A few thoughts on... why bigger does not have to mean less personal

Sitting on our Marketing and Business Development sub-committee is one of the various hats I wear in my role as Managing Partner.  It is an area I have been extremely interested in since my GCSE business studies(!) and I enjoy working closely with our excellent marketing professionals.

In that context, I was recently doing a bit of reputation checking on Martin Tolhurst using a couple of popular generative AI tools, and I was surprised by some of what came back.

Conveyancing in Kent: reputation and scale

For anyone new to Martin Tolhurst Solicitors, I would say we have a strong local reputation in Kent, particularly for conveyancing. When the name of the firm comes up in conversation, many Kent residents will have “used you for conveyancing” or know someone who has. We are one of the larger conveyancing firms in the county by transaction volume and have a significant proportion of our staff dedicated to conveyancing.

Some may choose to refer to us as “volume conveyancers”, which is accurate insofar as we undertake a high volume of conveyancing transactions. The term can, however, sometimes be used pejoratively, as though volume itself tells you something about quality.

Anyone who spends much time on LinkedIn will probably be familiar with the ongoing debate surrounding conveyancers, from those inside and outside the profession. Conveyancers in all forms can be fairly easy targets when it comes to criticism of the conveyancing industry and its processes, and larger-volume firms often find themselves near the front of the queue.

What does AI say about conveyancing firms in Kent?

When I sat down to quiz some of my favourite AI tools about firms they might recommend for conveyancing in Kent, I was pleased to see that we were one of the names commonly highlighted. The devil is always in the detail, however.

When I drilled further into the reasoning behind the recommendation, my friendly chatbots were keen to highlight our efficiency, technology-based approach and increasing use of automation. Instant online quoting, case tracking tools and the like were all mentioned as positives.

In the particular response I received, Gemini described us as being “built for speed and volume” - so far, so good. Although, admittedly, I may have been stretching the truth slightly when I referred to all of them as my “favourite” AI tools.

Where I became a little less enamoured with the response was the implication that, in order to be one thing, it is not possible to be another.

Does a larger conveyancing firm mean less personal service?

When I prompted for more detail to help with my supposed choice of conveyancer, I was helpfully informed that if I was looking for a personal service, I should consider a smaller firm.

Now, before I go any further, I am well aware that getting the best out of AI depends heavily on how you prompt it. I have said on a number of occasions recently that one of the flaws of casual AI use is that, depending on how you frame a question, you can quite often persuade it to agree with or support the point you were trying to make in the first place.

But it did leave me thinking more deeply about the assumption that, to offer a personal service, you must be small and handle relatively low volumes of work.

The apparently logical step made by AI (and, I suspect, by plenty of consumers) is that the larger something becomes, the less likely it is to feel personal or provide good service. That is where the assumption starts to fall apart for me.

Can high-volume conveyancing still provide a personal service?

Like everyone else, I am also a consumer. I deal with businesses on a daily basis through my job and in my personal life. I have received excellent service on many occasions and, on almost as many, frankly awful service.

The source of the bad service has been relatively indiscriminate: small businesses, large businesses, local businesses and national ones.

So can a business, conveyancer or otherwise,  provide a genuinely personal service while dealing with large volumes?

I would confidently answer that with a resounding “yes”.

Take banks as an example. I have banked with numerous institutions during my life and, by their nature, banks tend to be large businesses dealing with huge volumes of transactions, account openings and service requests.

On more than one occasion, it would be fair to say I have finished a call with a bank needing to restrain myself from launching the phone into the wall and flipping my desk.

I have also been fortunate enough to experience quite the opposite: a great, efficient service dealt with professionally and personably.

The distinction between those experiences was not the size of the business. Both institutions were huge. The difference was that one had clearly chosen to make service a priority, whereas with the other it felt rather more like an afterthought.

The positive experience came from a business which appeared to have a service culture where the customer was placed at the heart of what it did rather than being ancillary to it. Training, systems, support, management and leadership will all have played a part in creating that culture. Of course, all of that hard work can still be undone by a single bad customer experience.

What personal service means in conveyancing

The same principle applies in conveyancing. If the business, its leaders and its staff are genuinely focused on the outcome for the client, volume is not the issue. What matters is having robust and efficient systems, sufficient people, good support, excellent training and strong organisation.

How technology can support better conveyancing service

Technology has a role in that too. That may mean automation, AI or other tools, but the purpose should be to help people provide a better service rather than simply remove people from the process.

Building a strong client service culture

I am certainly not claiming to run a perfect business. A culture of good service is something we work very hard at within Martin Tolhurst, but that does not mean we can ever become complacent or assume that we get it right on every occasion. It takes a lot of work to be at the top of our game every single time.

Great service today also looks very different from great service ten years ago, and astoundingly different from what it would have looked like when the firm was founded in the 19th century. What has remained consistent is the need to understand and respond to the needs of the people who trust us with what is, for most of them, their most important investment: their home.

Combining technology with personal conveyancing

For us, personal service does not mean avoiding technology or limiting how many clients we can help. Our clients have a named lawyer responsible for their case, supported by knowledgeable teams who understand the transaction. We use technology to help keep matters moving and to make our people more productive and efficient, not to replace them.

The aim is to give people more time to do the part of the job that technology cannot replicate particularly well - listening, explaining, reassuring and helping a client through what can be a stressful process.

We also train constantly not just our lawyers, but every member of our teams. The aim is continuous improvement. If we are good today, we want to be better tomorrow.

Why bigger does not have to mean less personal

What I took from my slightly bruising conversation with AI was therefore not really that it had got Martin Tolhurst wrong, but that the assumption itself was worth challenging.

Bigger does not have to mean less personal, just as technology does not have to mean less human. Ultimately, those things are choices businesses make.

For us, the challenge is to keep growing, keep improving and keep making intelligent use of technology, without ever forgetting that on the other side of every transaction is a person who simply wants to feel that somebody is looking after them.