This past week members discussed pricing tools and techniques, helpdesk certification and more. Explore curated sources on these topics including some from ILTA’s treasure chest.
Getting Pricing Right
Pricing in any industry strives for maximum profit while keeping and gaining those intrinsically tied to profit, the customers. To attain maximum profit, companies improve the efficiency of processes and develop a sought after product or service. Profitability and therefore pricing are top of mind for law firm leaders and clients as witnessed in the ILTACON 2015 session, View from Above: Chiefs Address Industry Trends and Challenges. The Corporate Legal Operations Consortium issued billing guidelines. At the Thomson Reuters Legal Executives Institute, David Cunningham of Winston Strawn and Sally King of Akin Gump reported “Law Firms Must Look at Staffing as Part of Profitability and Pricing Models” and by staffing they mean creating the right positions in firms. Efficiencies in legal project management and pricing analytics tools can help. Consider the ILTA webinar “Practice Economics 101 for Litigation/Practice Support Professionals” and the Project Management and Legal Project Management Tools Matrix.
Helping the Helpdesk
A friend recently sent me a list of ridiculous helpdesk questions. They can’t be true.
Helpdesk: What’s on your monitor now?
Caller: A teddy bear I won at the fair.
Ask a group of legal technologists “Who wants to solve problems, create solutions and impact the success of the firm?” and likely everyone will raise a hand. Ask that same group “Who wants to work the helpdesk?” and I suspect fewer hands would ?rise. Law firms and most other industries rely on an effective and patient helpdesk team. Ideally nothing would ever go wrong but the helpdesk exists because we know something will. IT teams and related departments can make the lives of the helpdesk team easier though. ILTA members recently asked about helpdesk certification programs to strengthen the helpdesk team’s toolkit. Strong onboarding programs like Bradelynn Boyce Dendy’s in “The Great Onboarding Adventure” on page 8 of ILTA’s 2015 Staffing Survey can also help. Regular communication with the training department and the helpdesk team can identify knowledge gaps. Though from 2014, the Guru Guide: A Helpdesk Health Check webinar has tips and tricks for collecting and interpreting metrics from helpdesk calls and Peter Qumsiyeh provided questions to consider when assessing helpdesk calls in a February 2016 Tip of the Week. Finally consider the “How Do Adults Learn” ILTA blog series Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 and Part 6 by Michael Morris. It may help the team understand why the same people repeatedly ask the same questions. It could provide the helpdesk team with a new approach to solving a problem.
SOMETHING EXTRA – ILTACON Previews
Last week Chris Hunt, an ILTACON Team Coordinator, shared some highlights on favorite sessions in “Get Excited for Applications!” He covers ILTACON sessions on Office 2016, alternative DMS, SharePoint 2016 and more. Chris says his team has developed a “slew of sessions aimed at helping you and your firms become better, more efficient users of technology.” Watch for more area of focus highlights in the upcoming weeks from ILTACON Team Coordinators and volunteers.
As ILTA’s content curator, I’m always monitoring the discussion forums to discover what topics are top-of-mind among the members. Each week, I focus on a few areas that spark your interest, and I provide some curated resources to assist your own information-gathering on the topics. If there are specific topics you would like assistance exploring, please contact me at joanne@iltanet.org