In a recent Law Society Gazette article, Alastair Moyle commented on the importance of marketing management , a point that clearly resonates strongly with Joanna Goodman’s feature “Law Firms Face New Financial Management Challenges”. In her article Joanna quotes Rupert Hawke (FD of Cartwright King) who says “The key is to develop systems and processes that inform operational decision-making”.
The implied focus here being on driving internal efficiencies.
Whilst I agree with Rupert my question is how early in the business process can we start to introduce effective process and exercise real control? The subtext being… did it really need the introduction of ABS to drive consumer focussed change?
Anyway, If we combine Alastair’s observations on marketing management with Rupert’s vision for process, rigor and reporting it feels as if there are a couple of real opportunities early on in the marketing journey.
By applying some of the lessons learned from practitioners in the more commercially aggressive markets such as insurance or retail we can see that there are numerous proven technologies and processes that can be employed to create additional value whilst reducing operational costs.
I recently conducted some analysis on call volumes to legal practices in the UK and found that c.32% of potential new business fell out of office hours. If Tesco were to take advantage of the forthcoming Alternative Business Structures do you think they would let potential new instructions walk away from them ?
Consider the money invested in generating those 32% of enquiries… that were then ignored! Without a strong process around your Client acquisition and retention strategies you will likely end up paying good money to generate business for your “market savvy” competitors.
The reality is that the cost of providing the outsourced 24/7 Telephone Answering Service is typically out-weighed by the increases in new business generated and the reduced marketing cost per case. The management information generated by the call centre can then easily be mapped straight into your own system allowing you full end-to-end management of the process and absolute transparency around your costs and ROI.
As Adrian Ott describes in her award winning book The 24hr Customer opportunities to “sell” are becoming ever more restricted. If, as described above, you start your managed process (the marketing journey) from the initial point of contact you will immediately gain a significant competitive advantage.
This is as true for the legal profession as much as any one else. If you’d like to know more please contact our Business Development team on 0845 233 7004.
