Improve client experience and efficiency of will application process.
A quick and convenient way for clients to submit critical information from the comfort of their own home.
Excellent client feedback; efficiency issues solved instantly.
Burness Paull is one of Scotland’s leading independent law firms. It works with private and public sector clients, employs more than 550 people and has a turnover of over £60 million.
The firm is well known for its work in the energy sector, commercial property and corporate law. However, it also supports private clients with a range of personal services – including wills.
Scottish law says that wills cannot be made entirely online and some elements still need to be completed using paperwork.
This became an issue for Burness Paull during the COVID-19 lockdown, as clients were unable to visit the company’s offices to sign wills.
Instead, they had to spend up to two hours on the phone with a solicitor answering a detailed checklist of questions. This was inconvenient for clients and inefficient for Burness Paull.
Burness Paull’s solicitors tried making this easier by sending clients a spreadsheet form to collect the required information.
Unfortunately, this proved unpopular. Here’s why:
The company named its app ScotWill.
ScotWill allows users to quickly and conveniently send Burness Paull the information needed to write a will.
Clients seeking a will are given a QR code and asked to set up an account.
They are then taken through a series of screens, answering questions as they go. These questions are in various formats, including drop-down menus, free text fields and radial buttons. Mandatory fields mean that users cannot submit their forms without filling in critical sections.
A progress bar, save function and the ability to skip to different parts of the questionnaire help ensure an excellent user experience.
When a user submits their form, it is locked down and a notification is sent to the Burness Paull team. A solicitor then downloads the information from the app’s back end.
The app also gives users reasons to revisit the app. The first is an FAQ that provides information and guidance on estates and wills. The second is a ‘major life change’ notification form. This allows users to update their will and notify Burness Paull of changes in their lives – for example, if they remarry.
The Will information that Burness Paull receives is now more accurate and complete than before, saving the company time and resources.
Burness Paull is promoting the app’s use amongst clients and has already seen results.
A simple but powerful example is that, many clients wouldn’t include their postcode in the spreadsheet, forcing a solicitor to find it using online postcode finders or Google Maps. Over a year this added up to hundreds of hours of lost time. This question is mandatory in the ScotWill app, instantly solving the issue.
Burness Paull received excellent feedback on the app:
Off the back of ScotWill’s success, Burness Paull is now considering creating Fliplet apps for other services, including:
Fliplet enables non-technical and technical people to produce mobile and web apps. Fliplet includes a broad selection of app templates that enable organizations to rapidly deliver apps for staff or customers and are distributed to public or enterprise app stores, and online.