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Promoting your RB Web mobile app

There’s been a lot of excitement about the new RB Web Mobile Apps that give your clients and resources access to their job information on their smartphones. While I am very happy so many of you are interested in offering this service to your clients, I don’t believe it is enough to offer this service; you have to promote and market it to make it a real asset to your users and your business.

With that in mind, I offer you my top tips for promoting your RB Web Mobile Apps:

1. Name Your App to Make an Impression.

You have a maximum 30 characters for the title that appears in the App Store or other app marketplace. I have several suggestions:

• Include your agency name in the title so it’s easy for your clients to find.
• Use other keywords you think people would use to search for this type of app. (Maybe RBWeb?)
• Go a different route and give your app a clever name (if your agency name is too long or not unique enough, for instance). Then promote your app heavily while always tying it to your company name.

2. Notify Existing Clients Quickly.

You have the perfect excuse to contact people — a convenient new way to work (every lawyer has a smartphone, right?) — use this opportunity to reach out to your base. It’s even a great excuse for contacting clients who’ve slipped off your books. I recommend notifying them about the service in whatever way is quickest:

• An email blast.
• SMS campaign (First time considering an SMS campaign? Here are some tips & guidelines).
• Tweets about the service if you have a Twitter account your clients follow.
• Facebook updates if you have a page for your business.
• Phone calls if your client base isn’t too large to make the task onerous.

Don’t limit yourself to one method. Some clients ignore emails, others aren’t interested in social media. Use whatever combination makes sense to you based on your knowledge of your clients.

If possible, keep these messages brief and include ways to contact you if the recipients can’t wait to hear more.

3. Follow Up in More Depth.

With brief announcements, you have primed your base to hear your message. Offer to demonstrate your new app and bring them a manual.

Before visiting clients, download the RB Web Mobile App user manual from our website and swap out the manual cover with one that includes your custom RB Web Mobile App title, company logo and colors.

If they are too busy to see you, you can drop off your custom printed manual, send the PDF in emails and/or post it on your website. Be sure to add a copy to all firm repositories on RB Web.

4. Get Help Going After New Clients.

Advertising your new service in traditional media aimed at your market has its value, and of course you will promote your new service on your company website and/or blog. But I think you can increase awareness by adding social media to your arsenal. Social media like Yelp and Facebook are changing how people find and choose products and services. Not sure about the impact? Learn some interesting statistics about social media from this video.

Perhaps the most relevant statistic presented is that while 78 percent of consumers trust peer recommendations, only 14 percent trust advertising.

• Make it easy for your clients to create a buzz about your mobile apps and recruit potential clients for you: Add a Facebook Like button to your announcement, so your clients can easily let other people in their circles learn there’s a cool new app they might also like.
• Expand their ability to spread the word about your new app by including a sharing widget on your online announcements, such as Add This or Share This, so they can publicize your mobile app on Twitter, via email, on their own blogs, and in dozens of other ways with a few clicks.
• And maybe it’s time to put up a Facebook page for announcements about your company and/or your RB Web Mobile App and invite clients, resources, and staff to “like” and “share” your page.

5. Keep Your App’s Mind Share.

Don’t let your app become “out of sight, out of mind” after its newness wears off. Remind people about it in a variety of ways. Ongoing promotion ideas ranging from high-cost to low/no-cost include:

• Ads and direct mail, if you already advertise or do direct mail campaigns, add something about your new service. If you don’t do either, I’d say you should probably focus on other ways to promote your app. I don’t know that you would get enough ROI on these methods as opposed to others listed here.
• Conference and trade show materials, including banners and take-aways.
• Presentation demonstrating your app (you can convert a PowerPoint or other presentation to a movie, even add audio, and embed it on your website). In fact, all presentations and materials about your company should include something about your mobile app.
• Messages on invoices and statements, envelopes, packing slips, anything you send to clients (consider getting color stickers made to make the message stand out more or even custom postage stamps).
• A mention in your NCRA listing and any other professional directory listings about your app.
• Articles/blurbs on your website, maybe an area dedicated to your app alone.
• Blogging and tweeting about different features or when there’s some newsworthy event relating to your app, like the first 100 downloads.
• Join LinkedIn and add your company. Then join groups on LinkedIn that fit your market demographic and post press releases about your app in the Promotion tab of your groups.
• Tagline on your email signature describing your app. And add something to email auto-responders about your app.
• Something brief on your company’s voice-mail and on-hold messages.
• If you have a newsletter or email blast, mention your app in them.
• Info about the app on your RB Web online log-in and/or News screen.

Try, try again

Not all of these suggestions will be appropriate for your audience or your company, but I hope there is something here to help you promote your RB Web Mobile App. I truly believe this new app will make it easier for you to share information with your clients, and you both will benefit. But your audience needs to know about it – and probably needs to be reminded occasionally if they don’t try it right away because lawyers are busy people.

I know you are busy too, so I hope that some of these suggestions represent a worthwhile investment of your time and you use them successfully. Let me know how it goes. And remember: anytime we upgrade RB Web Mobile Apps you can go through an abbreviated version of this cycle to raise awareness, increase usage, build customer loyalty and ultimately gain more clients.

Posted on March 29, 2011. Posted in RB Web, RB Web Mobile, ReporterBase, Team RB. Tagged advertising, apps, download, Facebook, LinkedIn, marketing, mobile apps, presentation, RB Web, RB Web Mobile App, smartphone, social media, Team RB, technology, text messaging, Twitter, Yelp

Making ends meet

Since the current economic recovery is slower than any in recent history, court reporting agencies are facing the need to make do with less: Less staff, less overhead, less margin for error.

I don’t believe this is necessarily a bad thing if you focus on automation and clear communications with staff, resources and clients to minimize mistakes and misunderstandings. Fewer mistakes and less waste can help your bottom line in both good times and bad.

To help you focus, we are streamlining the RB system. But these improvements won’t help if you don’t take advantage of them, so in this article I am explaining one of the latest improvements I think is most important for transforming your business.

Easy online turn-in

We heard from many of you that online turn-in was too difficult for your reporters, and you were encountering a lot of resistance when you tried to implement it. So we made some big changes to the process in the latest RB Web update.

We created two options for your reporters to use: one that’s so easy they can turn in jobs without additional training, and the other for your more tech-savvy reporters that makes the process much quicker.

Why online turn-in

If reporters don’t want to do online turn-in, why bother? The reasons why we think it is worthwhile for reporters — and your network agencies — to turn in jobs online are:

• To speed up transcript turn-around and increase client satisfaction. Reporters usually know the most about what happened at a job, so they are more likely not to miss information, such as services requested or who made an appearance.
• To change your production department from key entry to quality control. It is not enough to delegate turn-in to those closest to the job, your office must monitor and correct to provide the highest level of service to your clients.

And we have some new tools in RB to help you do just that too. But first:

Give reporters more control over how they work

With the added responsibility of turning in online, reporters will need to feel they can accomplish this new task successfully. To help them feel comfortable, RB Web turn-in now has two modes: Wizard and Advanced.

Wizard mode is for reporters who:

• You don’t have time to train.
• Won’t read the manuals.
• Have no desire to learn about RB Web turn-in.
• Hate it, don’t want to do it, feel forced to do it.

I’m sure you already have a list in mind of which of your reporters could benefit from a turn-in wizard.

Advanced mode, on the other hand, is for your technically-oriented reporters — your “best & brightest” — who love online turn-in, but find a wizard too slow. They don’t need hand-holding, they want to get to the point quickly and move on.

When reporters go to turn-in, the first thing they see is their list of outstanding jobs and the choice of Wizard or Advanced. Whichever mode they select will be their default.

When reporters need a guiding hand

If reporters select the wizard, it takes them step-by-step through the turn-in process, with a series of screens dedicated to one area each to help the reporters focus. It anticipates what they need. For example, in step 2, RB Web automatically opens with the new witness screen if no witness has been previously turned in. And the same screen automatically open fields for attaching job files as a gentle reminder to the reporter to not overlook any relevant files.

For the next step, you have the option to allow reporters to pre-fill parties, i.e., select parties from the list you attached to the job when you created it. You can turn this option off to make the form simpler, but why make this step tedious? Without this option, reporters have to enter all parties one at a time. I recommend that you keep this option turned on to save reporters time and reduce the chance of errors.

In the same vein are billing sets, which are group of commonly-related services that reporters can select at once for a job, saving time over entering service items one at a time. You can choose not to have any billing sets available for reporters if you want to keep things simple, but this is a flexible option: Reporters can decide on their own to use it or not, then they can add services requested and delete services not requested on individual jobs.

I recommend that you give reporters enough billing set options to cover the most likely combinations of requests, such as O&1/Standard/Half-Day (original, one copy, exhibits and half-day per diem) and Copy (one copy and exhibits).

The wizard breaks turn-in into five steps, which minimizes the amount of information the reporter has to deal with onscreen at any one time. This makes turn-in simple enough that even a new reporter can complete it without training. However, if clicking through this series of screens is too slow for some reporters, they can use the Advanced mode instead.

Advancing to the next level

Advanced mode puts all of the turn-in fields and options on one screen. This condensation requires more of the reporters: They have to know what the different icons on the screen mean, and there are fewer instructions explaining what to do. But for your more tech-savvy reporters, this is a real time-saver. Other reporters can start with the wizard, and once they get comfortable, switch to advanced mode and save time too.

Maintaining quality

Of course, delegating tasks to the most logical person doesn’t mean you can shirk your responsibility for the finished product. Instead, with reporters doing most of the data entry for turn-in, your production department can focus on quality control, such as checking the turned-in billing sheet and attached files.

And you can further delegate by allowing reporters to enter new firms and contacts during turn-in. In both modes, RB8 notifies your office when reporters do this, so you can review for errors and duplicates. You designate in RB8 who receives these notices.

While this might seem like a new level of hassle for your reporters and in-house staff, I recommend that you make it your policy and have reporters enter all attorneys in attendance, even those who don’t order copies at the job. You can offer them on-demand copies of the transcript via RB Web if they should decide later that they want a copy: Good for marketing your services in a non-pushy manner.

Finally, you can use the new Turn-Around Analysis report to monitor reporters’ turn-around time by month, quarter or year, even compare it year-to-year. And you can share this information as Excel spreadsheets with reporters to help them improve their performance.

Make it happen

Depending on your reporters’ and staff’s comfort level with RB Web, these new options could be very easy to implement. But even with change that will benefit them, people are often anxious and resistant at first. In any case, it is very important that your company leadership is on board with online turn-in, and your production staff is ready to help reporters transition to doing more themselves.

With management and in-house staff prepared, you are ready to make the switch. Give your reporters as much information as you think they need and a realistic schedule for moving all of their turn-in online. Maybe offer incentives if you think it would encourage your reporters to switch. Be sure they can turn to your office staff for support in this transition. Monitor the transition and make adjustments as needed.

Online turn-in can be a way to provide more service with less staff, and even provide your staff and reporters with more job satisfaction through the experience of successfully fulfilling new roles with your organization. Two very different ends you can achieve with one solution.

And I promise OMTI will continue to work on solutions for making ends meet and other common business problems your industry encounters.

Posted on November 5, 2010. Posted in RB Web, RB8, ReporterBase. Tagged court reporting, Litigation Support, online turn-in, RB Web, RB8, transcripts

Granting Universal Access

Attorneys sometimes work out of more than one office — especially if they work for large firms, which have multiple offices scattered around the country.

This has presented a challenge for RB8 users. If you haven’t encountered problems due to this, here’s what can happen & what can be done about it now:

Let’s say Mr. Smith works mainly out of the New York City office of Smith & Jones. But once in a while he calls from the Washington DC office. In RB8, these two offices must be entered as two separate firms since they have different physical addresses. Mr. Smith also has to be set up twice, as a contact under each firm [office], resulting in two log-in IDs for RB Web. That in itself can seem like a hassle to Mr. Smith, but here comes the real trouble:

When Mr. Smith logs into RB Web using his New York ID, he won’t be able to see the depositions that were scheduled from DC. And vice versa if he logs in with his DC ID. The same goes for transcripts, case files and invoices. Even though this makes a perfect sense to a geek like me; Mr. Smith, your client, no doubt will be very unhappy.

As you know, in RB8, a contact can grant access to other contacts in the same firm, but contacts haven’t been able to grant access beyond the firm [office] boundary. Granting access to other contacts in other firms (called universal access) hasn’t been allowed. So Mr. Smith had to log in twice looking for his own stuff.

Fewer sign-ins to remember

This all changed with the latest update (released  June 4, 2010). We’ve found a way for you to make Mr. Smith happy and keep him as your client.

In the Manage Access tab of the Contact detail screen, we’ve added a new section called Grant Universal Access To. Simply click Add to add contacts from other firms who should have the same access rights as the currently selected contact. Add Mr. Smith’s DC identity to his NYC identity here, and he only needs to remember one user ID and password to access all of his info on your RB Web.

Help your clients collaborate on big cases

It goes without saying that this new feature will also work for cases where multiple attorneys from different firms working as co-counsels need to access the same information. For example, BP is going to need many attorneys from many firms to defend all the cases being filed right now.

As with giving an attorney who works out of multiple offices combined access to all of his/her info on RB Web, you can grant universal access to attorneys from different law firms, per your client’s request. They tell you who to permit access to, and you manage the access rights in RB8.

Now Mr. Smith can go to Washington with the freedom to access any pertinent information in RB Web without worrying about what jobs were called in from which office. And you can go after those big, complex cases with another powerful tool in your arsenal.

Posted on June 16, 2010. Posted in RB Web, RB8, ReporterBase. Tagged RB Web, RB8, Universal Access

LEDES Me Away To E-Billing Land

I hate consultants. As the saying goes, “Consultants borrow your watch to tell you the time — and then charge to return the watch.”

I believe they are responsible for all the rules that benefit large corporations, while putting so many burdens on small companies like ours.

Here is an example:

Back in 1995, large corporations (mainly insurance companies) were complaining about spending too much money processing paper invoices submitted by law firms. They wanted to automate the data-entry process to cut costs.

They also wanted to scrutinize the invoices line-by-line to control the escalating legal costs. They were throwing around words like, “efficiency,” “automation,” “cost containment” and “standard.”

Guess what? Those are the kind of words consultants feed on. Price Waterhouse (a den of consultants) was hired to spearhead the project to come up with a standard to exchange legal data electronically.

The Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard (LEDES) was adopted by all the parties involved. Law firms hated it (they still do). Time-and-billing software vendors for the legal industry scrambled to come up with updates to handle this new requirement. And poor old secretaries in small law offices were typing funny-looking characters using Notepad to create LEDES files by hand.

No more one-line invoices like, “Services rendered by me: $50,000.”

Over time, law firms have learned to live with it. It’s become the status quo.

Now it’s the court reporting firms’ turn. You get to go through lots of motions to save big corporations money if you want to keep your clients who rely on e-billing.

However, you don’t need to suffer as many law firms did, if you are using RB8. I worked with our programmers for over a year on LEDES for RB8. With the latest update, you can easily generate LEDES 98B files and email them to whomever is holding your money as hostage.

Once you have set up the codes in your Service Items Master List and mass-updated your billing rate tables, it’s as easy to generate a LEDES 98B-compliant invoice as any other invoice in your RB8. And by giving your clients invoices that they can directly upload into their e-billing system, you enhance your chances of getting paid quickly.

This e-billing option is included free in RB 8.53, released March 12, 2010. And we’ve published an e-Billing User Guide on our website in the Team RB members-only area, so you can start using this new feature immediately.

I’ll probably never warm up to consultants, but I love programmers.

Posted on March 12, 2010. Posted in Best Practices, Industry news, RB8, ReporterBase. Tagged e-billing, LEDES, Legal Electronic Data Exchange Standard, RB8

Are you in Word Index trouble?

Avoid a lawsuit by following this advice

When it comes to handling word indexes, does your agency fall under one of the following categories?

1. You provide word indexes (usually with condensed transcripts) to clients free of charge.
2. You provide word indexes (usually with condensed transcripts) for a flat fee (e.g., $25).
3. You provide word indexes (as part of standard transcripts) at the same per page rate as you charge for the transcripts themselves.

If you answered “#3,” then you could be vulnerable to lawsuits unless your rate sheet fully discloses your billing policies concerning word indexes.

Lawsuits have already been filed

This is already happening to other firms. Several class action lawsuits are pending in federal courts that contend that court reporting firms are padding their bills by charging full per-page prices for word indexes without full disclosure.

Here are my observations as to why it will be difficult to justify the practice of charging full price without disclosing that up-front:

• The word index is not a part of the record prepared by a court reporter.
• The word index is generated by a computer program, not by a court reporter.
• The court reporter usually is not paid for the word index.
• The total page count is different from what the reporter turned in.
• The client usually isn’t aware of the practice.

Protect yourself

I recommend that you go for peace of mind with full disclosure even though it might hurt your bottom line. Include word indexes for free with condensed transcripts, and use that as your marketing edge. You’ll be more attractive to clients and less attractive to lawsuits.

Posted on February 16, 2010. Posted in Best Practices, Industry news. Tagged Best Practices, court reporting, lawsuit, transcripts, word index

Yong’s Top Tips for 2010

Introduction

[This introduction & 3 tips are reprinted from OMTI's brochure for the 2010 NCRA Firm Owners Executive Conference, held Feb. 3-5 in Orlando, FL.]

I wanted to give you my top three tips for ensuring your business will survive and thrive in 2010.

Last year was a tough one for many court reporting firms. It was the worst I’ve seen my clients experience in my 25 years of developing software and services for managing and marketing legal support businesses.

While the overall economy is slowly improving, I foresee continued tough times for your industry. The legal industry is experiencing stagnant business growth so cost containment is one area they are focusing on, leading many firms to drop longtime vendors in the hopes of lowering their outside costs.

At the same time, they are also more open than ever to new ways of doing business and using technology to save money and improve their own services. So in spite of the disturbing trend of disappearing loyalty, there is still business for you out there, but only if you do everything you can to cut costs, maximize efficiency, provide relevant services and communicate effectively.

I believe you can be successful in 2010, and to help you hold onto your clients, win new clients and improve your business, I offer you my top tips for 2010 and best wishes for a prosperous year.

Sincerely,
Yong Lee, President & CEO
OMTI, developers of ReporterBase

Tip #1 | Tip #2 | Tip #3

Posted on February 10, 2010. Posted in Best Practices, OMTI, ReporterBase. Tagged court reporting, Litigation Support, OMTI, RB, ReporterBase, technology

Top Tip #1 for 2010

Is your office getting in the way of your business? Get rid of it.

You could save thousands a year in overhead by eliminating costly office space. Before you dismiss this as too radical, remember: Extreme business conditions require you to re-think everything.

Question the amount and kind of space you need:

• Can you and your staff work from home? You don’t need expensive commercial space if you can all work remotely.
• If your reporters turn in their work online, and you offer direct deposit pay as well as online pay statements, they don’t need to come to the office anymore.
• Eliminate the need for file cabinets by scanning everything into a central system that also automatically maintains electronic copies of all work products, job/client/resource/location info, invoices and statements, etc. Then give clients and reporters online and wireless access to their information in your system automatically.
• Save even more space — and the need for tech services — by using data farms for your electronic storage infrastructure instead of maintaining your own servers.

With a ReporterBase (RB) system, you can do all of the above. Plus you can automatically access job, client and reporter info on the road via your BlackBerry so you can maximize your own effectiveness. No telephone tag, no unnecessary trips back to the office — it even has Google Maps so you won’t get lost driving to a new client’s location.

Tip #2 | Tip #3

Posted on February 10, 2010. Posted in Best Practices, ReporterBase. Tagged RB, ReporterBase

Top Tip #2 for 2010

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. 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 wireless 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 reports — 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 acknowledgment.
• 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.

Tip #1 | Tip #3

Posted on February 10, 2010. Posted in Best Practices, ReporterBase. Tagged cost containment, direct deposit, download, network, online, price, RB, ReporterBase, repository, text messaging, transcripts ← Older posts

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A blog for owners & managers of litigation support businesses by an expert on using technology to improve your profitability, efficiency and effectiveness in a unique marketplace.