The launch of a digital transformation strategy can be likened to a swan smoothly gliding across the surface of a lake, its calm progress belying the frantic movement beneath the surface propelling it forward. For Shirley Woolham (pictured), CEO of Minster Law, the introduction of the firm’s INK claims portal is the culmination of a two-year journey to deliver an online service which produces a process capable of substantially reducing the cost of servicing a personal injury claim.
With a satisfaction rate of 95% among the thousands plugging into the portal, which Woolham hails as the first fully operational digital claims journey in the sector, the target now is for 95% usage within the next six to 12 months.
“[This strategy] is not a once and done type gig,” she said. “And by working with customers and continually understanding how they interact with digital, and how they need things to evolve and change, you’re effectively embarking on an ongoing process of innovation and continuous improvement.”
Looking to the reforms and the small claims portal that the government is now looking to deliver in April 2021, she highlighted that the key danger is whether the right amount of time and effort has been put into making it as user-friendly as possible.
“And even if we can hope that they have in time for launch, the question mark is whether they’ve got the investment budgets to keep continually improving it, because that’s what they’ll need to do,” she said. “So, we’ve decided not to wait, we’ll crack on, we’ll leverage our expertise, and we’ll fix that customer problem. And then when the portal is ready, we’ll link into it.”
Flexibility is inherent to the structure of any worthwhile investment in digital and technological innovation and Woolham highlighted the investment the firm has made not just in the customer-facing portal but also in the re-development of its entire back-office operation to enable the scalability of the INK portal, which can handle anything from hundreds, to hundreds of thousands of volume injury claims.
Industry analysts have estimated that the adoption of technology has accelerated by five years due to the lockdown measures, Woolham said, and that transcends generational and social demographics. It’s this requirement of technology that has given people such high expectations and businesses can not afford to rest on their laurels when it comes to digital development.
“It’s just not good enough putting something out that works, it’s got to be absolutely amazing. It’s no longer OK to say, ‘well, we can’t be an Amazon, or we can’t be a Google, because we don’t have those investment budgets.’ It has to be as good as, it has to be as slick as, because, otherwise, you’ll be caught short and consumers will think with their feet. And it’s our obligation in the legal sector to make sure we do all we can to keep customers motivated to pursue legal support when they need to.”
To drive a successful digital transformation strategy, brokers must focus on fixing customer problems and not their own. That was the advice from Woolham a year ago when discussing the transformation strategy she was driving within Minster Law, and the relevance of this recommendation has only increased in the shadow of the COVID-19 crisis.
“In a post reforms world, there is very little money available for a personal injury law firm to run a small claim for personal injury,” she said. “And if you are looking at fixing that problem from a business’s eyes, you might think about cutting down access to the service to minimising touchpoints with the customer. Everything will be about efficiency, efficiency, efficiency.”
Efficiency is important, she said, but a focus on the business’s problems means that there is a danger that customers will be unrepresented and unsupported. If the focus is on the problems of the customer, however, then the right decisions will be made.
“You must ask, how can you make it easy?” she said. “And question how you can make sure that all channels of communication are still open to customers, if they still want them, and how you can make sure that the user experience is amazing. How can we make sure we don’t pass all of the hard work on to the customer just because we can no longer afford to it? How do we reimagine the work so they can still feel that it’s a very low-touch low-effort process? I’m a big believer that fixing customer problems creates enduring businesses.”
