Using Old Communications Technology May Cost More Than It's Saving

Anyone who has spent any time with someone who grew up during the Great Depression knows how an event like that can color people's thinking. When you give them a gift, they unwrap it carefully, then fold the wrapping paper so they can reuse it. If their ready-to-assemble furniture has extra screws in the bag, they throw them into a jar full of screws they will probably never touch again. Most importantly, they don't buy something new, especially something expensive such as a television or a car, until the old one is no longer usable.

That kind of thinking has come back into vogue in the corporate world in the past few years. As the economy continues to flounder, CEOs and CFOs in law firms are often reluctant to replace technologies they believe are working fine. Yet, what they may not realize is while they are saving some upfront costs, ultimately they could be saving pennies to lose dollars, relatively speaking.

This is certainly true in the world of telecommunications, which these days includes not only basic point-to-point phone service but also videoconferencing, conference calls, find me/follow me capabilities, call routing, call centers and more. As technologies became available, many firms added them piecemeal, without an overall communications technology strategy.

As a result, their IT and/or telecom departments are still trying to manage all those disparate pieces of the infrastructure ' and the multiple service provider contracts that go with them ' internally. That's a problem for IT departments that are already stretched very thin, with 9% annual turnover in staff and staffing levels down by 30% or more since the current recession began.

It's also a problem for the law firm when the technology doesn't work as it should ' which is to say seamlessly. Today, every billable dollar counts, which means legal firms cannot afford to be unreachable to their clients, principals, material witnesses, industry experts, or internal subject matter experts. That's why, despite how things may seem on the surface, it makes financial sense for law firms to break that “Depression mentality” and move away from internal hardware into a hosted, cloud-based unified communications infrastructure in order to save money.

Cloud-based unified communications deliver advanced communications and collaboration services while driving down costs and increasing flexibility and efficiency. Since the management of these necessary but commodity services is handled by an outside managed services provider, internal IT resources are free to focus on higher-value applications, such as document management and the myriad law-specific apps available today, which deliver a real competitive advantage.

Here are some of the ways a hosted, cloud-based telecom infrastructure can help law firms improve their ability to generate revenue and serve their clients while remaining fiscally responsible.

No Need to Rip and Replace the Entire Infrastructure

With a traditional telecom system, moving to new, more feature-laden technology means making a large investment in hardware and resources to install it. That can be tough for a CFO keeping a close eye on the bottom line to swallow, so attorneys and staff members are forced to make do with what they have ' even if it really doesn't reflect the realities of the way they must work today.

Hosted, cloud-based, unified communications eliminate or at least greatly reduce the upfront cost (depending on whether the current Internet Protocol (“IP”) network is capable of handling an increase in data, voice and video traffic). In many cases, law firms can even continue to use much of the legacy hardware they already have, such as phones, routers and switches, while the back-end technology is managed off-site. That's the whole point of the cloud ' to shift the location of the hardware and its management to a service provider that is 100% percent focused on these services. Law firms negotiate a service contract and then pay as they consume services, a model that is much easier for even the most frugal organization to stomach. And once they have it in place, it opens up a whole other world of possibilities, such as the following.

Greater Mobility

The current communications hardware and services at many law firms, particularly those using Private Branch Exchange (“PBX”) phone systems, were brought into the enterprise a decade or more ago. That infrastructure is ill-suited for today's legal environment, where the increasingly mobile nature of the industry and increased demands for client access (especially outside normal business hours) make the next generation of unified communications solutions so critical.

With the cloud, legal professionals now have access to a powerful set of personal call management tools, “hoteling” capabilities that enable them to work virtually (and securely) from any location that has Internet access. With personal conferencing solutions, they can hold online meetings with clients and colleagues using an array of collaboration tools, replacing face-to-face meetings with real-time interactive voice and augmented visual communications. Simple-to-use desktop tools help them manage calls, e-mail and messaging through a single interface. And powerful mobility tools simplify client access to attorneys and other professionals.

The downside of adding all these capabilities is that the back end is exponentially more difficult to manage than a simple PBX phone system. More moving parts, and more vendors to deal with, means more can go wrong. And even if everything is going right, there are still upgrades and patches to deal with, user configuration issues and more.

With a cloud-based approach, resource-challenged IT staffs can shift the burden of managing all that communications capability to a partner that is focused on this area and already has a staff of experts who understand the technology intimately and have time to keep up with the constant changes. This approach accomplishes three goals.

First, it ensures that the law firm staff is able to remain better-connected with clients, partners and even legal government agencies since the hosted solution provider is watching the telecommunications technology all the time ' not just in-between other, more pressing tasks. It gives teeth to the promise of “always-available” service on the part of the legal firm while helping to capture more billable hours.

Second, it frees the IT department to focus on applications such as Office 365 and SharePoint that are stretching their teams to the limit already. They don't have to learn new telecommunications technology to provide users with greater mobility, and they don't have to keep up with it as it evolves. The users win on both counts as a result.

Finally, as cloud-based telecommunications continues to gain popularity, the cost goes down ' which is the opposite of using a hardware-based approach.

Easier Access to Videoconferencing

In recent years, videoconferencing has grown in popularity among law firms ' especially those with offices spread across a state or country. It can be used to depose clients, communicate more efficiently with a firm's subject matter experts in other offices, or bring in outside experts to provide insights. Some courts are even requiring it for certain hearings or testimony in the courtroom to try to alleviate the case overload they are facing.

One major factor that has been holding it back from even more ubiquitous use, however, has been the cost. Standard telecom providers are charging a premium for using videoconferencing, and the cost of equipment and upkeep has been enough to make firms think twice.

Cloud-based unified communications overcome these barriers. The data costs are covered under the law firm's standard bandwidth use rather than as a separate, premium charge. As far as the equipment goes, on the front end people can use the video capabilities built into most laptops these days, or purchase a simple camera to connect into the standard network. On the back end, the hosting provider manages everything, making it as close to true plug-and-play as you can get.

Track and Manage Calls More Effectively

The nature of billing in law firms is evolving today, and telecommunications has to evolve with it. Whether law firms are operating on a retainer basis or by the hour, cloud-based unified communications services enable them to identify costs more comprehensively, quickly and accurately than ever before, which in turn allows them to be billed more precisely.

One of the great advances is the ability to provide a high level of detail for each call by assigning “matter codes” to them. With a matter code, the law firm can identify the caller, topic, length, and whether the call was billable. In addition, calls that may shed light on a discrepancy in a case are easier to track down and review since reporting for call recordings is also detailed.

With cloud-based unified communications, it is now much easier for legal professionals to initiate calls regardless of location. Since the calls are recorded and easily retrieved for reference, they can focus on the basis for the call instead of scribbling notes. These calls can also be appended to a client file, which helps capture client-specific data more efficiently. In addition, the legal team is in a better position to manage risk since the recordings will help avoid the “he said/she said” scenarios that can result from misinterpreted transcripts of conversations.

One other way cloud-based unified communications help law firms manage calls is by coping with spikes in call volume.

Call volume ramps up quickly for many firms during tax season, or after a broadcast or print advertisement. By moving to the cloud, law firms don't have to hire extra staff and/or install additional phone lines to manage the sudden increase. Instead, a cloud-based solution enables them to scale their call center tools as-needed, giving firms their best opportunity to capture revenue that may have been missed if an internal call center wasn't adequately staffed to handle volume increases around these types of events.

Increased Security

Say the word “cloud” to any IT professional and the first barrier thrown up is security. While that may be a concern for cloud storage, it is actually not the case with cloud-based unified communications. The reason is nothing is stored in unified communications ' it is a real-time communications channel ' so there is nothing available to be accessed by unauthorized parties.

Beyond this basic fact, hosted service providers generally deploy leading, sophisticated network security tools that many firms might find too expensive or difficult to manage entirely on their own. In reality, it is in their own best interest to do so, because any breach of security would reflect badly on the hosted provider, most likely resulting in a loss of current and future business.

This is not to say that the security profiles of all hosted providers are the same. Law firms should look for those that provide proactive network monitoring and customer support through a Network Operations Center (“NOC”) at all times.

The hosted provider should also provide security tools that protect a law firm's wide area network (“WAN”) infrastructure, and sensitive client materials and communications. Managed firewall, spam filtering, virus and spyware protection, Web content filtering and monitoring, and virtual private networking (“VPN”) are all now available through cloud services. Checking for SAS-70 and PCI-compliant certifications can help a law firm determine the security capabilities of a cloud provider in order to make a better-informed decision.

Finally, to ensure the availability required in today's world, the hosted provider's services will typically be built on a redundant and geographically diverse network security infrastructure ' one that is designed to eliminate the single points of failure that can occur when going with a sole-source Tier-1 provider. Since cloud providers are not reliant on one centralized facility, they can provide the business continuity and disaster recovery protocols necessary to ensure seamless call management and connectivity should a natural disaster or other high-impact event, such as a power outage, occur.

Be sure to ask for examples of these protocols and references from customers who have had to rely on these services in the past to determine how quickly a cloud provider responds to these critical events. After all, a natural disaster can result in a lost revenue opportunity if potential clients seeking legal counsel are unable to reach your firm during such a crisis.

Simplified Management of Resources

With an internal telecommunications infrastructure, the IT department at the law firm has to manage multiple contracts with multiple providers. This can be difficult under the best of circumstances.

If there is a problem, however, that's often when the finger-pointing starts. It can take hours, maybe even a few days, to track down exactly where the problem is and whose responsibility it is to fix it. In the meantime, billable hours are being lost and client service is suffering.

With a hosted, cloud-based infrastructure, there is only one provider, and that provider is responsible for everything. In most cases, if there is an issue it will be the provider notifying the law firm, and not the other way around. If the firm notices the issue first, one call is all it takes to begin the resolution process ' no matter what the actual root cause of the issue is. Problems are resolved quickly and completely, with a minimum of interruption.

Obviously, having one provider for all forms of telecommunications also simplifies the billing and payment process. Should any questions or discrepancies occur, again they can be resolved with a single phone call rather than multiple calls that waste time.

While it is important to use working capital wisely, especially in the current economy, you have to be careful not to let Depression-era thinking get in the way of a good business decision. There are times when it makes more sense to replace a system that is still working adequately with one that delivers greater benefits.

Moving to a hosted, cloud-based solution will provide better, more reliable and more feature-reach telecom service than an outdated in-house system, helping your firm operate more efficiently and capture additional billable dollars. It also allows law firms to use their IT resources more intelligently, i.e., on initiatives that provide a competitive advantage. Dollar for dollar, it's a decision that makes sense.

James Whitemore is executive vice president of Smoothstone IP Communications, a provider of cloud-based communications for law firms (http://www.smoothstone.com/). He can be reached at [email protected].

Anyone who has spent any time with someone who grew up during the Great Depression knows how an event like that can color people's thinking. When you give them a gift, they unwrap it carefully, then fold the wrapping paper so they can reuse it. If their ready-to-assemble furniture has extra screws in the bag, they throw them into a jar full of screws they will probably never touch again. Most importantly, they don't buy something new, especially something expensive such as a television or a car, until the old one is no longer usable.

That kind of thinking has come back into vogue in the corporate world in the past few years. As the economy continues to flounder, CEOs and CFOs in law firms are often reluctant to replace technologies they believe are working fine. Yet, what they may not realize is while they are saving some upfront costs, ultimately they could be saving pennies to lose dollars, relatively speaking.

This is certainly true in the world of telecommunications, which these days includes not only basic point-to-point phone service but also videoconferencing, conference calls, find me/follow me capabilities, call routing, call centers and more. As technologies became available, many firms added them piecemeal, without an overall communications technology strategy.

As a result, their IT and/or telecom departments are still trying to manage all those disparate pieces of the infrastructure ' and the multiple service provider contracts that go with them ' internally. That's a problem for IT departments that are already stretched very thin, with 9% annual turnover in staff and staffing levels down by 30% or more since the current recession began.

It's also a problem for the law firm when the technology doesn't work as it should ' which is to say seamlessly. Today, every billable dollar counts, which means legal firms cannot afford to be unreachable to their clients, principals, material witnesses, industry experts, or internal subject matter experts. That's why, despite how things may seem on the surface, it makes financial sense for law firms to break that “Depression mentality” and move away from internal hardware into a hosted, cloud-based unified communications infrastructure in order to save money.

Cloud-based unified communications deliver advanced communications and collaboration services while driving down costs and increasing flexibility and efficiency. Since the management of these necessary but commodity services is handled by an outside managed services provider, internal IT resources are free to focus on higher-value applications, such as document management and the myriad law-specific apps available today, which deliver a real competitive advantage.

Here are some of the ways a hosted, cloud-based telecom infrastructure can help law firms improve their ability to generate revenue and serve their clients while remaining fiscally responsible.

No Need to Rip and Replace the Entire Infrastructure

With a traditional telecom system, moving to new, more feature-laden technology means making a large investment in hardware and resources to install it. That can be tough for a CFO keeping a close eye on the bottom line to swallow, so attorneys and staff members are forced to make do with what they have ' even if it really doesn't reflect the realities of the way they must work today.

Hosted, cloud-based, unified communications eliminate or at least greatly reduce the upfront cost (depending on whether the current Internet Protocol (“IP”) network is capable of handling an increase in data, voice and video traffic). In many cases, law firms can even continue to use much of the legacy hardware they already have, such as phones, routers and switches, while the back-end technology is managed off-site. That's the whole point of the cloud ' to shift the location of the hardware and its management to a service provider that is 100% percent focused on these services. Law firms negotiate a service contract and then pay as they consume services, a model that is much easier for even the most frugal organization to stomach. And once they have it in place, it opens up a whole other world of possibilities, such as the following.

Greater Mobility

The current communications hardware and services at many law firms, particularly those using Private Branch Exchange (“PBX”) phone systems, were brought into the enterprise a decade or more ago. That infrastructure is ill-suited for today's legal environment, where the increasingly mobile nature of the industry and increased demands for client access (especially outside normal business hours) make the next generation of unified communications solutions so critical.

With the cloud, legal professionals now have access to a powerful set of personal call management tools, “hoteling” capabilities that enable them to work virtually (and securely) from any location that has Internet access. With personal conferencing solutions, they can hold online meetings with clients and colleagues using an array of collaboration tools, replacing face-to-face meetings with real-time interactive voice and augmented visual communications. Simple-to-use desktop tools help them manage calls, e-mail and messaging through a single interface. And powerful mobility tools simplify client access to attorneys and other professionals.

The downside of adding all these capabilities is that the back end is exponentially more difficult to manage than a simple PBX phone system. More moving parts, and more vendors to deal with, means more can go wrong. And even if everything is going right, there are still upgrades and patches to deal with, user configuration issues and more.

With a cloud-based approach, resource-challenged IT staffs can shift the burden of managing all that communications capability to a partner that is focused on this area and already has a staff of experts who understand the technology intimately and have time to keep up with the constant changes. This approach accomplishes three goals.

First, it ensures that the law firm staff is able to remain better-connected with clients, partners and even legal government agencies since the hosted solution provider is watching the telecommunications technology all the time ' not just in-between other, more pressing tasks. It gives teeth to the promise of “always-available” service on the part of the legal firm while helping to capture more billable hours.

Second, it frees the IT department to focus on applications such as Office 365 and SharePoint that are stretching their teams to the limit already. They don't have to learn new telecommunications technology to provide users with greater mobility, and they don't have to keep up with it as it evolves. The users win on both counts as a result.

Finally, as cloud-based telecommunications continues to gain popularity, the cost goes down ' which is the opposite of using a hardware-based approach.

Easier Access to Videoconferencing

In recent years, videoconferencing has grown in popularity among law firms ' especially those with offices spread across a state or country. It can be used to depose clients, communicate more efficiently with a firm's subject matter experts in other offices, or bring in outside experts to provide insights. Some courts are even requiring it for certain hearings or testimony in the courtroom to try to alleviate the case overload they are facing.

One major factor that has been holding it back from even more ubiquitous use, however, has been the cost. Standard telecom providers are charging a premium for using videoconferencing, and the cost of equipment and upkeep has been enough to make firms think twice.

Cloud-based unified communications overcome these barriers. The data costs are covered under the law firm's standard bandwidth use rather than as a separate, premium charge. As far as the equipment goes, on the front end people can use the video capabilities built into most laptops these days, or purchase a simple camera to connect into the standard network. On the back end, the hosting provider manages everything, making it as close to true plug-and-play as you can get.

Track and Manage Calls More Effectively

The nature of billing in law firms is evolving today, and telecommunications has to evolve with it. Whether law firms are operating on a retainer basis or by the hour, cloud-based unified communications services enable them to identify costs more comprehensively, quickly and accurately than ever before, which in turn allows them to be billed more precisely.

One of the great advances is the ability to provide a high level of detail for each call by assigning “matter codes” to them. With a matter code, the law firm can identify the caller, topic, length, and whether the call was billable. In addition, calls that may shed light on a discrepancy in a case are easier to track down and review since reporting for call recordings is also detailed.

With cloud-based unified communications, it is now much easier for legal professionals to initiate calls regardless of location. Since the calls are recorded and easily retrieved for reference, they can focus on the basis for the call instead of scribbling notes. These calls can also be appended to a client file, which helps capture client-specific data more efficiently. In addition, the legal team is in a better position to manage risk since the recordings will help avoid the “he said/she said” scenarios that can result from misinterpreted transcripts of conversations.

One other way cloud-based unified communications help law firms manage calls is by coping with spikes in call volume.

Call volume ramps up quickly for many firms during tax season, or after a broadcast or print advertisement. By moving to the cloud, law firms don't have to hire extra staff and/or install additional phone lines to manage the sudden increase. Instead, a cloud-based solution enables them to scale their call center tools as-needed, giving firms their best opportunity to capture revenue that may have been missed if an internal call center wasn't adequately staffed to handle volume increases around these types of events.

Increased Security

Say the word “cloud” to any IT professional and the first barrier thrown up is security. While that may be a concern for cloud storage, it is actually not the case with cloud-based unified communications. The reason is nothing is stored in unified communications ' it is a real-time communications channel ' so there is nothing available to be accessed by unauthorized parties.

Beyond this basic fact, hosted service providers generally deploy leading, sophisticated network security tools that many firms might find too expensive or difficult to manage entirely on their own. In reality, it is in their own best interest to do so, because any breach of security would reflect badly on the hosted provider, most likely resulting in a loss of current and future business.

This is not to say that the security profiles of all hosted providers are the same. Law firms should look for those that provide proactive network monitoring and customer support through a Network Operations Center (“NOC”) at all times.

The hosted provider should also provide security tools that protect a law firm's wide area network (“WAN”) infrastructure, and sensitive client materials and communications. Managed firewall, spam filtering, virus and spyware protection, Web content filtering and monitoring, and virtual private networking (“VPN”) are all now available through cloud services. Checking for SAS-70 and PCI-compliant certifications can help a law firm determine the security capabilities of a cloud provider in order to make a better-informed decision.

Finally, to ensure the availability required in today's world, the hosted provider's services will typically be built on a redundant and geographically diverse network security infrastructure ' one that is designed to eliminate the single points of failure that can occur when going with a sole-source Tier-1 provider. Since cloud providers are not reliant on one centralized facility, they can provide the business continuity and disaster recovery protocols necessary to ensure seamless call management and connectivity should a natural disaster or other high-impact event, such as a power outage, occur.

Be sure to ask for examples of these protocols and references from customers who have had to rely on these services in the past to determine how quickly a cloud provider responds to these critical events. After all, a natural disaster can result in a lost revenue opportunity if potential clients seeking legal counsel are unable to reach your firm during such a crisis.

Simplified Management of Resources

With an internal telecommunications infrastructure, the IT department at the law firm has to manage multiple contracts with multiple providers. This can be difficult under the best of circumstances.

If there is a problem, however, that's often when the finger-pointing starts. It can take hours, maybe even a few days, to track down exactly where the problem is and whose responsibility it is to fix it. In the meantime, billable hours are being lost and client service is suffering.

With a hosted, cloud-based infrastructure, there is only one provider, and that provider is responsible for everything. In most cases, if there is an issue it will be the provider notifying the law firm, and not the other way around. If the firm notices the issue first, one call is all it takes to begin the resolution process ' no matter what the actual root cause of the issue is. Problems are resolved quickly and completely, with a minimum of interruption.

Obviously, having one provider for all forms of telecommunications also simplifies the billing and payment process. Should any questions or discrepancies occur, again they can be resolved with a single phone call rather than multiple calls that waste time.

While it is important to use working capital wisely, especially in the current economy, you have to be careful not to let Depression-era thinking get in the way of a good business decision. There are times when it makes more sense to replace a system that is still working adequately with one that delivers greater benefits.

Moving to a hosted, cloud-based solution will provide better, more reliable and more feature-reach telecom service than an outdated in-house system, helping your firm operate more efficiently and capture additional billable dollars. It also allows law firms to use their IT resources more intelligently, i.e., on initiatives that provide a competitive advantage. Dollar for dollar, it's a decision that makes sense.

James Whitemore is executive vice president of Smoothstone IP Communications, a provider of cloud-based communications for law firms (http://www.smoothstone.com/). He can be reached at [email protected].