Who’s afraid of lawyers?
Become their partner in cost containment & technology solutions.
Before you get that dreaded “We’re switching to someone cheaper” call, make your firm the most cost-effective, attractive solution to your clients’ problems — and tell them about it.
You can compete on price, as long as you educate your clients on what that means:
- Tell them you don’t charge for word indexes, cover pages and other filler in transcripts. Other firms attract your clients with lower per-page costs, then pad their invoices with extra pages. While their per-page cost looks better, help your clients compare total costs for services to see that you are the best value.
- Offer online repositories for their pre-trial discovery period, during the trial and beyond at a low monthly cost. Add no-cost-to-them benefits like online and mobile access to their depo calendars and invoices, plus e-commerce for instantly downloadable transcripts, and you are lowering their costs even further by saving them time and not adding to their overhead.
- Provide nationwide services by being a member of a court reporting network so they don’t have to narrow their choices to only the big national firms for large cases. Negotiate competitive rates within your network so your clients see they’ll save money by relying on you for all their depos and other legal service needs.
- Establish your reporters’ superior credentials. Agencies that are undercutting other firms’ prices are not paying top dollar for reporters. It stands to reason that their reporters are less qualified. Your experienced reporters produce top quality transcripts meaning your clients don’t waste time deciphering shoddy work.
You can do all of this with an RB system — even providing the best reporters. Not only does it allow you to easily keep track of your reporters’ credentials, but it also helps you attract and retain the best reporters with valuable perks like:
- Direct deposit pay — eliminating trips to the bank.
- Online pay statements — so they always know their future and past pay amounts with details.
- Online turn-in — saving them a trip to the office.
- Job notification via automatic text messaging — so they instantly know when they have an upcoming job without the interruption of a phone call. Plus they can instantly text you their acknowledgement.
- Online access to job files (like shared dictionaries), their schedule and more — giving quick, convenient answers to their questions 24/7.
Un-level the playing field in your favor without resorting to unethical behavior or getting into a pricing war by using all the tools in the RB arsenal to manage expenses and clients.
Keep your clients and win new clients by offering cutting-edge online services and competitive prices for all of your services with the help of powerful RB tools.
Be pro-active and talk to your clients now about what you can do to help them control costs and take advantage of the benefits of new technology. Don’t let your clients forget you or wait until they drop you before you contact them about how you can work together to succeed in a difficult business environment.
See also
Make RB8’s central repository work for you