Customer Perspectives Series: Law Firm Herbert Smith Freehills Uses BrightTALK to Provide High-Value Client Training

Transcription

1 Customer Perspectives Series: Law Firm Herbert Smith Freehills Uses BrightTALK to Provide High-Value Client Training Featured Company: A Frost & Sullivan Case Study

2 frost.com HSF Customer Education and Training: Objectives and Challenges... 3 The Selection Process... 3 Measuring BrightTALK s Value... 3 Lessons Other Organizations Can Learn from Herbert Smith Freehills... 4 The Last Word... 4 BrightTALK provides webinars and videos for professionals and their communities. Every day thousands of thought leaders are actively sharing their insights, their ideas and their most up-to-date knowledge with professionals all over the globe through the technologies that BrightTALK has created. contents

3 Customer Perspectives Series: Law Firm Herbert Smith Freehills Uses BrightTALK to Provide High-Value Client Training Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) is an international legal firm, the result of a 2012 merger between United Kingdom-based Herbert Smith law firm and Australiabased Freehills law firm. With 17 practice areas, the company handles legal issues ranging from capital markets and employment to real estate and tax, employing 5,000 professionals in 27 offices around the world. The recipient of scores of awards over the years, HSF was most recently recognized in the Nisus Performance and Value Index as the number one law firm for client loyalty, reliability and responsiveness, with a prowess for litigation and service delivery. HSF CUSTOMER EDUCATION AND TRAINING: OBJECTIVES AND CHALLENGES A few years ago, HSF s prowess in service delivery was challenged by a gap in its client training and education capabilities. HSF clients were requesting in-person training to better understand the business implications from the latest legal developments. HSF s objective was to keep clients current on emerging legal developments, but global company growth and client expectations for one-on-one support made the effort more challenging. In-person client briefings would involve HSF sending one or more attorneys, presentation equipment, and technical support to client locations around the globe an expensive proposition without a measurable return. Using a webinar would allow the firm and its clients to reduce travel and associated expenses typical for inperson training. THE SELECTION PROCESS The quest for a solution to its training issue began with in-house options. HSF first considered capturing videos on discs that would be mailed to clients. However, the company did not have the in-house expertise to produce a quality video product. At the same time, webinars were emerging as a respected training and education technology, but HSF could not execute such a service on its own. The company then considered a webinar and/or podcast partner as a potential solution. Beginning with a review of what competing legal firms were doing for their training needs, HSF found that none were using webinars. So the company set upon a strategic initiative to examine the major webinar vendors and consider their capabilities as a competitive advantage to meet client needs. The essential selection criteria came down to a few critical variables, which only two vendors came close to meeting. The primary criterion was to address the training needs with a webinar platform that clients would readily embrace. The additional criteria included the technical abilities of the partner, stability and reliability of the service, reporting capabilities and cost in that order. The company was highly focused on service quality, not cost, so as to ensure client satisfaction with the training. When benchmarking and scoring the candidates against these criteria, HSF ultimately selected BrightTALK, which scored top marks in each category. MEASURING BRIGHTTALK S VALUE HSF notes that BrightTALK makes it easier and more convenient to conduct customer education events. Firstly, the service allows HSF to conduct in-person education while saving time and expense traveling to various training locations. For example, in the first half of 2013, HSF conducted 15 webinar events, attended by clients from more than a dozen countries, including Russia, Germany and Australia. For each of those events, global presenters were able to dial into the event and eliminate travel costs and reclaim several days of travel time. Secondly, BrightTALK s technical talent filled a key gap in the HSF skill set. BrightTALK provides a dedicated technician to each client. For HSF, this technical professional has more than once worked with a client s premised-based information technology (IT) staff to ensure video quality at the client site. This has proven BrightTALK s value beyond measure for HSF, which knew it could not replicate similar talent in-house. Lastly, HSF has leveraged BrightTALK to create its Soundbite seminars, a series of live and archived webinars and podcasts. The series enables HSF s clients 3

4 frost.com to stay current with emerging legal developments, save travel time and costs, and gain continuing professional development (CPD) points. LESSONS OTHER ORGANIZATIONS CAN LEARN FROM HERBERT SMITH FREEHILLS For companies seeking a webinar partner, HSF notes that vendor selection should first center on what the customer requirements are and whether they can be met. Secondly, know your objectives for the service: cost, quality, or other criteria. Lastly, and emphasized by HSF, is to ensure that you find a partner with the expertise to manage the service. If quality of service is important, then select a partner capable and responsive to client-side issues. THE LAST WORD BrightTALK s reports on HSF s more than 5,000 channel subscribers help HSF and its clients meet required continuing professional development (CPD) requirements in the UK and around the world. Often clients are required without notice to provide CPD validation, and BrightTALK s reports are the basis for clients to meet this regulatory requirement. When HSF put out a request for a webinar vendor to meet their requested service criteria, HSF notes, BrightTALK tailored the service to our needs. 4

5 Auckland Bahrain Bangkok Beijing Bengaluru Bogotá Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Colombo Delhi/NCR Detroit Dubai Frankfurt Iskander Malaysia/Johor Bahru Istanbul Jakarta Kolkata Kuala Lumpur London Manhattan Mexico City Miami Milan Mumbai Moscow Oxford Paris Pune Rockville Centre San Antonio São Paulo Seoul Shanghai Shenzhen Silicon Valley Singapore Sophia Antipolis Sydney Taipei Tel Aviv Tokyo Toronto Warsaw Washington, DC Silicon Valley 331 E. Evelyn Ave. Suite 100 Mountain View, CA Tel Fax San Antonio 7550 West Interstate 10, Suite 400, San Antonio, Texas Tel Fax London 4 Grosvenor Gardens London SW1W 0DH Tel +44 (0) Fax +44 (0) GoFrost [email protected] Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, works in collaboration with clients to leverage visionary innovation that addresses the global challenges and related growth opportunities that will make or break today s market participants. For more than 50 years, we have been developing growth strategies for the Global 1000, emerging businesses, the public sector and the investment community. Is your organization prepared for the next profound wave of industry convergence, disruptive technologies, increasing competitive intensity, Mega Trends, breakthrough best practices, changing customer dynamics and emerging economies? For information regarding permission, write: Frost & Sullivan 331 E. Evelyn Ave. Suite 100 Mountain View, CA 94041