Victoria Gregory, CRM Systems Manager, Reed Smith

“Microsoft [Dynamics] CRM is incredibly flexible and I can easily make modifications myself as a non-IT person. At my previous firm, we had to outsource those kinds of changes to our CRM vendor each time, and that came with a cost.”

Victoria Gregory, CRM Systems Manager, Reed Smith

Global law firm Reed Smith decided to take its client service delivery to the next level by implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system. Working with Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Client Profiles, the firm is implementing Microsoft Dynamics® CRM tailored to its business processes and practices. The flexible platform allows nontechnical people to make changes quickly to adapt to evolving business needs.

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published January 2009

Business Needs

Reed Smith is a global top-15 law firm specializing in corporate and commercial practices. The firm’s 3,500 employees work in geographically-dispersed offices including the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Over the years, Reed Smith has earned a reputation for stellar service. An independent survey by BTI Consulting, for instance, ranked Reed Smith among the top five firms for client service. The firm’s partners’ emphasis upon service has garnered a number of top-tier clients. For example, the firm counsels 28 of the top 30 U.S. banks and 10 of the world’s 12 largest pharmaceutical companies.

In the case of Reed Smith, success has bred success. According to Victoria Gregory, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems Manager for the law firm, “Over the last two years, we’ve gone through a number of mergers and have grown significantly in size. Our geographic locations have spread across the globe, so we really needed to have a system in place where client information could be shared across our global network. We wanted a relationship management system that would make us more efficient and allow us to increase the level of service we deliver to our clients.”

Capturing client data represented another problem. Like any busy law firm, Reed Smith attorneys exchange very high volumes of e-mail messages, both internally and from customers, which represents a lot of information the firm needs to be able to access. “It’s all very well having an e-mail chain this week, but in two years’ time, we need to be able to review detailed customer communications to help us deliver the best service,” says Gregory.

A final driver motivating Reed Smith to seek out a CRM solution was today’s client expectations. “Clients are very demanding of their law firms,” explains Gregory. “They want us to partner with them to anticipate their needs and proactively counsel them on the challenges they’re facing in their industries and markets. And they expect us to manage our relationships with them; clients expect someone in one office to know who knows them in another office. We needed a CRM system that would give us a full view of our clients to do that.” Reed Smith needed a system that would integrate seamlessly with the Microsoft® Office Outlook® 2003 messaging and collaboration client, and with an industry-specific application layer known as CRM4Legal.

Solution

Gregory’s team established a number of criteria to evaluate potential CRM solutions and wanted something that was easy to use and that would work seamlessly with the applications attorneys use every day. “We also wanted a CRM platform that was flexible and could be adapted quickly not only to our business, but to changing conditions over time,” recalls Gregory. “We also needed a solution that we could use worldwide.”

After narrowing the CRM vendors down to three, Gregory’s team issued a very detailed request for proposal and solicited presentations from each of them.

The team then analyzed the information, reviewed the implementation costs, and selected Microsoft Dynamics® CRM, along with Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Client Profiles of Atlanta, Georgia, to implement the solution. Client Profiles specializes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM solutions for law firms using CRM4Legal. The company utilizes modules for business development and marketing to foster closer relationships with law firm customers and drive business process improvements.

Gregory explains, “The reason we chose the Microsoft and Client Profiles solution over their competitors was predominately the superior functionality that [Microsoft Dynamics] CRM brings to the table, including the seamless integration with [Microsoft Office] Outlook.”

With a base of 300 users accessing Microsoft Dynamics CRM now, Gregory projects a user base of up to 3,500 across the enterprise by the end of 2009.

To date, the deployment team has integrated the CRM solution with Reed Smith’s Elite finance system. The team also integrated the solution with the firm’s letter and forms templates software application to be able to populate document fields automatically.

Benefits

The Microsoft Dynamics CRM implementation supports the firm’s global operations and provides a 360-degree client view that empowers attorneys to more proactively service their needs.

Easily and Rapidly Adapts to Business Processes and Practices

The flexibility and extensibility of the CRM solution enables businesses like Reed Smith to shape it to support specific processes and ways of doing business. “With Microsoft [Dynamics] CRM, I can easily make modifications myself as a non-IT person,” says Gregory. “At my previous firm, we had to outsource those kinds of changes to our CRM vendor each time, and that came with a cost.”

The ability for nontechnical people to make modifications has the added benefit of slashing the time it takes to deploy new changes, additions, or workflows. Hence, Gregory’s team can quickly adjust to changing market conditions and internal customer expectations to deliver consistently responsive service.

Integration with Microsoft Office Outlook Facilitates High User Adoption

“I’ve already seen good user adoption among our attorneys, administrative staff, and executives,” states Gregory. “[Microsoft Office] Outlook is their main desktop application; they know how it works and [Microsoft Dynamics] CRM is just an extension of that. It doesn’t behave like an add-on to Outlook; it behaves very much like Outlook does itself.”

Legal-Industry Expertise Optimizes CRM Solution Deployment

By taking advantage of Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Client Profiles’ expertise and legal-industry CRM solutions, Gregory’s team fielded a CRM solution ideally suited to their firm’s needs. “Both Microsoft and Client Profiles really stepped up to the plate to deliver a CRM solution that supports the development and strengthening of our client relationships to grow our business,” says Gregory. “For example, we’ll be able to identify opportunities for cross-selling quicker than before based on the reports we can now generate.”

System to Track and Optimize Key Performance Indicators

The CRM implementation allows attorneys, client team leaders, and the management team to oversee and track activities at a granular level that wasn’t possible previously. “The [Microsoft Dynamics] CRM system has made it possible for us to identify exactly which activities led to which piece of work,” explains Gregory. “And that’s when you can calculate a return on investment for those activities.”

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published January 2009