Have you ever asked yourself why a law firm possibly would need a CRM system?

If you want to find out more about CRM systems, don’t ask Wikipedia. The Wikipedia page for “CRM” says the following:

Customer relationship management (CRM) is an approach to managing a company’s interaction with current and future customers. The CRM approach tries to analyze data about customers history with a company, in order to better improve business relationships with customers, specifically focusing on retaining customers, in order to drive sales growth. One important aspect of the CRM approach is the systems of CRM that compile information from a range of different channels, including a company’s website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials, social media, and more. Through the CRM approach and the systems used to facilitate CRM, businesses learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs.

In very short words: this definition does not apply to CRM systems for IP Lawyers.

There is no value for a law firm to “analyze data about customers history”. There is also no valid reason to “compile information from a range of different channels, including a company’s website, telephone, email, live chat, marketing materials, social media, and more”. And IP lawyers do not need to “learn more about their target audiences and how to best cater to their needs”.

If you don’t understand this then you are not an IP lawyer and you can stop reading my article at this point.

What a CRM system can do for IP lawyers

According to my own experience, CRM is very useful for:

• dealing with enquiries from potential new clients,
• staying in contact with foreign associates before and after an IP lawyer convention, such as INTA, FICPI, AIPLA, etc.
• sending newsletters to existing clients.

And that’s it. This may not look as being much but CRM is a tremendous help.

A useful CRM system will focus on the above mentioned three aspects that are important for IP lawyers.

Here are a few outcomes of using a CRM system for four years:

• We could bring down our average response time for new enquiries to only 4 hours.
• There is never an enquiry forgotten. We follow up new enquiries until we find out whether the potential new client wants our services or not.
• We found out that we typically need five follow-ups after a first enquiry in order to obtain an actual order from a new client.
• Our felt recognition value at large IP conventions has remarkably increased.

What do I need to know about CRM language? How does it look like in practice?

Before you can talk with CRM experts, learn their language.

Typical CRM jargon has only very few technical terms: lead, contact, account, opportunity, sales stage and  campaign.

I am using a CRM system that hase been tailored to the needs of an IP law firm and I have put an article online which explains these terms, here
A CRM PRIMER FOR IP LAWYERS

You will there also find an overview video about the main functions of our CRM system.

More videos about how to use our CRM system will follow soon.