Outsourcing your firm

It is extremely expensive
to market the brand of
a law firm. Many firms spend between 3 and 10
per cent of their turnover marketing but fail to measure their conversion rates, missing a huge opportunity to increase profitability. Just think of the impact on your bottom line
if you were to increase conversion rates by 50 per cent.

Working outside 9 to 5

In order to take advantage of this opportunity, firms need to become more accessible and flexible in their opening hours. More fundamental is the lack
of professional business development skills in many firms that deal with both incoming telephone calls and face-to-face opportunities.

The more progressive firms are doing this already and, depending on size, could well have a team of inbound calls specialists who know the unique selling points of both the practice and the service they offer. Trained and skilled in handling objections, these specialists will convert a significantly higher percentage of enquiries into business; conversion rates have more than doubled for firms who have relied on a professional service to deal with new enquiries.

How many firms still rely on receptionists, support staff and fee earners to convert enquiries into instructions? Most of these are not trained to professionally answer any questions and don't have the necessary sales training to make a fair price comparison. Often they will give out a price for a service without exploring the needs of the client and the growth of fixed-fee work has exacerbated this situation.

Conveyancing cons

Take a new conveyancing enquiry. A potential client calls your office and asks for a quote. Many have heard the "we do conveyancing from £189" estimate, which as we all know is misleading as the magic word in this methodology is 'from'. They will then agree terms with the client before disclosing the add-ons to their quote, such as mortgage redemptions fees and Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT) charges, etc. Your quote is probably no different from the final price the client will pay elsewhere, but you were not instructed on the basis of this 'sharp' practice. Incidentally, the SRA is on the case.

Customers could well telephone your office any time between 8am to 8pm and
on a Saturday looking for a competitive quote: why not outsource to a professional business, such as Moneypenny, who can deal with enquiries
and patch calls through to designated fee earners or partners? You would only have to convert one new enquiry per month to more than pay for such a service.

In fact, outsourcing many
of your routine functions, such as dictation and telephony, will improve efficiency and reduce costs. Remember, if you employ people in these roles and then experience a downturn, you could well be facing redundancy costs. Progressive law firms will outsource the majority of their mundane work - they recognise that 70 per cent of these functions do not generate the real profits to the firm. The important elements of any transaction are the legal advice you give, your client care and business development activities.

It doesn't matter what size of firm you are as you could identify someone within your current team who has the necessary skills and then train them to handle these important enquiries. Successful sole practitioners employ a business development representative to convert enquiries and have invested in cloud technology on a pay-as-you-use basis to process the work. This technology in a managed private platform can reduce your IT spend by 50 per cent, which includes the downtime you experience when running your own IT department. In both of these examples there is a managed monthly spend based on usage and no huge capital expenditure to finance.

Technology will change the way many practices work: just think of the power of an instant quote system that would allow your business development specialist, while dealing with a new enquiry, to ask the client to open their inbox for an instant quote that could be explained and discussed during your initial conversation. The client
is impressed by your efficiency and even if you are not the cheapest quote you are
more likely to be instructed because of your technological resources. These systems are here now - ignore them at
your peril. SJ

Viv Williams is the CEO of ?360 Legal Group

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