Seven Secrets for Driving CRM Adoption Success-Part 2

-By Christina R. Fritsch JD, Founder and CRM Success Consultant

If you’re still struggling with CRM adoption challenges, taking a “white glove” approach can help. Customize training for the attorneys’ specific needs, and ensure they’re getting value.

In our last post, we explored four essentials to help drive CRM adoption in your firm. Here are three more that are proven to help engage users and entice them to actually use CRM:

Training

Educate your attorneys on best practices for using CRM to engage with their clients and contacts and show them how CRM will make that easier. Nudge them from being passive consumers of the data in the CRM to active contributors by making the connection for them between contributing and getting more value out of the system. Show them how to identify targets, access meeting notes, get updates on pursuits/wins/losses, or view client feedback.

Training is not a one-time event. Invest in training throughout the year.

Pilot Groups

There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all CRM rollout. Adapt the technology to meet specific needs and to deliver value for specific user groups. Start with one group with a strong leader and some specific or immediate needs. Configure CRM to meet the needs or solve problems and train the group around that. Then move on to the next group.

“White Glove” Service

It’s in the DNA of law firm culture, so make CRM a “white glove” service as well. Law firms are different from other organizations. The partnership structure makes the carrot and stick approach ineffective. So don’t make CRM a chore, make it a value add. Here are some recommendations:

First, it’s helpful to step back and understand what is coming at the attorneys on a daily basis. They may be interfacing with more than ten different systems, e.g., time and billing, practice management, document management and others. CRM can become the one place to get all or most of what they need and allow them more time to be lawyers. Look for CRM systems that include customizable dashboards to personalize their daily view.
Engage your marketing staff to meet one-on-one with the attorneys to gather their contact data and information, then generate the reports they need. Show them how to gain value and insights from the information in the CRM.
Sync the attorneys’ Outlook calendars with CRM. Then Marketing can be alerted to upcoming meetings and step in to provide meeting prep materials, who-knows-who info, past matters info, and other intelligence. And after meetings, attorneys can be prompted to add their meeting notes in CRM.
Engineer the system to remove extra steps and friction. Make it easy for the attorneys to maintain engagement with their clients by providing a regular, “built-in” cadence for keeping in touch.
Maintain clean CRM data. Remember, data quality is important only if you want to succeed with CRM! Attorneys are trained to find problems, and they will notice if the data is bad (and may mistrust the CRM system and the team responsible for it.) Make it a top priority to gather attorneys’ contact information, apply a regular data cleaning process, and make it easy for them to get quality data and value out of the CRM.

The keys to CRM adoption success are not difficult to understand, but they will vary for each firm. The common, essential thread is always the “value exchange.” If you make it easy for your attorneys to contribute value – and ensure they are getting value out of the CRM – adoption and CRM success will follow.

Read Seven Secrets for Driving CRM Adoption Success – Part 1

For more than a decade, the team at CLIENTSFirst Consulting has been helping professional services firms and other organizations successfully select and implement CRM and eMarketing systems and improve Data Quality to maximize value, adoption and return on investment. If you need help achieving CRM Success, please contact us at 404-249-9914 or Info@ClientsFirstConsulting.com.