Every business owner will be familiar with products or services priced on a subscription basis. For example, mobile phone plans, accounting software, and bookkeeping services are all invariably paid for on a subscription basis. Indeed, many businesses are leasing property on a subscription basis (WeWork and the like).
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For many industries, the benefits of purchasing services in this way are obvious. Yet, for some reason, LegalVision is the only law firm in the Asia-Pacific to offer a membership-based, subscription priced offering.
We operate in this way because we think it offers the best possible customer experience through four broad customer value propositions:
- cost-certainty;
- proactivity;
- convenience and efficiency; and
- long term relationships.
I’ve set out some details on each of these below, but, ultimately, as a business that operates on client feedback, the proof is in the pudding: thousands of members receive our services on a subscription basis because it’s what our clients want!
As a business owner or manager, you’ll be acutely aware that cost-certainty in business is extremely valuable. The more business expenses with cost certainty, the easier it is to manage your business. Additionally, with a cost base that is 100% certain, any dollar generated over break-even will lead to a dollar of profit. Of course, there are limits to a business’ ability to fix costs, but when you can, you should!
The vast majority of law firms operate solely on an hourly rate basis. So when you engage a traditional law firm, you will have almost no cost certainty for the work. Anyone who’s suffered from bill shock over an unnecessarily inflated lawyer’s bill knows this.
A LegalVision membership, on the other hand, gives you complete monthly price certainty. All of your business-as-usual legal needs are included in your membership. As a result, you know exactly how much you’ll pay every month, regardless of how much legal work you need assistance with.
The reality is that legal services provided traditionally are expensive. Now, of course, in many circumstances, it makes perfect sense to spend considerable sums on legal assistance. It is vital to protect your business. Nevertheless, legal assistance is often a “grudge purchase”, and a business owner or manager will generally have a long hard think about whether they can avoid engaging a lawyer at all.
The result is that businesses often don’t engage a lawyer when they really should. For example, if you’ve got a quick question or need a few changes made to a document, you will often hold back from engaging a lawyer to avoid getting stung for something that might be quite simple. Frankly, you may also want to avoid all the messing around that comes with dealing with a traditional law firm (costs agreements, estimates etc.).
With a LegalVision membership, this whole concept is flipped. You’ve got unlimited access to our legal team for all your business-as-usual legal needs, whether it’s to ask a quick question, have a contract checked or drafted, or get a trademark application sorted.
Because our members aren’t worried about being charged every time they get in touch, they’re much more likely to get more minor issues dealt with by our legal team. This means things are done correctly from the get-go, which vastly reduces issues down the track. Our members are much less likely to end up in lengthy disputes with their suppliers or customers, for instance, because they’re comfortable getting in touch well before a dispute eventuates.
Finally, because we’ve built a deep relationship with all of our members, we proactively reach out to them to ensure they have all the legal support they need. Often, members don’t even realise there are changes they need to make. For instance, when the privacy laws recently changed, we reached out to every single LegalVision member to make sure we updated their Privacy Policy. This type of proactive support is another of the reasons that a LegalVision membership is so different to working with a traditional law firm.
As a business owner, if you’ve got one lawyer who does all of your legal work, likely, they’re not doing a great job. A lawyer can’t be a specialist in corporate law, commercial law, employment law, trademarking, etc. The saying “a jack of all trades and a master of none” isn’t one you want applied to the lawyer you’re working with!
Now, a traditional law firm might have a number of specialist lawyers who can assist your business, but generally, they won’t work in a structured, consistent, efficient manner. Instead, each lawyer will do things differently, which is sub-optimal.
Because LegalVision is a membership-based organisation, every lawyer here follows the same efficient, structured delivery process. Our subscription model makes this possible. The result is we provide a much more convenient and efficient service to our members than a traditional law firm. Because of our subscription model, we’re able to deliver five-day turnarounds, best-in-breed documentation, and a client experience with Australia’s highest law firm Net Promoter Score.
Long-term Relationship Building
The reality is that most law firms interact with their clients in a very transactional way. A client will reach out when a particular need arises. But, because this is infrequent, the client doesn’t build a deep relationship with the law firm.
A subscription model flips this. Because our members don’t pay anything beyond their monthly membership fee, they interact with our team much more regularly. The net result is that we build deep, long-term relationships with our members. It’s these long term relationships that are the foundation of LegalVision’s approach.
Subscription models are taking over the world, and for a good reason; they deliver for consumers and businesses alike. If you’d like to know more about LegalVision’s membership offering, visit https://legalvision.com.au/membership.
