We spoke to Darren Gower, Marketing Director at Eclipse Legal Systems, a software solutions provider for legal service organisations, about how they used bespoke training to improve internal communications across all touch points of their business.

The Company

 Eclipse Legal Systems was founded in 1987 and is now the UK’s leading provider of software solutions for legal services organisations.  Their ‘Proclaim’ software solution is in use at around 750 firms, representing around 20,000 individuals in the legal sector. It employs circa 150 people at its headquarters in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and its financial performance is reflective of its growth, with a reported £9 million turnover for the last financial year.

The Requirement

In an effort to further enhance the ‘customer focus’ within the business, Eclipse Legal Systems came to Ripley Training, requiring “external expertise to help us cement good practice in our internal communications, ensuring a core focus on the shared goals and values of the business moving forward” said Darren.

 The Solution

After liaising with one of Ripley Training’s Sales Trainers, Julie, a series of 12 bespoke group training half-day workshops were put together and held on site at Eclipse Legal System’s head office in Bradford, delivered by Julie, during May 2014.

The workshop theme was ‘Enhancing the communications process’, and this, says Julie, was key to encouraging buy-in from the board and it’s people:

“Everyone in the business was involved – from the directors, through to the front line staff and the cleaner – and we tailored the content of the workshops around the company’s objectives to enhance firm-wide communications, form closer bonds between the technical and sales teams, and relay ‘technical’ information in a customer-friendly, jargon-free way.  It was important to encourage staff to view each other as ‘internal customers’ and use positive phraseology when communicating with each other, and more importantly, customers”.

Using fun and challenging exercises was key, says Julie, “to encourage participation and engagement with each other, make people feel comfortable and willing to contribute their own ideas and feedback to facilitate learning”.

The Result

The company has seen improvements in how they communicate with each other already, explains Darren, who says that the “accessible and friendly” training style was a huge benefit:

“External training has brought a fresh perspective to our processes, and fresh thinking from outside of our own industry.  It’s vitally important to sometimes look outside of your own market sector for ways to continue to improve and upskill.

We recently achieved ‘Investors in People’ accreditation and are keen to continually develop all staff through various means, including sessions such as the one carried out by Ripley Training. We have found that this type of training provides people with fresh ideas and makes everybody assess their current abilities and approaches – with a view to continual improvement.

We’ve solicited feedback from every single member of staff regarding their thoughts on the course, and what was of value to them.  Feedback has been extremely positive and constructive, and will certainly assist us in refining the way we communicate – both with ‘internal customers’ and external customers, in the future”

Can we help you?

With over 25 years’ experience in providing in-house training to businesses, we always welcome the opportunity to work more closely with our clients, and bespoke in-house training is an effective way to help you to achieve individual, team and business objectives. Training is developed in partnership with you, ensuring your expectations are exceeded with the option of additional follow-up training and coaching sessions to ensure the learning has been fully applied into your business.

So if you need to address a business issue or problem and need extra expertise, why not try a bespoke in-house training course for your business? Call us on 01423-861-122 or fill in our short contact form – we’d love to create something unique for you! 

By Mike Smith

The post Case Study – Eclipse Legal Solutions: “How we used training to boost our business” appeared first on Ripley Training.