Collaborative tools improve staff and customer retention

Brisbane-based McCarthy Durie Lawyers (MDL) has reported significant year-on-year staff and customer retention levels following its rollout of Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral. With access to Avaya technology, the organisation has also safeguarded itself against potential compliance and security issues and laid the groundwork for richer access to local legal services in regional Queensland.

Founded in 1978, MDL is a law firm with 70 employees that offers a range of legal services spanning conveyancing, property, commercial and litigation via its two Brisbane offices. According to CEO Shane McCarthy, the organisation’s long-standing reputation is fuelled by its personal approach towards clients and partners. In 2020, however, this came under threat.

“Our team is known for being contactable and able to quickly resolve our clients’ issues, which is critical when it comes to time-sensitive legal settlements,” he said.

“However, in 2020 the patchwork of communication systems we had in place was proving unreliable, and we lost around one day per month to the phone system being down. Our team would revert to unsophisticated workarounds, but ultimately a lot of calls died or didn’t go anywhere, meaning we lost clients.”

The need to remedy service availability, along with enabling hybrid work arrangements in a way that balanced staff productivity and wellbeing, was MDL’s catalyst for change. MDL rolled out the cloud-based Avaya Cloud Office platform, giving staff access to ‘office in a pocket’ capabilities, so they can call, message, meet and videoconference within one environment and across physical locations. McCarthy said staff productivity has now improved significantly, reversing negative customer sentiment.

“Our lawyers have been much more productive and collaborative. They no longer feel compelled to chew into their personal time to make up the hours lost to technical shortcomings, and can better work in a way that suits their life,” McCarthy said.

“The issues with the previous system are gone, and we no longer experience downtime with our phone systems.

“Staff have fully taken advantage of the messaging and video-calling functions to support each other with day-to-day activities. This has boosted morale and increased service availability, because the reduced number of internal calls means clients can get through to our staff much quicker. Since the start of our transformation, the improved quality of work life has seen our staff attrition rate fall to a record low, and our spend per client increase in tandem.”

McCarthy said Avaya Cloud Office helps the law firm remain compliant and avoid security concerns pertaining to clients’ personal information, as well as ensuring continuity of service should there be unforeseen disruptions or team members leave the company.

“We’ve seen great adoption of the chat function and are very comfortable that it’s happening through an approved platform. Employees aren’t tempted to resort to consumer apps like iMessage, WhatsApp and other third-party tools, ensuring sensitive client information remains within a protected environment to prevent any intended or unintended compliance breaches,” he said.

“We’ve also got assurance when it comes to the continuity of services. For example, when an employee who has been using their own device for client communication departs from MDL, there’s a risk they’ll take the clients and sensitive information with them. With this contained within the Avaya Cloud Office app, an appropriate fence is put around the information and we can maintain continuity of the client relationship.”

Bringing local legal services to regional Queensland

McCarthy said access to a reliable, centralised communication system has given MDL the confidence to bring city-quality legal expertise to regional communities around Queensland.

“People across the state expect and deserve a Brisbane-quality law firm, which means they have to spend time and money traveling to the city for meetings,” he said.

“Avaya Cloud Office enables us to provide depth of expertise to clients no matter where they are, so those companies and individuals aren’t limited to the services of smaller law firms physically near them. Whenever the staff in these regions require expertise or resources to handle additional cases, we can collaborate and share the load across the business.”

MDL implemented Avaya Cloud Office with consultation and support from cloud communications firm and Avaya partner Captivo, which completed the system integration over four months.

Image credit: iStock.com/BongkarnThanyakij