for long term success. But, what do firms need to adopt to ensure they achieve their goals?

Implementing the right client-facing tools seems like the obvious solution, especially when 53% of firms aren’t satisfied with their current client-facing systems.

But client facing tech, as well as primary service delivery systems (case and document management software), and financial systems were rated the top three systems that aren’t talking to each other. Highlighting these systems could lend themselves more to integration; a likely reason for rating them as needing improvement or replacing.

Accessing a single source of truth is the key benefit of integrating business solutions. A connected and centralised platform to run your law firm – that stores accurate and reliable client, business, and financial data – is the foundation for better compliance, improved efficiency, and better client service. When 38% of firms want to become more data driven to improve decision making, having access to reliable and real-time data is a must.

There are hidden costs if your firm’s core practice, case, and client management tools aren’t connected, which could harm your ability to deliver an improved client service. These include the inevitable errors and inaccuracies from rekeying data and the internal inefficiencies that effect profitability and impairs visibility. Errors, lack of visibility, and inefficiencies all have a knock on effect to the quality of client service.

So, simply implementing digital tools and having the integrations available isn’t enough. The habits of your team determine the quality of the data your business holds and how effectively digital tools are utilised to improve performance.

It’s encouraging to see that building a digital-first culture is a priority for almost half of firms surveyed. To remain competitive, law firms will need to take a deep dive into their existing habits in 2023 to review existing processes and consider how to build a digital-first culture that’ll help them better meet their goals to become more data driven business and to improve their client experience.

Download the report below