tm blog

February 2020 sees the launch of the latest addition to our suite of services; our new Consumer Portal. Designed to streamline and simplify the conveyancing process and offer both increased transparency and an enhanced client experience in property transactions, all through an online gateway.

There were 870,000 property transactions in the UK in 2019, with the average case taking up to 20 weeks to completion, with a high risk attached. The SRA reported that conveyancing received the second largest number of complaints across all legal areas.

Almost 20% of the 7,500 client complaints to the Legal Ombudsman are focused on delays, hidden costs, failure to follow instructions or provide adequate advice or background information by the solicitor. Our Consumer Portal has been designed to support firms with these issues by providing total transparency and enhancing the client experience throughout.

In the recent Frontiers 2020: Legal IT Landscapes survey to over 60 law firms from Legal Practice Management (LPM) Magazine, client-facing technology, including portals, are seen as business critical to achieve competitive advantage, with all firms facing an increasing challenge in effective client communication.

Practice management and client engagement systems are where the majority of firms store their key client data. However, many firms are disadvantaged by having multiple “on-premise” systems that do not integrate efficiently or effectively. To align strategy and innovation, a more holistic approach is needed and systems that do not talk to each other will pose a huge barrier.

The new Consumer Portal is part of the tmconnect platform, currently used by over 250 law firms, which can integrate with your existing practice management system and provides additional advantages, such as:

• Workflow management
• Payment gateways
• Anti Money-Laundering (AML)
• Searches
• Milestone management
• Post completion

The Consumer Portal element comes with a host of features and automated processes designed to address the challenges at the core of the complaint issues and provide a connected property community of law firms, estate agents and lenders.

With consumer expectation of being able to transact immediately and digitally now prevalent in all areas of life, the Consumer Portal includes mobile capability, providing instant remote accessibility for your clients at their convenience. Other features include:

• Increased transparency and clarity on both sides of the property transaction
• Enhanced value-added customer experience and benefits
• “On the move” communication and updates
• Two-way integration with tm client systems and consumers
• Cost and time savings through process automation
• Full regulatory compliance and encrypted document sharing
• A trusted supplier partnership with ongoing support and development benefits

The 2020 Legal IT Landscapes survey goes on to predict that firms who understand the connections between their client systems and the importance of data and its context within the business, will be the ones who gain competitive advantage in the market.

As an ISO27001 accredited supplier, our Consumer Portal offers futureproofing capability with secure and robust client confidentiality included as a standard . Automated “intelligent forms” provide increased efficiency and reduced manual data entry, leaving more opportunity to concentrate on client relationships.

For further information or a demo of the Consumer Portal or other tmgroup services, please contact helpdesk@tmgroup.co.uk or call 0800 840 5571 or speak to your local account manager.

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