Access Legal: Digitisation – What can the legal sector learn from financial services?
There’s no doubt that challenger banks and other fintech companies have raised the bar on customer experiences in the financial services sector over the past decade.
Consumers today are empowered with self-service tools, allowing them to do everything from pay in a cheque to manage their investments, while smart use of data has driven the development of exciting new products and personalisation at scale.
Automation is now firmly embedded in the sector too, which has led to streamlined customer service and faster lending decisions among other things.
To avoid falling behind, and out of the market, traditional institutions have also invested in technologies such as advanced analytics, machine learning and AI.
Gone are the days when applying for a credit card, bank account or mortgage involved an in-person meeting and copious amounts of paperwork. Now almost everything can be done quickly and securely online, often via an app on a customer’s phone.
How Legal is Catching Up
Of course, fintech companies have not only increased customer expectations in their own sector but across the board. From retail to healthcare to legal services, people want seamless interactions at every touchpoint. That’s why it often jars when a solicitor asks for a wet signature on a printed document, or they have to attend an in-person meeting.
Good data is key to achieving personalisation at scale in law firms, just as it is in financial services. Gone are the days when solicitors’ understanding of their clients was based on years of repeat business and face-to-face conversations.
While many no doubt appreciated the personal touch, this valuable knowledge could easily be lost if a solicitor left or retired, and may not always have been acted upon.
This is why data analytics are fast becoming a more reliable way for solicitors to respond to and anticipate clients’ needs, regardless of where they’re located or whether they’ve met. Indeed, capturing data from chatbots, social media and electronic case management systems enables firms to build a better picture of who their audience is.
We’re familiar with the ways financial services companies enrich their offering with useful content and tools like mortgage calculators to engage customers. Solicitors too have seen positive results from producing genuinely-insightful content such as webinars and blogs, and sharing insights on social media and in the press. By adding value to their service, they can become the go-to expert in a crowded market.
Digitising Supports Regulation
Like financial services, the legal profession is highly-regulated and always comes under close scrutiny. Yet digitisation, particularly automation, helps financial services companies to develop clear and consistent processes, and reduce the risk for human error or malicious acts.
The same is true for law firms too, who are far less likely to be stung if their system is ISO27001 (for information security) and Cyber Essentials accredited. With the peace-of-mind this brings, they’re able to ramp up their marketing activities, using their wealth of contacts to up-sell and cross-sell services within the parameters of the law.
Mid-sized law firms would struggle to match the investment financial services companies have made in proprietary platforms and teams of data scientists. But that doesn’t mean they can’t close the gap by making use of readily-available software that includes a client portal, app and actionable data analytics.
Law is a knowledge-based and highly-respected profession, with more in common with financial services than sectors like retail. This is why it’s important to free up solicitors from time-consuming transactional tasks – creating client files, time recording and so on – in order to channel their expertise into delivering better outcomes for clients and driving up commercial performance.
