SurePoint Technologies, the leading cloud provider of financial and practice management solutions for law firms, announced today its acquisition of Cole Valley Software, the maker of ContactEase, a leading customer relationship management (CRM) solution for legal professionals. The transaction creates the first legal technology platform integrating real-time CRM into practice management and financial data, allowing law firms to holistically manage and grow client relationships.
This move vaults the company ahead of competitors still developing cloud-based financial management solutions and incorporating CRM for law firms. Part of an emphasis on strategic, systemic growth, the acquisition further empowers SurePoint to fulfill its vision of transforming the legal industry by automating administrative processes to allow lawyers more time to focus on their practices.
“Our clients were adamant that CRM is the next feature we should incorporate into our platform. ContactEase provides the best solution on the market,” said SurePoint Chief Executive Officer Tom Obermaier. “Our two companies share a similar trajectory and history, a corresponding middle market client base, complementary values and corporate cultures, and the ability and desire to merge two state-of-the-art platforms into one groundbreaking best-in-class solution for all legal management and marketing needs.”
ContactEase has earned a reputation for combining powerful features with extreme usability and for its industry-leading adoption rate – a prodigious 90%, as compared to 50% industrywide. The technology captures competitive intelligence on clients, prospects and other contacts while tracking and reporting business development activity.
The technology operates seamlessly within Outlook and includes integration with Hubspot. It allows professionals with a touch of the keyboard to open a pop-up window displaying a complete history of the firm’s interactions with a contact. From a single pane, law firm marketing teams can easily initiate email campaigns, and users can share, manage and leverage data to ensure the right people get the right information at the right time. The results are enhanced client and prospect relationships and an increased ability to retain and acquire clients.
“Incorporating ContactEase into SurePoint’s easy-to-use platform made sense for the next phase of our technology’s growth onto the cloud,” said Cole Valley President Jennifer Whittier. “Our approach to bringing visibility to every facet of contact connection will now include essential financial data, generating new avenues for lawyers intent on developing a thriving book of business. We anticipate law firms will enthusiastically embrace the opportunity to easily access a single source of information.”
By acquiring ContactEase, SurePoint has obtained a turnkey, highly functional CRM system providing business data, insight and prospecting tools that, when incorporated in SurePoint’s own financial reporting and client management system, will capture return on investment (ROI) for business development. Until now, ROI has been a missing link when attempting to evaluate law firm business development efforts. Obtaining that data gives law firms the ability to better communicate with clients and prospects and understand more aspects of client relationships.
“SurePoint asked what we needed, listened to our suggestions, then engineered a solution,” said Jaclyn Braga, Director of Marketing at Morse. “We’ve become accustomed to their user-friendly software and hassle-free customer service. Adding ContactEase’s proven CRM to SurePoint’s already exceptional software suite offers value that increases our loyalty, because it opens up more opportunities to better serve our clients.”
As part of the transaction, all of ContactEase’s workforce will become part of the SurePoint team. The combined customer base will expand to 600 mid-sized law firms. ContactEase remains available as a stand-alone product for both its present and new users.
“SurePoint’s acquisition was perfect timing to coincide with our company’s transition,” said Cole Valley Founder Jeff Reade. “I always envisioned ContactEase as a component in a holistic client-management environment, and I’m delighted that SurePoint has the capability to take ContentEase to its next incarnation. That they will do so while still providing our clients the same quality product and level of customer service while blending our entire highly skilled team into their operation is a dividend for the legal community.”
