Acquiring new clients is the lifeblood of any law firm. However, onboarding new clients can often prove cumbersome, time-consuming, and ineffective. A poorly designed process driven by manual input can result in disorganisation, lost productivity, and more importantly, noncompliance. 

The EU and UK GDPR and Money Laundering directives have made it imperative for law firms to ensure they are following the appropriate compliance procedures, which includes sufficiently verifying the identity of your clients. However, this often requires a considerable amount of internal (and nonbillable) time and manual input within disparate systems, which leads to a greater amount of risk. At the same, firms are also tasked with driving greater efficiency in the client onboarding process. 

The good news is that technology can play a crucial role in helping your firm conquer some of the most common client onboarding challenges. From time-intensive processes to client data security, here we look at the five most common client onboarding challenges that today’s law firms face - and how technology can help you overcome them. 

1) The client onboarding process takes too long

Perhaps one of the biggest hurdles to efficient client onboarding is a poorly designed process, which can result in too many process steps, an inefficient allocation of resources, and huge communication gaps. 

More often than not, law firms rely on manual processes and disparate technology solutions to accept new business. This can result in inconsistencies in client intake questionnaires and engagement letters, lead to the omission of crucial information and create risk management gaps. For these reasons, just over half (56%) of law leaders in the UK report that business intake and compliance process automation technologies are amongst the highest-priority technology projects within their firms. 

Digital onboarding solutions can help your firm streamline risk analysis, automate business acceptance processes, and also improve firm-wide risk management by ensuring consistent and comprehensive intake questionnaires and engagement letter templates. 

These solutions leverage workflow automation tools, like Sysero, to enable you to customise your onboarding process and integrate with your firm’s existing business systems, such as accounting and document management, to speed up processes, reduce errors from data duplication, and get to work faster for your clients.

2) There’s missing or incorrect client information

Another common challenge in client onboarding is obtaining the right information. When client information gathering is done manually, key data is often omitted or misentered. Inaccurate data entry, human error, and poor data quality is one of the top issues law firms face in compliance screening.

Instead, opt for a technology solution that allows you to gather information directly from clients. Imagine simply sending a potential client a link to a secure web-based form, where they are guided through a questionnaire to gather the required information. By having clients confirm and update their own data through user-friendly web-based forms, your firm can ensure the correct data is collected and held within the firm’s other internal systems.

Top-tier rated international law firm Wikborg Rein offers a prime example of how digital forms can be used as part of an efficient client onboarding solution. Using its digital client intake solution, which is based on Sysero’s workflow automation technology,  Wikborg Rein uses an intuitive web interface to register new clients and confirm the necessary information is collected and verified by clients and other data sources in accordance with current regulations. 

3) Poor record keeping puts compliance at risk

Siloed systems and manual data management can prove to be a major challenge if your firm is called upon by regulators. In today’s world, it’s not enough to simply just monitor your clients on an ongoing basis; you must be able to demonstrate compliance activity with a clear audit trail as evidence. 

By automating your client onboarding, you can create a controlled process and be confident that every step, action and approval is documented automatically. For example, Arntzen de Besche, one of Norway’s most sought-after firms, uses a digital client onboarding solution that uses a built-in risk matrix to automatically assess a new client against Money Laundering Act requirements. Any client that falls outside the requirements is automatically routed to a simplified workflow for further assessment to ensure compliance and once approved, automatically created in the firm’s integrated ERP system. Every step of the process is recorded, providing a complete audit trail. 

4) Client data needs to be kept secure

In today’s compliance environment, law firms must ensure that data is captured, stored, and maintained in a highly secure manner. With technology like Sysero, data security best practices like encryption, pseudonymisation, and data retention policies can be automatically built into your client onboarding solution. 

Opting for a hybrid cloud solution is another way that your firm can reap the benefits of cloud-based technology, whilst ensuring your data stays secure on-premise. Using a solution like Sysero’s Hybrid Cloud Workflow, you can easily capture data from external parties using web-based forms, and then share, manage, and use that information via a secure in-house system. Once the information is migrated in-house, it’s stored behind the safety of the firm’s firewall and can be integrated with any and all internal systems as required.

5) Technology doesn’t align with the firm’s requirements

Before you make the leap into digital client onboarding, it’s essential to understand your requirements and evaluate potential technologies. Ultimately, the success of your digital onboarding solution depends on the technology that powers it. 

When deciding on a technology solution for your firm, there are few things you should consider:

• Ease of use: How easy is it for staff to use? Will it require a significant amount of training? Opting for a low-code or no-code solution with a visual designer tool can help boost adoption.
  
  
• Customisation: Can the technology be customised to fit your unique onboarding? requirements? Is it able to integrate with key external verification sites or partners?
  
  
• Configurability & Flexibility: Will the technology integrate with your core existing systems? How easily can you adjust your compliance and data management rules and requirements?
  
  
• Security: How will the system keep your client data secure? What security features come built-in? 

At Sysero, we’ve helped top-tier law firms from around the world streamline, automate, and secure their client onboarding processes. If your firm is looking to conquer the common challenges of client onboarding, now is the time to transition to a digital onboarding solution. Get in touch with our team to learn more.