In-House Survey Suggests Best Practices for Vendors

“Their pricing is not competitive.” vs. “More expensive, but cost competitive.”

As one would anticipate, there were a number of comments about pricing, which has become a significant issue given the cost pressure of certain important elements in e-discovery. While corporate law departments still recognize great service, productive processes and innovative strategies, it is essential for outside providers to evaluate how their teams highlight those characteristics beyond the underlying costs.

Cultivating deeper relationships with corporate counsel, and demonstrating a broad understanding of their core business and noteworthy challenges, is often the difference between a judgment that reflects a lack of competitive pricing as opposed to one that simply characterizes what you offer as expensive (which is not necessarily a negative observation).

Year after year, my research shows that defensibility and efficiency, among other elements, trump cost in many engagements. If your team can highlight the other elements of the relationship and can exceed expectations set at the outset, it will remain both competitive and admired.

Key strategies that are proving successful include:

• Establishing a strategic plan.
• Setting realistic milestones.
• Conducting thorough interviews with both the client ' to properly gauge the scope of the matter ' and with your internal team to confirm its ability to adhere to a defined plan.

Performance

“Performance was more than adequate.” and “Work with them; they are fine. Nothing discerning about them.” vs. “Really have smart good people; every time we have worked with them, we have been very happy as has outside counsel.”

There is an interesting distinction here. The survey respondents were satisfied with the results, but only one expanded on the remark with an overwhelmingly positive viewpoint. Naturally, your goal is to achieve a relationship that results in the latter. It is a subtle difference, but the in-house legal community is fairly small and highly collegial so given the vast array of options available, it is essential for companies to foster a strong network of champions.

Some of the strategies that seem to prove successful relate to finding ways to stay connected on both a personal and professional level with client contacts. Also, periodically follow up to learn more about the organization's progress.

Key strategies that are proving successful include:

• Asking for feedback and then applying it to improve or enhance how your organization interacts with clients.
• Attributing improvement to the suggestions you received.
• Acknowledgment is an incredibly powerful tool in strengthening relationships and in helping to influence how individuals describe your products or services.

Reputation

“Have heard they are not doing so well; used to be really good.” vs. “Known for customer service; they're very good on quality customer satisfaction and relationships; multiple locations; good project management skills.”

In both cases, the individuals commenting may not have worked directly with these vendors and may even be speaking about the same company. Regardless, they have opposing impressions of the company's past and present performance.

Try to determine the origin of this criticism. Engage your existing customers in informal conversations to identify the source of potentially unflattering observations. It is difficult for an organization to counter damaging remarks years after they surface. And, over time, they become reality to potential customers, irrespective of their veracity.

Key strategies that are proving successful include:

• Routinely conducting client and industry surveys, or incorporating client perspectives into white papers, industry overviews, and bylined articles to proliferate positive impressions.
• Offering periodic newsletters with substantive guidance and tips, or webinars and tele-seminars that provide details on best practices.

Often, simply notifying individuals of a webinar or the release of a white paper with a title that directly addresses your overall message can create a perception in itself without attendance at the webinar or review of the written work. Also, soliciting client concerns can help prevent results like this one: “[The vendor] was a finalist in the company's RFP process. It promised the moon, but follow-up customer interviews did not support that.”

In addition, almost as crucial as cost competitiveness, performance metrics, and a solid reputation, is an organization's ability to combat commoditization confusion. While many vendors solve the same or similar problems, they often do so with distinction. It is that unique approach that teams must highlight in their public and private conversations to avoid assertions like: “Most of the e-discovery vendors are fungible.”

Instead, provide comprehensive comparisons of different competitors and detail your team's customized approach, including strategic distinctions. That will typically result in remarks such as: “I know they can give me the answer to what I'm looking for.”

Ultimately, companies should strive for statements like, “Excited about what they are bringing to market,” or, “Price used to be a weakness, but they are getting much better given their new releases and changes in the market.” Both reflect a successful effort to alert the legal community about upcoming initiatives, and the latter shows the effectiveness of a coordinated reinvention campaign.

Ari Kaplan is an attorney and the author of two books: Reinventing Professional Services and The Opportunity Maker. He is a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors. Service providers interested in obtaining a copy of the report or learning more about these research findings, including raw data results, law department perspectives on leading vendors, and statistics on future trends, may contact him at [email protected].

In November 2013, I surveyed 26 predominantly administrative professionals throughout Fortune/Global 500 law departments. In addition to questions related to pricing predictions for hosting, review, processing, the future of predictive coding, the trend towards growing in-house teams and the expansion of managed services, I asked for their impressions of certain leading vendors in the market.

The diverse commentary they offered seems to reflect a compelling disparity in how different providers are communicating with their prospects and the legacy they are leaving with clients. In an effort give suggestions that help technology companies and service providers navigate a complex landscape increasingly impacted by influential peer reviews, I have compared a few consistent remarks below.

Pricing

“Their pricing is not competitive.” vs. “More expensive, but cost competitive.”

As one would anticipate, there were a number of comments about pricing, which has become a significant issue given the cost pressure of certain important elements in e-discovery. While corporate law departments still recognize great service, productive processes and innovative strategies, it is essential for outside providers to evaluate how their teams highlight those characteristics beyond the underlying costs.

Cultivating deeper relationships with corporate counsel, and demonstrating a broad understanding of their core business and noteworthy challenges, is often the difference between a judgment that reflects a lack of competitive pricing as opposed to one that simply characterizes what you offer as expensive (which is not necessarily a negative observation).

Year after year, my research shows that defensibility and efficiency, among other elements, trump cost in many engagements. If your team can highlight the other elements of the relationship and can exceed expectations set at the outset, it will remain both competitive and admired.

Key strategies that are proving successful include:

• Establishing a strategic plan.
• Setting realistic milestones.
• Conducting thorough interviews with both the client ' to properly gauge the scope of the matter ' and with your internal team to confirm its ability to adhere to a defined plan.

Performance

“Performance was more than adequate.” and “Work with them; they are fine. Nothing discerning about them.” vs. “Really have smart good people; every time we have worked with them, we have been very happy as has outside counsel.”

There is an interesting distinction here. The survey respondents were satisfied with the results, but only one expanded on the remark with an overwhelmingly positive viewpoint. Naturally, your goal is to achieve a relationship that results in the latter. It is a subtle difference, but the in-house legal community is fairly small and highly collegial so given the vast array of options available, it is essential for companies to foster a strong network of champions.

Some of the strategies that seem to prove successful relate to finding ways to stay connected on both a personal and professional level with client contacts. Also, periodically follow up to learn more about the organization's progress.

Key strategies that are proving successful include:

• Asking for feedback and then applying it to improve or enhance how your organization interacts with clients.
• Attributing improvement to the suggestions you received.
• Acknowledgment is an incredibly powerful tool in strengthening relationships and in helping to influence how individuals describe your products or services.

Reputation

“Have heard they are not doing so well; used to be really good.” vs. “Known for customer service; they're very good on quality customer satisfaction and relationships; multiple locations; good project management skills.”

In both cases, the individuals commenting may not have worked directly with these vendors and may even be speaking about the same company. Regardless, they have opposing impressions of the company's past and present performance.

Try to determine the origin of this criticism. Engage your existing customers in informal conversations to identify the source of potentially unflattering observations. It is difficult for an organization to counter damaging remarks years after they surface. And, over time, they become reality to potential customers, irrespective of their veracity.

Key strategies that are proving successful include:

• Routinely conducting client and industry surveys, or incorporating client perspectives into white papers, industry overviews, and bylined articles to proliferate positive impressions.
• Offering periodic newsletters with substantive guidance and tips, or webinars and tele-seminars that provide details on best practices.

Often, simply notifying individuals of a webinar or the release of a white paper with a title that directly addresses your overall message can create a perception in itself without attendance at the webinar or review of the written work. Also, soliciting client concerns can help prevent results like this one: “[The vendor] was a finalist in the company's RFP process. It promised the moon, but follow-up customer interviews did not support that.”

In addition, almost as crucial as cost competitiveness, performance metrics, and a solid reputation, is an organization's ability to combat commoditization confusion. While many vendors solve the same or similar problems, they often do so with distinction. It is that unique approach that teams must highlight in their public and private conversations to avoid assertions like: “Most of the e-discovery vendors are fungible.”

Instead, provide comprehensive comparisons of different competitors and detail your team's customized approach, including strategic distinctions. That will typically result in remarks such as: “I know they can give me the answer to what I'm looking for.”

Ultimately, companies should strive for statements like, “Excited about what they are bringing to market,” or, “Price used to be a weakness, but they are getting much better given their new releases and changes in the market.” Both reflect a successful effort to alert the legal community about upcoming initiatives, and the latter shows the effectiveness of a coordinated reinvention campaign.

Ari Kaplan is an attorney and the author of two books: Reinventing Professional Services and The Opportunity Maker. He is a member of this newsletter's Board of Editors. Service providers interested in obtaining a copy of the report or learning more about these research findings, including raw data results, law department perspectives on leading vendors, and statistics on future trends, may contact him at [email protected].