Digital White Papers

24 WWW.ILTANET.ORG | ILTA WHITE PAPER MARKETING AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT The Motivation To Adopt CRM Where Is the Sense of Urgency? With proof it is possible to unlock the desired future CRM adoption can produce, why is adoption still so low aer CRM systems have been around for decades? This chart illustrates a variety of reasons lawyers do not use CRMs. Upon closer examination, low usage rates come down to two reasons: » Motivation, which is covered by "lack of accountability" » Difficulty, which is covered by everything else In the past, law firms could chalk up low usage to cumbersome data entry and complicated technology. This made it easy to ignore the elephant in the room: motivation. A partner could rationalize continued low CRM usage by saying, "Even if we take steps to address a compensation system that discourages lawyers from using the CRM, they still will not use it because it is more trouble than it is worth." There used to be merit in this statement but no longer. Now that firms can solve all aspects of the "difficulty" side of the CRM usage equation with customer relationship automation tools, the only thing le to solve is motivation. How To Address Motivation "Lawyers love to see precedent," says John Remsen, Jr., President and CEO of The Remsen Group. "A lawyer in Cleveland will say, 'Prove to me CRM works!' You can say, 'Well, here's what our Cincinnati office did with CRM. They took a team approach to winning this big client. Joe had a part. Bill had a part. Sally had a part. And they were all willing to make it happen.' And the lawyer will begin to get it." In lieu of internal precedent, lawyers can be exposed to the success stories of other firms, creating a culture shi snowball effect in the legal sector. In other words, if you do not want to address motivation, just wait long enough and it will address itself. We are already seeing a gradual shi away from the "What's in my column is in my column. I win, you lose" mentality, as Remsen puts it. This shi will only accelerate once law firms realize the full extent to which a team-oriented environment that rewards intelligence- sharing is positioned to expand business and pilfer clients. Conversely, it is hard to imagine a scenario where a law firm changes nothing yet achieves sustainable growth while competing against data-empowered partners, lawyers, marketers and business developers. ILTA REPORTED REASONS FOR LOW CRM USAGE RATES 76% LACK OF ACCOUNTABILITY FOR USE BY LAWYERS 64% GENERAL LACK OF TECHNOLOGICAL PROFICIENCY 44% HIGH LEVEL OF DATA ENTRY 36% COMPLICATED INTERFACES

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