Finding the Right CRM

As director of Davis Malm's marketing department, I strive to meet the needs of all the attorneys, support staff and other employees by proposing solutions that will increase overall efficiency.

Searching for a CRM Solution

One of my most daunting tasks as the firm's first marketing director was how to tap into the attorneys' 'knowledge base' of clients and contacts. To put it simply ' nobody could decipher who knew whom. E-mails would fly around asking if anyone knew an attorney in California, or an employee at ABC Corporation. The e-mails were cumbersome and often sent at the last minute. Each attorney's contacts were essentially islands for which we needed a way to bridge. The conclusion we arrived at was that we needed a CRM (Client Relationship Management) system for the firm.

We began researching CRM software products in 2003. Our firm truly needed a product to centralize our contact database and to improve management of mailings and events. The firm's marketing committee had to be convinced that buying such a product would be worth the time and expense, so I began investigating our options.

Due to security concerns, the firm's IT Director rejected the concept of having a Web-based CRM system where the data was housed online. He wanted to keep our data secured on-site at our office rather than have it reside on a remote server.

Thus, eliminating exclusively Web-based choices, we looked at three products: Apex by Elite, InterAction (now LexisNexis InterAction) by LexisNexis, and ContactEase by Cole Valley Software. Both Apex and InterAction were more complex products than we needed and could afford. ContactEase made the most sense for a firm of our size. It was affordable, intuitive, and would integrate seamlessly with Outlook, making training easier.

After being assured that it would benefit them, as it was tailored to meet their expanding business needs, my marketing committee agreed that ContactEase made the most sense for the firm. Also, the product would be cost-effective with a realizable return on investment. After successfully presenting the 'idea to the management committee, we decided to move ahead with implementing the CRM software. In the end, everyone agreed that ContactEase was the right decision for Davis Malm.

We bought ContactEase in September 2005. Because the marketing and IT departments would be using the system not only to determine client relationships but also to manage mailings, we bought 'full' ContactEase licenses for those personnel. For the attorneys and support staff, we ordered less expensive Outlook-only ContactEase licenses, which allow them to continue working in Outlook in the way they are comfortable, but also to contribute to and access the firm data.

Implementing the CRM

We started our implementation planning in November 2005. At the outset, I gave a presentation to the entire firm about ContactEase. Our attorneys needed to know that there would be no disruption of their work, so we installed the program gradually over time. This measured approach kept the learning curve manageable so our attorneys had time to realize the value of the system in their everyday work. Plus, the fact that they were still using Outlook almost exactly as before made for a smooth transition.

At the same time, the firm had upgraded to Windows 2003 and we ran into an issue when Outlook synched with PDAs, causing duplicate contact entries and cluttering up attorneys' address books. Our IT department discovered a solution, but we had to delay installing ContactEase for several users until this was fixed. This slowed the completion of the ContactEase process since the CRM had to synchronize with Outlook. We were glad, though, that we had done a staged rollout, so the issue did not affect everyone.

With limited marketing resources, CRM installations can take time. We had to collect and clean the contact data, which can be labor-intensive and usually gets pushed to the back burner when other, more pressing matters arise. To date, we still have 20 users to bring on to ContactEase; half of those remaining are attorneys and half are support staff. We estimate that this will finally be done within the next three to five months.

We recently upgraded to Version 9.24, the most current version of ContactEase. Generally, we upgrade every time Cole Valley publishes a new version ' staying current on software is important to communications in our firm and the cost is included in our maintenance (including any services).

Improvements from the CRM

For the marketing department, ContactEase is proving to be a great resource. Our work can be extremely varied, from placing articles in publications to working with a graphic designer creating advertisements. Our staff is small: In addition to myself, I have an assistant whom I 'share' with two other employees.

ContactEase is extremely useful for mass mailings. We can print labels or envelopes directly from ContactEase or export lists into Excel and we can easily upload these to our outsourced e-mail service or a mailing house. Both e-mail and hard copy mailings are completed very quickly.

We are able to track who was on a mailing list for a newsletter from last year ' or from project to project ' so we can ask attorneys whether to include prospects or clients for subsequent mailings.

We use ContactEase's Web interface so attorneys can customize their mailing lists online quickly and easily. Each attorney simply clicks on the link we send him/her to see who received the previous mailing and to update that list directly in a Web browser. We no longer have to print out lists and 'hound' each lawyer individually to select and edit their contact list by hand, a much more painstaking and time-consuming process.

A CRM system can save a lot of time if its advanced capabilities are used. Our biggest time expenditure has always been new attorney announcements, which go out to approximately 4000-5000 names. Now, I simply send the attorney a link instead of a hard copy list, and the information he or she relays is captured by ContactEase. This creates a list for an entire mailing. What formerly took hours to collect is now available at a click of a button. This has saved my department about 20 hours of time per project, which frees up me and my assistant to do more strategic planning and marketing initiatives for the firm.

Attorney Reaction To the CRM

The attorneys are seeing the benefits of the CRM system, primarily in the area of its relationships tracking feature of ContactEase. For example, if a partner is taking a prospective client or referral source out to lunch or attending a meeting, he or she will search the database to find out whether any other attorneys in the firm know the person. This is extremely valuable since attorneys are then better equipped to make the most of the opportunity.

Firm wide, we have noticed a huge advantage to the integration of ContactEase and Outlook. Duplicate contacts are immediately spotted and thus double entry is prevented. Also, we have centralized all of our contacts and can quickly update all addresses and other contact information firm wide, which vastly improves on our old method of maintaining separate, personal Outlook address books.

Additionally, the managing partner and executive team have asked our marketing department to use ContactEase for tracking client development activities. The shareholders want to know what types of ongoing marketing, community service, and outside meetings each attorney is participating in, and about the relationships they are cultivating. Thus, we have been able to use ContactEase for the additional purpose of internally tracking marketing efforts.

Technical Support

Our IT and marketing departments have worked closely with ContactEase's support staff and trainers to ensure a successful implementation. What truly stands out about ContactEase is their fabulous customer service. My assistant and I regularly call for help in customizing the product to suit our specific needs or to fix issues. The Cole Valley staff is very responsive and helpful. I have noticed that my colleagues at other firms who are using other products just do not find that level of customer support. I once called looking to find a solution for a particular issue and ContactEase helped me custom design a feature for no extra charge. The resulting customization, a way to flag individual contacts to print alternate addresses for specific mailings, is a small improvement, but it has made a significant difference in the way our firm uses the product.

Future of CRM at Our Firm

Looking toward the future, we want to integrate more products with ContactEase such as our time and billing software, Elite Enterprise. This will help us to run business intelligence reports about client/revenue numbers.

While we still do not have everyone up and running on ContactEase (the entire process has certainly taken longer than we expected) it is definitely worth the wait because I felt it was best to take our time and implement the program systematically. However, despite the long rollout time, the CRM system has been quite well received and I anticipate we will find many more uses for it in the future.

As director of Davis Malm's marketing department, I strive to meet the needs of all the attorneys, support staff and other employees by proposing solutions that will increase overall efficiency.

Searching for a CRM Solution

One of my most daunting tasks as the firm's first marketing director was how to tap into the attorneys' 'knowledge base' of clients and contacts. To put it simply ' nobody could decipher who knew whom. E-mails would fly around asking if anyone knew an attorney in California, or an employee at ABC Corporation. The e-mails were cumbersome and often sent at the last minute. Each attorney's contacts were essentially islands for which we needed a way to bridge. The conclusion we arrived at was that we needed a CRM (Client Relationship Management) system for the firm.

We began researching CRM software products in 2003. Our firm truly needed a product to centralize our contact database and to improve management of mailings and events. The firm's marketing committee had to be convinced that buying such a product would be worth the time and expense, so I began investigating our options.

Due to security concerns, the firm's IT Director rejected the concept of having a Web-based CRM system where the data was housed online. He wanted to keep our data secured on-site at our office rather than have it reside on a remote server.

Thus, eliminating exclusively Web-based choices, we looked at three products: Apex by Elite, InterAction (now LexisNexis InterAction) by LexisNexis, and ContactEase by Cole Valley Software. Both Apex and InterAction were more complex products than we needed and could afford. ContactEase made the most sense for a firm of our size. It was affordable, intuitive, and would integrate seamlessly with Outlook, making training easier.

After being assured that it would benefit them, as it was tailored to meet their expanding business needs, my marketing committee agreed that ContactEase made the most sense for the firm. Also, the product would be cost-effective with a realizable return on investment. After successfully presenting the 'idea to the management committee, we decided to move ahead with implementing the CRM software. In the end, everyone agreed that ContactEase was the right decision for Davis Malm.

We bought ContactEase in September 2005. Because the marketing and IT departments would be using the system not only to determine client relationships but also to manage mailings, we bought 'full' ContactEase licenses for those personnel. For the attorneys and support staff, we ordered less expensive Outlook-only ContactEase licenses, which allow them to continue working in Outlook in the way they are comfortable, but also to contribute to and access the firm data.

Implementing the CRM

We started our implementation planning in November 2005. At the outset, I gave a presentation to the entire firm about ContactEase. Our attorneys needed to know that there would be no disruption of their work, so we installed the program gradually over time. This measured approach kept the learning curve manageable so our attorneys had time to realize the value of the system in their everyday work. Plus, the fact that they were still using Outlook almost exactly as before made for a smooth transition.

At the same time, the firm had upgraded to Windows 2003 and we ran into an issue when Outlook synched with PDAs, causing duplicate contact entries and cluttering up attorneys' address books. Our IT department discovered a solution, but we had to delay installing ContactEase for several users until this was fixed. This slowed the completion of the ContactEase process since the CRM had to synchronize with Outlook. We were glad, though, that we had done a staged rollout, so the issue did not affect everyone.

With limited marketing resources, CRM installations can take time. We had to collect and clean the contact data, which can be labor-intensive and usually gets pushed to the back burner when other, more pressing matters arise. To date, we still have 20 users to bring on to ContactEase; half of those remaining are attorneys and half are support staff. We estimate that this will finally be done within the next three to five months.

We recently upgraded to Version 9.24, the most current version of ContactEase. Generally, we upgrade every time Cole Valley publishes a new version ' staying current on software is important to communications in our firm and the cost is included in our maintenance (including any services).

Improvements from the CRM

For the marketing department, ContactEase is proving to be a great resource. Our work can be extremely varied, from placing articles in publications to working with a graphic designer creating advertisements. Our staff is small: In addition to myself, I have an assistant whom I 'share' with two other employees.

ContactEase is extremely useful for mass mailings. We can print labels or envelopes directly from ContactEase or export lists into Excel and we can easily upload these to our outsourced e-mail service or a mailing house. Both e-mail and hard copy mailings are completed very quickly.

We are able to track who was on a mailing list for a newsletter from last year ' or from project to project ' so we can ask attorneys whether to include prospects or clients for subsequent mailings.

We use ContactEase's Web interface so attorneys can customize their mailing lists online quickly and easily. Each attorney simply clicks on the link we send him/her to see who received the previous mailing and to update that list directly in a Web browser. We no longer have to print out lists and 'hound' each lawyer individually to select and edit their contact list by hand, a much more painstaking and time-consuming process.

A CRM system can save a lot of time if its advanced capabilities are used. Our biggest time expenditure has always been new attorney announcements, which go out to approximately 4000-5000 names. Now, I simply send the attorney a link instead of a hard copy list, and the information he or she relays is captured by ContactEase. This creates a list for an entire mailing. What formerly took hours to collect is now available at a click of a button. This has saved my department about 20 hours of time per project, which frees up me and my assistant to do more strategic planning and marketing initiatives for the firm.

Attorney Reaction To the CRM

The attorneys are seeing the benefits of the CRM system, primarily in the area of its relationships tracking feature of ContactEase. For example, if a partner is taking a prospective client or referral source out to lunch or attending a meeting, he or she will search the database to find out whether any other attorneys in the firm know the person. This is extremely valuable since attorneys are then better equipped to make the most of the opportunity.

Firm wide, we have noticed a huge advantage to the integration of ContactEase and Outlook. Duplicate contacts are immediately spotted and thus double entry is prevented. Also, we have centralized all of our contacts and can quickly update all addresses and other contact information firm wide, which vastly improves on our old method of maintaining separate, personal Outlook address books.

Additionally, the managing partner and executive team have asked our marketing department to use ContactEase for tracking client development activities. The shareholders want to know what types of ongoing marketing, community service, and outside meetings each attorney is participating in, and about the relationships they are cultivating. Thus, we have been able to use ContactEase for the additional purpose of internally tracking marketing efforts.

Technical Support

Our IT and marketing departments have worked closely with ContactEase's support staff and trainers to ensure a successful implementation. What truly stands out about ContactEase is their fabulous customer service. My assistant and I regularly call for help in customizing the product to suit our specific needs or to fix issues. The Cole Valley staff is very responsive and helpful. I have noticed that my colleagues at other firms who are using other products just do not find that level of customer support. I once called looking to find a solution for a particular issue and ContactEase helped me custom design a feature for no extra charge. The resulting customization, a way to flag individual contacts to print alternate addresses for specific mailings, is a small improvement, but it has made a significant difference in the way our firm uses the product.

Future of CRM at Our Firm

Looking toward the future, we want to integrate more products with ContactEase such as our time and billing software, Elite Enterprise. This will help us to run business intelligence reports about client/revenue numbers.

While we still do not have everyone up and running on ContactEase (the entire process has certainly taken longer than we expected) it is definitely worth the wait because I felt it was best to take our time and implement the program systematically. However, despite the long rollout time, the CRM system has been quite well received and I anticipate we will find many more uses for it in the future.