By Taylor Darcy
A client relationship manager (CRM) is more than just a place to store your potential clients. So. Much. More. Yes, in its most primitive form, it is a place to hold your leads. However, CRMs come in all shapes, sizes and costs. A good CRM helps you to communicate and follow up with your leads, so they do not fall through the proverbial cracks. After a CRM is set up, the hardest part is entering the potential client’s information. After that, it’s just a matter of following up and making sure the client retains you when the time is right. Many CRMs have a pipeline feature that allows you to see where someone is in the client acquisition process. The best ones automatically follow up with your potential clients for you. Depending on the CRM, they will also give you email marketing, an essential way to help clients remember you when they are ready or tell their friends about you. Perhaps the most critical feature of a CRM that Outlook cannot give you easily is analytics.
Analytics tell you who retains you and where they found you. Analytics will allow you to see what your retention rate is and who is sending you the most clients. That way you can either thank the referral source, or you can spend more money on the marketing method that sends you the most leads. This requires that you track the information, something relatively challenging to do with just Outlook. You will also need to understand and use a spreadsheet program such as Excel or Numbers (if you are on a Mac) to do the same data analysis that most CRMs have built in. You can do the analysis, but given that most attorneys bill by the hour, time is money, so why spend it analyzing something that a CRM can do more efficient and faster than you?
Most CRMs allow you to integrate with other programs; for instance, you can send electronic intake forms to the potential client to save time at their intake appointment and already understand their matter. This pre-appointment data entry also saves you or your staff the trouble of inputting their information (potentially avoiding human error in the data entry process) into your system. Depending on the CRM, it will also allow you to collect relevant documents before the intake appointment so you can review them when convenient rather than when the client is sitting in front of you.Another useful integration allows you to send your engagement agreement electronically for the potential client’s signature; thus, you can close over the phone or via a Zoom or Skype call instead of in person. Another integration exceptionally useful in a CRM is the one that integrates with your practice management software. This saves you countless time and data entry (again, another place to avoid human error). In a matter of just a few minutes, you can take the potential client and make them an actual client. Perhaps one of the best integrations is that many CRMs will integrate with your electronic calendar, so you will never have to worry about double booking yourself or forgetting to input the appointment. The CRM and your calendar will do it all for you.
Many attorneys fear the unfamiliar; they like what has worked. A CRM need not be a big scary thing; it can just be another tool like Word or WordPerfect that helps you do your job efficiently and effectively. Spending the time to get to know a CRM will only help you grow your practice and make you more profitable.
Taylor Darcy is owner and founder of Darcy Law.