The business environment has changed over the last year, culturally, physically and operationally. There’s little doubt that a hybrid work environment is the ‘next’ normal.

How then can law firms improve the experience they deliver to clients in an environment of limited face-to-face interaction and continued remote working against a backdrop of economic uncertainty, at least in the near term?

The answer lies in technology and data. Applying analytics to the vast amount of data that exists in law firms can surface meaningful insight to inform everything from relationship building and business development (BD) through to enabling the best possible client experience.

Here are four ways in which law firms can improve the client experience they deliver by utilising the data residing in their CRM and business development-related technologies:

Being the ‘business advisor’

With general counsel taking on the role of business strategists, they are expecting their external counsel to also take on a similar approach to the advice provided. So, law firms, in addition to legal counsel, must also provide high level business consultancy. Many law firms are responding to this requirement.

For instance, one global law firm focusses on “running a professional business, like their clients, with law at its core”. Another well-recognised international firm is using data science to analyse and improve relationships with clients through performance.

To know in which areas to deliver business advice, analysing data residing in the firm’s CRM system is a good place to start. Learning how the firm is engaging with clients (or not as the case may be), will instantly provide insight into the direction that the firm needs to take to meet the business requirements of the corporates they work with.

At the same time, with external information on clients feeding into the CRM system, a firm can gain a good understanding of their clients’ business direction and strategy.

All this, combined with account and matter-related information such as matter pricing and billing, can give the firm a holistic view of clients and their organisation. They can use the insight to identify and deliver guidance and advice on business areas to mitigate potential issues before they turn into business challenges.

Smarter legal services delivery

A common criticism of law firms is that their approach to digital transformation doesn’t always match or keep up with that of their clients’ organisations, especially as corporate legal departments are increasingly adopting a data driven approach to operations and decision making.

Much like companies such as app-based tax services, food delivery services and online retailers – who analyse the data they collect to continuously hone the quality of their services – law firms can use the data from their CRM systems to do the same. Analytics such as – relationship scores, content engagement levels, type of online seminars that enjoy the highest attendance, time of day for the most views of content, difference in engagement between General Counsel and the C-suite, and so on – can throw up insight into the quality of service provided by the firm and the experience that clients are enjoying.

Most vitally, firms can use the findings to determine where the areas of improvement lie to further enhance client experience.

Going a step further, firms that integrate their CRM with other systems such as matter management, expense management, time and billing and such – can, in addition to relationship information – also access data that throws light on things like how many matters the firm is engaged with for individual clients, how long do those matters take, what are the profit margins, what are the ‘end of matter’ performance scores given to matters by clients, and so on. These statistics can guide the firm in terms of improving their legal services delivery.