UPDATE: I wrote the piece below a little while ago and have reviewed it today (6/5/09). Little seems to have changed and the Tesco offer is still pretty low key and even quite difficult to find. Has anyone come across them as competition? I have updated the link to their site at the foot of this page.

In the current climate we have seen several bulk conveyancers fail (Hammonds Direct being a perfect example) so perhaps this is giving the profession a breathing space but we MUST NOT be complacent. I see conveyancing as we know it largely disappearing in the next few years and being handled through the Land Registry, with sales and purchases working almost as you do with a second-hand car. Registry records will be comprehensive and buyers will obtain copies for themselves, perhaps using an hour of a solicitor's time to check on the title but perhaps not. We do currently buy and sell cars without complicated legal intervention using, for example, an HPI check and perhaps insuring against poor title or outstanding finance and houses could easily work the same way. Government policy does seem to be heading in this directiion.
You may see this as heresy but I believe that we need to be prepared.

It's here at last. We've been expecting it for long enough but now it's arrived. Only announced a week or two ago as I write, Tesco Law is here.

The profession has dreaded its coming. We can all see the truly vast expertise in marketing, the unlimited finance, the highly-tuned skills in handling customers and the vast capability in IT. We have seen how Tesco has arrived in town after town, drawn breath, and gently but decisively blown away so many small local retailers.

We fear that we may be next. That fear is well-founded.

But what are we doing to defend ourselves? Are we just sitting there doing more of what we have always done? Do our clients still see us as expensive, slow, poor at communicating and leaping onto the defensive when faced with any kind of a complaint? Are our premises still looking dowdy and uninviting, with staff that don’t seem to care, nowhere for clients to park and office hours that put any client with a job in real difficulty whenever a meeting is needed?

In short, do we look as though we mean business and as though we want to delight our clients?

So far, the threat from Tesco is limited. They have engaged bulk online conveyancer MyHomeMove and it is fair to say that these outfits have yet to make a big impact on our market, although their reputation for poor service is fading among the estate agents I meet. Of course, Tesco are not going to risk their huge reputation by linking with a poor performer so you can bet that MyHomeMove will now have some stiff service levels to maintain. The link to this conveyancing service is quite well hidden in the website but again I bet that this is deliberate. Tesco are dipping a toe into the water and will up the ante as soon as they see things working well.

It doesn’t take a clairvoyant to imagine what will follow. If all has gone well, MyHomeMove will be swallowed up by Tesco and further areas of law will start to be offered. And whether they stick to online services or we start to see legal offices in their stores they will steadily become more and more of a threat to us.

So what are we going to do? Give up? Certainly not! A quick look at our strengths and weaknesses throws up some key facts, some valuable cards in our hands that we can play.

The first is personal service. We know our clients better than anyone and so can take care of them better than anyone. Are we doing so? The professsion is not generally good at this, but we can if we set our minds to it. Here is a quick checklist of ideas. Some have been covered elswehere in this site so I will keep it brief.

1) Your database is a hugely valuable asset. Make your people tidy it up (and they will need pushing hard on this) and then use it to maintain much closer contact with your clients.

2) Get involved with your local referrers, especially estate agents. They have the gift of work in their hands and you don't want them recommending anyone else, ever.

3) Find out what these agents want from you and give it to them. Is it regular emailed progress reports? Is it the ability to check matter progress via your website and reports from your case management? Even if you don't yet have case management you can do this, manually if necessary. You need their
co-operation so earn it.

4) Look hard at your opening hours. At the time of writing Tesco are offering 8 'till 8 weekdays and 9 to 1 on Saturdays, plus 24-hour Internet access. If your staff can work from home logged in to your systems it will take very little for you to match this but of course you will need case management. But then as this brings efficiency gains of some 30 to 40% why haven't you got it already?

5) Go on a PR offensive. Make sure that everyone in your area knows who you are, where you are and what you can offer and show how your service is better in every way.

6) Look at your fee structure against theirs. The Tesco website provides an instant quote. Get one for yourself at various price points and you will see what you are faced with. Their prices are keen but you can sell your services at a higher price if you push the service levels and deliver. Do check their quotes carefully too - their prices for some disbursements seem high They charge £75 extra for mortgages on both sales and purchases They charge a £39.95 "Archive Fee"They charge extra for unregistered property but don't say how muchIn small grey print at the bottom of the form they tell you that their CHAPS charge is £39 plus VATThere is also a half-hidden Money Laundering fee of £7.50 plus VAT.

These last two items are sneaky - not mentioned in the main quote and must take clients by surprise. On top of that they are surely making a nice little profit at those prices. You will know that CHAPS cost much less than that and Equifax's online ID service is roughly £1.30 a time.

7) Consider offering "No Sale/Purchase No Fee". If you think about it, provided you can get reimbursement of your disbursements (as Tesco require) it actually won't cost you anything. You will have seen fee earner time wasted but unless your department is so busy that this prevented them from earning fees on other matters you will be no worse off.

8) Look at matching the Tesco service levels - emails, text messages etc. The right case management systems will do this for you easily.

Take a careful look at the Tesco offer (click Here) and consider carefully how you can match or better them.

It isn't actually very difficult!

Finally, get your staff on a charm offensive, and make sure the partners lead by example. Get people smiling, chat with clients, go out of the way for them.

This is the real key to beating these online services.