The Echo Boomers are getting married... what are you going do about it?

03
Nov
2010

Paul Collins

To begin, a quick question: how many of your key decision-makers – the people who will ultimately give the go-ahead to any major IT project in your firm - know what an ‘Echo Boomer’ is?

I suspect the answer in most cases is ‘none’. A quick Google search will lead you to a Wikipedia page where all is revealed: generally speaking ‘Echo Boomers’ are the children of baby boomers, and are loosely defined as the generation of people born between the late seventies and the close of the last millennium.

You may know them better as ‘Generation Y’ and your firm should care enormously about them for two reasons. Firstly, because they are, as Wikipedia puts it, a generation “generally marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media, and digital technologies” and secondly because they are getting married.

As a general trend, Generation Y has grown up and is starting to settle down. This is significant because it means they have reached the point in their lives when they first begin to need the services of lawyers and law firms.

This is the generation that, in the next decade, will be doing all the things that lawyers need them to do: getting married (and divorced), buying and renting houses, starting companies, making business agreements (and having business disagreements), changing job, starting families and deciding how they leave their assets to their children – and in the process they will select the legal firms that help them achieve those things. In short, they are the next generation of your clients, and their expectations of how, when, and where they will engage with your firm is going to be influenced by a natural acceptance of technology and immediate access to information. Sadly, most law firms just aren’t ready for that: the average Echo Boomer routinely carries a Smartphone in their pocket that is more advanced and accessible than the technology deployed by many firms, and will expect far greater choice and transparency from their chosen suppliers in a way that can seem at odds with the traditional practise of law.

And yet, it needn’t be. In the drive for efficiency, IT projects can often seem to focus solely on the backend of the process - installs or upgrades of Case Management or accounting systems and productivity tools for fee earners and other staff. All are almost certainly worthwhile, but what about the front end of the experience? Every case starts with a client - what about them? Is your firm considering not just how to make the best use of new technology to serve the firm, but also to meet the needs of this new generation of clients?

I’m sure many firms will answer: Well, yes we are – we have a website. That’s certainly the place you should start, but I’m not convinced it will be enough for the Echo Boomers. If all your site does is act as an online brochure for your services (essentially acting as another conduit through which you expect your clientele to find you and then engage with you in the same old way) then you could find that you get overtaken fast.

Generation Y expects more from their web interaction. To them the internet is not just a glorified listings page, it is an environment through which they want to transact, and if your firm is to flourish it will have to meet this need. Think of the banks – another profession that relied for decades on a physical presence on the high street– now every high street bank allows you to log on and manage your account. Customers can check balances, set up recurring payments, request loans and move their money without ever leaving home. This is the model that the next generation will expect from all the professions they deal with. It is both intuitive and convenient and to them it is not a downgraded experience from a traditional law practice, In fact, quite the opposite – it is how they will want to engage with you.

How, then, to address this need? It’s actually simpler than you might think and doesn’t require sea-change in your thinking: start with your traditional processes first. Think about the steps involved in your everyday business with your clients and consider what the client might want access to, or reassurance about, at each point. This should start from the moment they first arrive at your site – our own product, DirectLaw, offers clients the chance to create online first drafts via your website even before they engage with you. Throughout the process think about how to allow the client stay informed and ask questions. Offering clients an online account from your firm will allow you to send them status updates on their matter and give them a secure conduit to ask questions at any time, as well as acting as a convenient online storage space for all related documentation or even managing payment. There are an increasing number of solutions being offered in this area and in fact many current systems have some facilities already that you can open up to start meeting this need. With a little careful planning you can start small and begin to offer the ‘hooks’ in your service that will attract the Echo Boomers now – and keep them for later. And you’ll know you are meeting this need when your key decision makers start to ask not “What will this new system do for us?” but “What will this new system do for our clients?”