Exizent: British Wills & Probate Awards: Solutions to key client concerns in Wills & Probate
For this week’s Judge’s Insights, Exizent are joined by Ian Bond, Director and Head of Wills & Estates at Thursfields Solicitors, as he discusses the greatest transformation in the industry now, the trends in changing client expectations and more.
In last year’s Judges’ Insights, you said that embracing technology was the greatest industry shift you’d observed to date. What technology do you see as most transformative within the Wills & Probate sector now?
One of the things I think we’ve gotten a lot better at in recent years is customer onboarding, providing the ability for customers to self-serve at this point so that we can spend more time on the tasks that add value to the legal service we provide them.
By reducing the need for professionals to input data like contact details into systems at the beginning of a matter, means when we actually have contact with customers, we can spend the time having a real conversation about their needs rather than spending 15 minutes taking photocopies of their passport and driver’s license before filling out forms with them. Now we can say “that’s all taken care of, let’s go straight in”.
The majority of our customers have been happy to embrace this process so they can hit the ground running. That’s the biggest transformation for me.
In your opinion, what are the top 3 benefits firms can get from technology that they should be focused on?
There are 3 parties that benefit from technology – our customers, us as a business, and our staff. Everyone will agree that the pandemic was the great leap forward because it showed us that we can do things differently, which galvanised customers who are now the lead on this.
Since the pandemic we’ve gotten increased traffic through our website, increased exposure of our business and, because of these things, we’ve able been able to introduce the use of apps and portals into our service offerings, which customers have been happy to engage with. I had a new customer last week, based in Maidstone, who wanted me to do some work for them. Based over 100 miles away, they’re never going to see me face-to-face, but, thanks to the drive towards new tech, I can now take their instructions digitally and do the work. Allowing customers to self-serve and do the tedious tasks beforehand so that they get the most out of me as a legal specialist proves how technology enables better customer service.
Technology has also allowed for a huge amount of collaboration. We have 5 offices and multiple teams spread across those offices and can get in contact each day over platforms like Microsoft Teams and have more communication, because we’re not having to spend time arranging when and where to meet. Plus, we’re able to have contact with our IT team and other critical business functions very straightforwardly, which means they can pick up any bugs or issues as they come in and respond instantly, to the benefit of the business.
Not requiring the traditional 9-5 structure is also great from a business and employee perspective because it allows for more flexibility. We’ve had people more geographically distant from us applying to work for us because people can now do more hours, flexibly around their own lifestyles. That’s been a great thing for staff.
In the future, do you see legal professionals moving completely away from the traditional processes and communications in favour of a digital approach?
I certainly hope so. As technology and society moves forward, we will utilise more technology and step away from letters. I think we’ve already moved away from letters and onto emails and I think we will eventually move away from emails to more on-demand communications like portals, live webchat and instant messaging. Websites where customers can log on and applications that they can download, where’ll they’ll be able to say, ‘how’s my transaction going’ or ‘is my draft here’ and see it straightaway and download it to read at their own leisure.
But we can only go as fast as customers allow. There’s always going to be some without smartphones or access to emails, so you’ve still got offer the traditional methods, but that’s getting fewer and fewer – certainly with things like onboarding. Many customers are now happy, even if they don’t have a mobile phone, to ask a carer or family member to pass on information to us digitally rather than saying ‘no I can’t’.
Last year, you shared concerns about lawyers retreating to old ways of working post-COVID, has this been the case?
I’ve seen lawyers wear two caps here. There are those who have completely and utterly embraced the leap forward, who’ve said ‘that’s it, we’re not going back, we don’t have to have everybody in the office every day, and we don’t have to work in the old ways with customers’. Customers are now happy to engage in lots of different ways, so why shouldn’t they have a quick chat over Teams to get information across? Why do we have to put an appointment in the diary for 3 weeks’ time to sit in the office when we can conduct a Teams meeting sooner?
There’s also firms that have retreated so quickly back to the traditional methods saying ‘no, it is back in the office, face to face, using letters and all the things that go with it’. There is a place for that but it’s not all day every day.
I’d be amazed if it’s not those that have embraced technology that will become the norm, but I think in the near future there will still be those few who continue to operate more traditionally who believe that the old ways are the best ways. It’s sometimes hard to embrace technology when they’ve been doing things the same way for 35 years, but it means that if you contact them for information, you can wait weeks for a response because they can’t just scan the information and email it across because they don’t have the capability.
There will also still be people that want that old fashioned service – mainly generations that didn’t grow up with computers. But as society moves forward technology will become more a part of everyday life. My phone does everything for me. I can book taxis, get food deliveries, even book holidays and I want my legal services done the same way. I don’t think consumers would accept that everything can be done with technology except for legal services.
Research tells us that consumer experiences of estate administration are getting worse. In your experience, what areas do consumers struggle with most and what can solicitors do to help?
For the client it’s the length of time the process takes and the fact that you can’t do everything in one go because you can’t close down bank accounts until you’ve got a grant of probate, you can’t get a grant of probate until you’ve got the balances and so on, where you’d actually like to say ‘can’t we do all of this in one go and concentrate on grieving?’
There have been great leaps forward in recent years. HMCTS have allowed laypeople to do their own obtaining grants of probate and that’s fantastic. But consumers don’t see the frustrations we as practitioners have after this, to which is saying ‘in order to complete this information you’ve got to have all the information from financial institutions, building societies etc’ which is the part that’s poor and time-intensive because you can only progress as fast as the slowest institution. If you’ve got 10 banks to deal with and 9 respond within 48 hours but 1 takes 4 weeks to provide the full set of data you can’t progress.
There are banks and building societies doing really well, but there are also those that haven’t put technology in place and don’t use any death notification services to help speed up the process, which means as a practitioner needing information you have to contact the centre, produce their forms and wait for a response often via post. A lot of them believe there is no commercial sense in putting lots of resource into a good bereavement department because the account will soon be closed so it’s a lost opportunity for them. If you phone up those institutions wanting to open a bank account you’ll get straight through but ask to talk to bereavement services and you can sit on hold for an hour. If I had my magic wand, I’d make sure that they all did a better job because they make an already difficult time a lot more stressful for the bereaved.
What pitfalls do you see in how financial and legal services work together to handle bereavement cases?
Over a decade ago, The Law Society, STEP, Solicitors for the Elderly and some leading charities, sat down with the British Banks Association and produced a guide for the legal and financial industries around managing estate administration. Being 10 years old, it was all about letters and sending physical documents and it desperately needs updating.
The British Banks Association and the Building Societies Association are now part of UK Finance and UK Finance, despite lots requests, have yet to put new guidance in place that will help everybody administering estates agree on up-to-date industry-wide protocols like using portals and digital communications to speed up bereavement cases.
Some banks already use digital sources well and have been on the death notification service for years, but others don’t which doesn’t help because if one bank can respond to you within 48 hours but the next takes 4 weeks then that 48-hour response time accounts for nothing. We need the whole industry to raise their standards and UK Finance could really set the standard across the financial sector.
Research tells us that a vast majority of firms are currently under-resourced. What challenges does this pose and how can these risks be overcome?
I would agree with this. I’ve been in the industry for 20 years and I’ve never seen it so busy. The pandemic has made people realise that they’ve got to put their affairs in order because over 200,000 people passed away more than expected and it’s touched everybody.
The difficulty is that we can’t get enough staff so sadly we’re having to turn down work because we won’t be able to deliver it at the standard we want. The worry is that if people see a demand for will writing, individuals will come into the sector and set themselves up who won’t be at the right standard which means the public won’t know good from bad. There’s so much demand that there’s the propensity for cutting corners or for people coming in just to make a quick fast buck. I’ve seen solicitors in other disciplines and professionals in other industries say ‘I could dabble into writing wills’ but we don’t want people dabbling. The risk is that standards will drop and consumers won’t get the best service.
Technology like CMS’s can help with this lack of resource but all firms that embrace technology have got to make sure that staff that will use it are adequately trained because if not, they’re not going to get the best out of it. Technology is a solution, but it comes with the need for training and while it starts slowly the benefits soon kick in.
What are you most looking forward to at this year’s British Wills & Probate Awards?
I’m really looking forward to having Jennie Bond there again. She’s always been very witty and insightful and, with the Queen sadly passing and her spending years as royal correspondent, I think this year there’s going to be some lovely stories about the Queen. So, I’m looking forward to what she’s got to say because I think it could be a tad emotional but also hugely uplifting.
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