Making it look easy


Posted by Andy Somerville, director at Legal Futures Associate Search Acumen

Sommerville: Millennials will expect ‘easy’ by default

Sommerville: Millennials will expect ‘easy’ by default

Conveyancing is hard work – I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently. Here’s why.

The work isn’t just limited to the complexities of legal paperwork and the necessary due diligence involved in transfers of title. Conveyancers are often unfairly maligned for delays in property transactions and then berated for deals falling through: a guaranteed driver of stress and anxiety that add to work pressures.

Once the finish line approaches, conveyancers will have instructed, checked the contract pack, possibly undertaken legal work for the lender and ticked off all the details that may impact the client’s enjoyment of their property. Even then, the blame for any bumps in the ride is often the conveyancers to bear alone.

When clients are stressed out and want to complete, they’re not very sympathetic towards conveyancers’ workload – and why should they be? Today’s consumers increasingly enjoy immediacy and control over many purchasing decisions. Why should their biggest purchase be any different?

Instead, they would prefer things to be easy.

So while conveyancers are busy moving mountains in the background, they need to be skilful at making things appear this way. There’s no point trying to resist: this client expectation will not go away as more tech-savvy, always-connected millennials save up for their first deposits. They’ll expect ‘easy’ by default.

The same applies to the searches industry, where businesses that are thriving are the ones making the search-ordering process palatable for conveyancers. Under the Search Acumen bonnet, we run a complex system of search-ordering, with cutting-edge technology and reams of search data feeding into the background. But all conveyancers see is a clean shop front where they can order searches within a few clicks.

If I’m honest, then – like many clients – conveyancers don’t really care how things get done; just that it’s easy and produces the desired result.

Search Acumen’s ethos is about making things easy, and many conveyancers don’t need to hugely disrupt their work routine to simplify things for their own clients. A simple text update or a proactive email could make a world of difference. Keeping clients in the dark creates uncertainty, propelling them to call you up. So, even a minor update is valuable to the client.

Take it from our client relationship team: a simple ‘There’s no news at the moment, but we’ll get back to you as soon we do have something to report’ can go a long way.

We know our deep appreciation of conveyancers’ hard work isn’t always shared by clients. We also know conveyancing can never be easy, but that shouldn’t stop us all from aspiring to delight our customers by creating this impression.




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