CRM Building Project – Part 2: Teardowns

CRM Building Project 2: Teardowns

Is it time for a CRM renovation or a tear-down? Many of the firms we work with have had their CRM systems for years or even a decade or more. They can likely still remember their CRM building process and original “move-in” day when they first bought the system (which hopefully didn’t require a mortgage)…

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CRM Building Project – Part 1: New Construction

CRM Building Project 1: New Construction

So for some reason, one day about a year and a half ago, I decided that it would be a good idea to build a house. Not sure exactly why I thought adding this to my never-ending list of existing projects would be a smart thing to do (OK, perhaps my friends weren’t entirely wrong…

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Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 6: The CRM Wreck

Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 6: The CRM Adoption Wreck

CRM adoption has the greatest potential for a wreck. Having worked with almost a hundred firms to help them achieve and enhance CRM success over the last eight years, the biggest challenge we always seem to run into is CRM adoption. Firms consistently tell us that their CRM system is literally a ‘wreck’ due, in…

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Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 5: Herding CRM Users or “Cats”

Herding your CRM users or “cats” toward full participation is a challenge. The beauty of a CRM system is that by gathering and maintaining the collective information of all CRM users, contacts can be kept updated across the organization. If an attorney receives updated information for his contact but simply modifies the contact information in Outlook, the new information doesn’t flow to…

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Data Quality Do’s & Don’ts – Part 4: The Missing Pieces of CRM Contact Data

A common complaint is missing pieces of CRM contact data. This significantly reduces the value of the system for users and hinders CRM adoption. Let’s face it, it’s challenging enough to get people to actually use the system. When they finally do decide to go looking for information and can’t find it, it will be exponentially…

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Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 3: Adopt the Orphans

Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 3: Adopt CRM Orphans

CRM orphan contacts require care. There is nothing sadder than a poor, lonely little orphan – especially in your CRM system. When an “orphan” record is left in your CRM system and all the attorneys who once knew the contact are gone, the record is essentially abandoned. It’s left alone in a CRM world where relationships are so…

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Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 2: “I See Dead People” (in my CRM system)

Seeing dead people in your CRM system? Many of us may remember that chilling quote from the movie The Sixth Sense. Seeing dead people in your CRM system can be almost as disturbing. Nothing is more likely to cause your CRM users to tune out and turn off than finding deceased contacts living on in your system. Even…

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Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts

To ensure data quality, focus on these key areas: manage changes in the status of contacts, adopt “orphans” left behind by attorneys, input missing data, and gain full participation and adoption. Part 1: Degrading Data Quality In today’s highly mobile markets, up to 30% of a firm’s CRM contact data can degrade each year. People…

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Pipeline to Success

What gets measured gets done, and this can certainly be said about “non-billable” activities in law firms. For anyone familiar with attorneys, this is not surprising. Busy lawyers are tasked with competing demands for their very valuable – and very limited – time. And for lawyers, time is money – literally. So when there is…

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Pipeline to Success – Part 7: The People

Are your people onboard with business development pipeline success? To ensure a successful outcome. the business development pipeline technology must first be supported at the highest leadership levels in the law firm. Next, there must be knowledgeable, well-trained people dedicated to inputting the data. Information has to be entered correctly, consistently and completely because bad data will…

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Pipeline to Success – Part 6: The Problem

Over the years, we have all heard way too many stories of CRM systems failing to meet expectations. What we don’t typically hear is that the reason why these systems didn’t meet expectations was often that the expectations were unrealistic. Indeed, people have been complaining about CRM systems for as long as…well, as long as…

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Pipeline to Success – Part 5: The Products

Recently, some CRM product developers have begun building pipeline tools to meet the changing needs of law firms. A few years ago, Microsoft began offering a version of its Dynamics CRM through industry vertical resellers who configured the software specifically for law firms. This product, CRM4Legal, has since been acquired by Aderant. Two other companies…

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Pipeline to Success – Part 4: The Past

When some larger firms with sophisticated marketing departments began to realize the limitations of spreadsheets years ago, they started looking for alternatives. But because the profession had not been focused on sophisticated business development tracking or technology in the past, there were not many choices of pipeline software available that could meet the specific needs of law…

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Pipeline to Success – Part 3: The Pipeline

This is where real pipeline software can help to take a law firm’s business development to the next level. A true business development pipeline allows opportunities to be entered and linked to related people and companies. Pipelines also allow for entry of additional information such as activities related to an opportunity, which can then be…

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Pipeline to Success – Part 2: The Spreadsheet vs The Pipeline

At its most basic, a pipeline is simply a way to track and report on business development efforts. Initially, when law firms began tracking business development opportunities, the original tool of choice was Excel. Even at some of the largest firms, lawyers often tended to gravitate to spreadsheets to track just about everything. There are…

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Yearly Archives: 2015

CRM Building Project 2: Teardowns

CRM Building Project 1: New Construction

Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 6: The CRM Adoption Wreck

Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 5: Herding CRM Users or “Cats”

Data Quality Do’s & Don’ts – Part 4: The Missing Pieces of CRM Contact Data

Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 3: Adopt CRM Orphans

Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts – Part 2: “I See Dead People” (in my CRM system)

Data Quality Do’s and Don’ts

Pipeline to Success

Pipeline to Success – Part 7: The People

Pipeline to Success – Part 6: The Problem

Pipeline to Success – Part 5: The Products

Pipeline to Success – Part 4: The Past

Pipeline to Success – Part 3: The Pipeline

Pipeline to Success – Part 2: The Spreadsheet vs The Pipeline

© 2017 Website by: Precision Legal Marketing

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