CRM – Customer Relationship Management. Some professionals in the legal area are acquainted to this notion which is increasingly standard in legal management systems.

In the IT field there is a growing care for technology and clients,for management of clients data in order to answer them back, to expand possibilities to close deals, etc. To speak clearly, a CRM system can be very effective for keeping in check which clients you have already proposed any legal service to, whether a client was one of yours long time ago and no longer is, etc. CRM has many control and management features for its users.

Nowadays there is a plethora of social networks: Plaxo, Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, Ning and many more. With that in mind, the IT people are developing CRM focused on social networks, which means we will be able to able to keep up with what is being written about us on the web, to answer to social networks surveys, i.e. to reinforce our interaction with our clients.

What is the upside of that?

Social networks are characterized by a function to which lawyers aren´t much accustomed to: clients praise,quarrel, discuss and ‘do the laundry’ on social networks. With this, their interaction  with lawyers is wider than it used to be. This leads to some of them being tagged as bad, sloppy and other ‘qualities’, throughout the web. While some are considering law suites for on line slandering, others are looking elsewhere for a new lawyer, after pondering.

Taking in consideration this factor of instant spread, interconnection and web organization, the need for a  CRM integrated with social networks is an important and interesting reality.

Do you use CRM in your practice?
Do you  professionally or personally use social networks?
How do you interact with your clients?
How many of your clients have never contacted again since the conclusion of their actions?
Do you know what legal services have you proposed to any one of your clients?

If you have no answers to these questions and more importantly, if you don´t know how to start answering them, I suggest you begin to interact with your clients by taking on a legal management CRM integrated system.

Picture this: if your dentist contacts you by surprise because its been 6 months since your last cleansing, you’ll feel happy even if you don’t take on the invitation. However if they only contact to charge you for the latest root canal you had, you feel like looking for a different dentist. The same goes for lawyers.

Use over and over again CRM to manage clients, partners and deals. The growth of your practice and income will appreciate it.