Win new clients with data driven fee quotes from Clocktimizer
Picture the scene. Fancy Investments Inc. (a potentially exciting new client) has decided that they need to review their external counsel. They are looking for a firm to advise their asset management team on regulatory and tax management issues. Their Procurement Manager has got hold of the Senior Partner at your firm to request (amongst other things) a number of fee structures in order to determine whether to award your firm the work.
With a potential client knocking at your door, things should be looking up right? Well, not if you’re familiar with the following conversation….
Looks like I’m going to be spending all night looking at spreadsheets
Now, if you aren’t currently taking advantage of a tool like Clocktimizer, here’s how we envision the conversation with the Senior Partner going:
Senior Partner (SP): Ah Sam, there you are my MAGICAL Pricing Manager. Fancy Investments are looking for some fee quotes for their Asset Management work. They’ve given us six sample matters which they want a fee quote for by tomorrow. I said that’s fine. You and your department are such miracle workers. I’m sure you can whip something up right?
Sam, Pricing Manager (PM): Erm, well. I mean, I do have some data from similar matters but it’s all in different spreadsheets. It’s going to take a seriously long time to compare them all and ensure the fee quotes match and are accurate. Plus I’ll need to cross reference at least three or four matters for each to give an accurate quote.
SP: Well that can’t take too long, surely! You and your team love spreadsheets. Plus, if we don’t have those quotes by tomorrow then Fancy Investments are probably going to work with our competitors! We can’t have that now, can we?!
PM: Well, no. But if we give an inaccurate fee quote, we’re going to have problems delivering on this later. It’s going to take days to analyse all of this data. I want to make sure we provide a quote which works for the client and our firm. That takes time!
SP: Brilliant – I’m glad you agree. You have ten hours! See you tomorrow!
Analyse your data faster
We hope that the previous conversation hasn’t caused too many people to have involuntary flashbacks of late nights hunched over tables of data. If it has, then we want you to know that it doesn’t have to be this way. By using Clocktimizer, your firm can streamline the way it analyses and builds fee quotes. Importantly your firm can compare historical matters in seconds to ensure that your matters are always profitable.
Clocktimizer works by reading and categorising the narratives in your time card data. This allows it to break down the work assigned to a matter into its component parts. It can then compare the type of work done, who the work was done by, when it was done and how long it took. This all comes together to form a ‘fingerprint’ for each matter. All your Pricing Manager needs to do is think of one historical matter similar to the new work you are building an AFA for. Clocktimizer will then identify all the other similar matters which exist. From this you can build a tailored fee quote, with a pricing structure based on prior matters. Because we break down matters into their component work, you can add and remove each type of work individually. Making your fee quote as accurate as possible.
So here’s how that conversation should go
SP: Ah Sam, there you are my MAGICAL Pricing Manager. Fancy Investments are looking for some fee quotes for their Asset Management work. They’ve given us six sample matters which they want a fee quote for by tomorrow. I said that’s fine. You and your department are such miracle workers. I’m sure you can whip something up right?
PM: Sure that’s fine – I can have them over to you in the next couple of hours. Do you want me to email them? Or I can share them directly with the client in PDF form through Clocktimizer. Do you know if they have any specific requirements? I can always build a quote which excludes Junior Associate work if that’s important.
SP: I’ll share the information with you from their Procurement Manager. As long as you can ensure we offer a quote that is competitive, but not at our expense then I’m happy.
PM: That’s fine. If we win the bid then we can track the work in our Clocktimizer budgets so we avoid any write-offs if something unforeseen crops up.
Learn more about Clocktimizer’s AFA tool
If you would like to learn more about how Clocktimizer can save your Pricing Managers from mental exhaustion, set up a demo today. Our fee quotes and budgets offer a fully integrated matter lifecycle management system. Better yet, there isn’t a single spreadsheet in sight!
