Is your small law firm currently using automated business processes? If you want to improve business processes, you should seriously consider automation of processes within your business. Why? Because by automating systems, your law practice can grow more quickly, attract more qualified prospects, convert more prospects into clients, and see a profit margin growth.
Does that sound interesting to you? If so, read on to learn more about what business automation for workflow management means, what benefits it brings to owners of small law firms like you. We also provide a list of business process solutions developed using information-technology. If you’re ready for automation, you can explore the step-by-step system for designing and implementing automated marketing and legal business systems, developed by the Legal Systems Expert and CEO Richard James.
Why Automate Business Processes?
Business process automation (BPA), also referred to as workplace automation or business process management (BPM), is a cost-efficient way of streamlining business processes and increasing your productivity. There is a wide plethora of tools and software that helps in automating businesses that are readily available. There are also free resources that help improve your workflow management system such as The DNA of the Autonomous Attorney.
But what is the rationale behind using such development tools and how will automation help your private law practice? The answer is simple: business management automation leads to productivity and efficiency in your task management and case management.
All legal businesses have their own processes, rules and regulations to ensure that the day-to-day operations run smoothly and with the aid of automated tools they shorten the process completion timeline and increase the number of outputs done. What’s more, almost all automated businesses embrace productivity platforms which allows their people to collaborate on projects and work together to speed up their tasks.
If there are recurring tasks in your legal business, such as onboarding for a new employee or engaging in customer service, the process can only take a few seconds with the right app or software integration. Seek law firm management advice to know where to start.
It used to be that a back-office process involved a lot of paperwork until companies saw the investing in process management tools yield a high return on investment (ROI). How come? When you deploy the right software, you help your legal assistant keep track of things accurately and remain up-to-date. Your employees are also able to focus on more complex tasks since the BPA tools handle the more menial ones.
Benefits of Workplace Automation
Aside from time tracking, task-tracking, and increasing the level of productivity, there are other advantages in getting a process automation tool.
- Lower operational costs. This is why many small and medium-sized enterprises embrace workflow automation tools. Since they do not have the same manpower as their larger competitors, they can just delegate the more important tasks and automate recurrent processes. Any paper-related process can be automated: signing documents, producing agreements and contracts, paying suppliers and employees, to name a few.
- Maintain good customer service. We all know that for start-up businesses and small firms, clients are the most important assets you can ever have. Making sure that service-delivery is excellent and customers remain happy are top priorities. Through artificial intelligence, you can instantly acknowledge once an existing client or a prospect sends you an inquiry or asks for your legal advice Some examples of automation solutions used are chatbots or having a page dedicated for FAQs.
- Improve time management. Regular tasks, no matter how easy they are to do, eats up your employee’s precious time. Would you rather your office staff spends half the day checking bills or printing leases and contracts or have them spend that time following up on your leads and prospects? Through automation, you can simply set up recurring payments and weekly reports automatically, and just assign someone to monitor those tasks. Data back-ups are another regular “routine” that benefits from automation because of its importance.
- Reach more audience. Have you always wanted to grow an online presence and get started with the various social media platforms but never had the time or budget to do so? Then automation is the solution for you. You don’t even need to hire an extra staff o to do the work. You can set your development tools to simply push news articles and blogs from your site to be published on your social media pages.
- Boost employee morale. Employees can become disengaged when the work becomes too repetitive and if they do not see value in it. By setting up systems in your law firm, your staff have more time to innovate and focus on the business success.
- Better manage the firm. Yes, automated workflows help you become a better business owner and manager. For every process, you can easily find what tasks have been completed, who completed it, and what processes have been followed. You can even monitor the firm’s progress while on your mobile device or tablet.
Proven Business Process Automation Tools
No one can deny the power of automating processes. This is why successful law firms are using their own document management systems (document workflow), customer relationship management system (CRM), and content management systems.
Here are some examples of business automation software and workflow technology that have successfully handled and simplified critical business processes within legal firms.
- Enterprise resource planning. This refers to a business process management software which integrates several applications to automate many office functions related to services, human resources, and business management.
- User provisioning automated. Simplify the human resources process flow by systematically notifying all concerned parties every step of the way.
- Auto-generated reports. You can set when and how often to download reports. Reporting processes may also be tied to other systems.
- Email automation. You can set email filters to segregate mails coming in or even make files easier to share using SharePoint.
- Excel or spreadsheet automation. When you automate processes, you can stop worrying about manual data entry and its potential errors through the use of macros and codes.
- App integrations. Choose more than one application and integrate these to your existing business applications. A BPM software can tie them all together.
- Cloud Automation. This is advantageous for businesses running on a remote workplace set-up. Access software on the go and get your work done from anywhere.
- Event monitoring. Log your events automatically and have the system check for any errors.
The above mentioned workflow tools are just some of the widely-used secret weapons of thriving law practices. If you want to grow your law firm independently and maximize your potential, consider automating key business processes. You can also seek the advice of a business management consultant to analyze how efficient your current systems are and which areas you should automate in your law firm.
Do you want to transform your law firm to one that serves your lifestyle rather than undermines it? If you answered YES, then avail of Richard James’s free small law firm audit and know where you can improve.
If you have any more questions about how you can put systems in place, contact Richard James today.
