The third edition of the British Conveyancing Awards is just around the corner. Alongside a new, larger venue and a new headline sponsor in Groundsure, #BCAwards2023 is all about recognising and rewarding the herculean efforts of conveyancing superheroes who, despite hurdles aplenty, continue to go above and beyond to help clients move into their dream home.
Ahead of the splendour and celebration on the 21st March, Today’s Conveyancer will recognise those who help make the event possible through a series of “Sponsor Spotlight” pieces. Here, we speak to Adam Bullion, Head of Marketing at PracticeEvolve, sponsors of the Customer Service Champions category.
First of all, tell us who you are and what you do?
PracticeEvolve are a leading global provider of Practice, Case, and Document Management software, providing progressive solutions to over 35,000 users. We take responsibility to innovate law firms across products, service, and support – with a clear focus on software with a service to ensure firms are maximising productivity, efficiency, and profitability.
You’ve previously described one of your aims being to build “ever-evolving technology” – why is this so important in the property industry?
It is important for all technology to constantly evolve as the market conditions change. Without this capacity, technology quickly becomes extinct as businesses will select products and services that deliver on their requirements.
Certainly, the property industry is no different. While processes may not have changed dramatically over the years, we know by building better technology, we can create efficiencies which are solutions law firms are looking for. Not only are we developing our own solutions to generate improvements in productivity, but we connect software together to ensure law firms have access to everything they need.
PracticeEvolve’s focus on evolution, however, doesn’t just apply to technology, but also to our approach. Our Client Service programme, as well as our EvolveCommunity platform ensures law firms are supported into taking an evolving approach to legal technology. This, alongside our development within the software, is crucial to the property industry.
How have you achieved this aim over the last year, and how will you continue to do so over 2023?
We are proud of what we’ve achieved over 2022 and have a very good plan going into 2023. Aside from developing the technology, we have improved our client experience, focusing on helping users maximise the software to be more productive. Our implementation of EvolveCommunity offers users bite-sized training videos, community forums, and courses which law firms can utilise. We have also introduced a Client Success programme and offer regular training opportunities which saves our clients over £23,000 per annum. Having launched these services in the last year, we will continue to build on the level of service we offer clients as we know the legal market wants to work closely with a provider who can partner with them for the long term.
Sticking with the theme of evolution, how do you see the wider property industry needing to evolve over the coming years?
I’d point to the research we conducted last year where respondents clearly pointed at client experience alongside connectivity, competency, and Cloud. Firms are starting to realise that from the very first enquiry there is a higher expectation for a more digital experience. They want to be able to complete information online and they want a single place to find all the correspondence, key dates, and documentation. Certainly, for the property market where a sale and purchase could fall through at any time, clients are more demanding in terms of knowing the status at a time convenient to them and they don’t want to necessarily pick up the phone. Therefore, I think the property industry will be looking to pro-actively provide information to clients. Ultimately, for firms who follow that approach, they’ll spend less time managing clients and more time focused on completing the legal work.
What difficulties might the industry face in doing so – and how can PracticeEvolve make things easier?
In our recent research legal professionals told us they need technology that drives productivity through connectivity and user competency. At the same time, they told us that talent acquisition and retention remain a challenge. There are clearly interdependencies here – for example, better productivity requires software that is connected together. By addressing these issues, and I mentioned it in a previous answer, firms can provide their clients with a much-improved experience.
PracticeEvolve have already started taking responsibility to alleviate the strain on the legal industry: our research has helped us identify the problems in which law firms face and has allowed us an opportunity to address these. Our focus on the three pillars – improving user competency, connecting software, and offering Cloud solutions – plays into our software with a service offering, ultimately ensuring clients are in a strong position for the future.
