A transparent & responsive Partnership

Background & Situation:

Intelligent Office UK are the market leaders in providing managed office services to law firms.  When they launched the business 7 years ago the concept of managed services was still relatively new in the UK but it was firmly established in the US where Intelligent Office’s senior management team had spent several years providing these services to a number of major US investment banks and law firms.  Whilst they felt there was a great opportunity to provide similar solutions to law firms in the UK they realised that a significant part of the initial business development would require cold-calling.  Rachel McCorry of Intelligent Office outlines why they saw value in using experts in assisting with this aspect of their sales cycle

‘When it comes to cold-calling, technically we are capable, but emotionally it just isn’t a good fit’

Intelligent Office decided to appoint a company for qualified lead generation, and included ICM in their market comparison. ICM were chosen from a shortlist of 3 companies, as Intelligent Office felt they displayed the best approach to customer service.

Solution:

Rachel explains, ‘As the concept of managed office services to the legal sector was still a new one, we found the option with ICM to structure the contract on a ‘pay on results’ basis, best suited our requirements.  We knew from experience that a large volume of calls was required to create one appointment and the stats produced by ICM further underlined this. It made it incredibly easy to justify outsourcing this part of our business, as this was work we did not have the capacity to do properly ourselves.  We were also comfortable that the ROI was easy to quantify.

At ICM, we’ve discovered that the key to success with our clients is lead qualification criteria. With Intelligent Office, our pre-call analysis enabled us to identify 5 key criteria that were essential in ensuring that the lead generated would be valuable to them. Again, Rachel outlines the importance of this stage of the process:

‘We loved the fact that we could guarantee each qualified lead was keen to talk with us, understood our offering and was looking forward to us making contact and meeting up.’

Additionally, we pride ourselves on our enthusiasm for our clients’ business. We consider each of our clients as valued partners; where transparency and integrity are key factors that support this partnership. We asked Rachel to comment on her experience of us as a provider and business partner:

‘ICM genuinely wanted our business to be successful. We have always had the opportunity to drop in when we’re in the area, and have always been made to feel genuinely welcome.  We would be encouraged to check in on calls made whilst in the office, and always had direct access to the staff managing our campaign.  Their competitors didn’t give us the impression they would be so welcoming.’

Outcome:

Rachel explains why ICM were Intelligent Office’s 1^st choice  provider for outsourcing cold-calling/lead generation:

‘I must admit that initially we were hesitant: our offering to the legal sector was new and difficult for law firms to grasp. However, on reflection we realised that there was little or no risk to Intelligent Office. A lot has happened since then and the reality is that the business we generated by working with ICM was in excess of £5 million for a cost of sale of about £100 thousand.

If they can sell our concept, they must be able to sell anything!’

Intelligent Office achieved the goal set with ICM. The original conceptual product sales are now self generating. It was sold through to market to a point where referral business is sufficient not to warrant further lead generation or cold-calling. 

 ‘Life doesn’t get any simpler does it?’
    Rachel McCorry, Intelligent Office UK