Digital White Papers

I L T A W H I T E P A P E R | K N O W L E D G E M A N A G E M E N T 24 M A K I N G I T I N T O T H E C I R C L E O F T R U S T : H O W M A R K E T I N G A N D B U S I N E S S D E V E L O P M E N T S Y S T E M S C A N H E L P conversations. While formally arranged meetings are key, the informal "I saw you were attending our seminar and thought I'd pop down" can be even more powerful. There's no question that showing a contact that they matter to the firm, when done well, engenders a positive attitude in a client or potential client. However, in reality, in the midst of busy lives, it's easier said than done. This is why it's wise to let client relationship technolo do some of the work. The goal is simply to use technolo in such a way that each contact feels respected by, and important to, the firm. First principles Information gathering should begin as soon as contact is made with the firm and of course there needs to be somewhere to store it. In most cases, of course, will be a client relationship management (CRM) system. Now I know I risk about 75% of readers rolling their eyes and clicking away at this point, but whatever your experience to date – and for the most part it isn't positive – to do any of this without a CRM is hard. The trick is to use automation to take the pain out of CRM and actually make it work. The first barrier to making client relationship technolo work is largely cultural. Despite years of effort, there's still a lingering feeling that it's important to keep what you know about a contact to yourself. Everyone needs to be convinced that it's not "their" data - it's the firm's data. Once the "it's my data" cultural hurdle is cleared, the even bigger hurdle of "it's too much effort" looms. What you really need is a CRM systems which shortcut the drudgery and luckily there are tools that can help with this. For instance, automatic analysis of normal activity in Outlook can provide a pool of potential new contacts. Having an email address is one thing, expecting a user to add all the required information into a CRM system is quite another. That's why your system needs to have automated processes which augment the information without requiring the user to do anything except confirm that the contact should be in the CRM. Some contacts may not originate from a relationship. For example, if the contact fills in a form on the website to get some gated content, this is the start of a potential relationship. Again, it's important that the record gets into the database, so the form should flow directly into the CRM. Assuming you're not using something like Hubspot with a built in CRM, tight integration between a website form and the CRM system is essential. Starting the journey Once a contact has made its way into the CRM system, additional data can be gathered and this can prove incredibly useful when meeting with a contact to provide context and relevance. The types of information it's possible to gather and record include web pages visited, content downloaded, emails received or opened, links clicked on, invites sent and events that were accepted, attended or not attended. Typically firms struggle to make use of information at the point where it's going to matter to the client. Yet, if this type of information can be made available to individuals within the firm who are going to speak with the contact, the conversation can become much more productive. "Hello, what brings you here today?" becomes: "Hello, how did you enjoy our seminar on Single Tariff Pricing last week?" This type of interaction, fostered by marketing level insight, helps with the overall perception of the individual talking to the contact. It allows them to show relevance, immediacy and gives the impression of an efficient firm. However, delivery of the information also matters. Letting a contact know that they've been "stalked" through their digital interactions with the firm doesn't give a good impression, using the data to inform a conversation does. Deepening the relationship Relationships then develop based on personal interaction. The first challenge is to make sure meetings take place. These may be formal or informal, but either way it's important to be well briefed ahead of time. If a contact is showing increased interest in the firm, and they've attended firm events, adding this information into the CRM system is a good first step; particularly if this can be automatically presented to an individual prior to a meeting. The firm should also proactively notify employees if one of their contacts is coming to an event. The employee can then go to the event with the specific

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