UK & International Debt Recovery specialists, Lovetts Solicitors are pleased to announce that they are a founding member of Oakleaf’s Mental Health Leaders Network.

In recent months, Oakleaf launched a new network of Mental Health Leaders. Lovetts has had the pleasure of being a founding member along with several other companies whom have a shared commitment to continuous improvement of workplace mental health. Although this is predominantly with regards to workplace mental health, at Lovetts we are hopeful that our team can take away skills that can be used outside the workplace as well.

Oakleaf are a mental health charity, based in Guildford. Oakleaf provide work-related training, wellbeing activities and counselling services to their clients with the aim to boost confidence and reshape their lives subsequently improving their mental health. These activities all help to assist with teaching ways in which you can manage your mental health in the future. Oakleaf have continued to work throughout the pandemic to minimise self-isolation. They are currently supporting in excess of 375 individuals to adopt confidence and a sense of empowerment.

The Mental Health Leaders Network has been created with the aim of bringing businesses in Surrey together who have the shared desire to improve the mental wellbeing of their employees as well as being committed to supporting Oakleaf. Benefits of joining the network include gaining an abundance of knowledge from not only Oakleaf but other businesses and how they have, first hand, dealt with different situations that we ourselves may not have experienced. It is a great opportunity to network, raise awareness and make a difference within the local community.

Within the network there are 13 founding members with plans to expand without reaching a capacity to where the core values become clouded. We will have quarterly meetings whereby we have an expert talk, discussions with other members and take part in activities where we will have the opportunity to learn and develop our existing skills that relate to assisting with workplace mental health. Specific mental health issues such as depression, stigma, suicide, anxiety and many more will be covered in virtual sessions that we will have the option to take part in.

Detailed in Deloitte’s 2020 case refreshment of the Stevenson-Farmer review we were able to learn that only 9% of employees that were surveyed, and 13% of all managers, have attended training that focused solely on mental health. This follows that 62% of managers said that they have had to put the interests of their organisation above their staff wellbeing either sometimes, regularly or everyday.

To learn more about the Mental Health Leaders Network and how you can join to become a member, Oakleaf have a page dedicated on their website which has, enclosed, all of the details. Click here.

We’re proud to announce that we’ve achieved the Planet Mark 2021 Business Certification. This is an incredible achievement involving the entire business.

The Planet Mark Business Certification is an internationally recognised sustainability certification for business acknowledging continuous progress, encouraging action and building an empowered community of like-minded individuals.

In this crucial Decade of Action, measuring our own carbon footprint has been a critical step in reducing our impact on the planet and society.

Through Planet Mark we have protected an area of endangered rainforest thanks to Cool Earth; a charity working alongside rainforest communities to halt deforestation. Our pledge through Cool Earth goes directly towards supporting the Asháninka community in Central Peru.

Through our commitment to Planet Mark we are also helping the Eden Project – an educational charity building connections with each other and the living world, exploring how we can work together towards a better future.

We want to continue to have a positive impact through our business and hope that we can empower our community to take climate action. We hope that you will join us in this movement for change.

Each and every one of you has contributed to our achievement in becoming Planet Mark certified, and will continue to play an important role in our sustainability commitment.

We encourage you to get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions you’d like to share with us, or to join us on this exciting journey of sustainability. Together, we are a collective force for good.

Lexcel is a Law Society legal practice quality mark for client care with only 15% of law firms achieving this accreditation. Lexcel accreditation ensures that law firms act to the highest standards and it endorses excellence in legal practice management.

Every three years Lovetts receive a full audit to obtain Lexcel re-accreditation. Lovetts successfully obtained re-accreditation in September 2021 with the report finding zero non-compliances.

Roger Newman, our Lexcel assessor said:

“For the second year in succession the Lexcel Review of Lovetts Ltd has identified zero non-compliances. The Lexcel Review found a very high standard of file management, and no non-compliances. This is testament to the high quality technology that is employed by the firm, and high standards that are routinely deployed by people in all areas covered by the Lexcel Standard.  Staff are highly competent and the systems well designed and implemented.”

Part of the Lexcel assessment requires Lovetts to send out a Client Satisfaction Survey to our clients in order to obtain their feedback and determine what we are doing well along with identifying if there are any areas for improvement. Within our Client Satisfaction Survey, we asked our clients:

1. How helpful have you found Lovetts staff? In response we found that 53% of clients said they found our staff to be extremely helpful, closely followed by 33% of clients who answered very helpful. We had zero responses to being not helpful at all.

2. How quickly do Lovetts staff follow up on your requests? Here we found 86% of clients said that we were either very quick or extremely quick. Again, with no clients saying that we were not quick at all.

3. How user friendly do you find Lovetts online portal; CaseManager? CaseManager is an online portal that allows our clients to have 24/7 access to their cases. Clients can instruct us on new and existing cases as well as being able to view historic cases for the past two years. This enables us to put the control of the legal process into our client’s hands.

We found that 51% of staff found CaseManager very user-friendly and only 3% said that it was slightly user-friendly.

4. How easy is it to understand the information on CaseManager? 35% of Lovetts clients told us that it was extremely easy to understand. 21% said it was somewhat easy, 3% said not so easy and 0% said not easy at all. The majority of clients said that it was very easy to understand the information provided on CaseManager. Clients have a dedicated account executive whom they can contact for further support with their cases. Lovetts staff are always a phone call or an email away for staff to get in contact should they have any queries with regards to their cases or information on CaseManager.

5. How visually appealing is Lovetts client website; CaseManager? We learnt that 5% of clients that took part in our survey said that CaseManager was either slightly or not appealing at all. A majority, 84% voted that it was either somewhat, very or extremely appealing.

6. How much do you trust the information provided on CaseManager? We saw 60% of clients selected that the information on CaseManager is extremely trustworthy and 0% voted that it was either slightly or not trustworthy. It is imperative for us to be transparent with our clients and provide them with valid information.

7. How can we improve CaseManager? For this question we gave clients the opportunity to fill the space with their thoughts. Some feedback we obtained included:

‘We are extremely happy will all the services we have used via LOVETTS case manager portal online. Even with a visual disability, I can clearly navigate my way around their website.’

‘We are totally satisfied with the services we have received.’

‘Only thing I can think of is standard descriptions in the document history to give a better idea of what the document might be.’

At Lovetts we are committed to continuous improvement to ensure our clients are able to receive the best quality and services possible. We are delighted to read that our online portal is able to be used by everyone including those that are visually impaired. Our clients’ needs always come first so we will always welcome suggestions for improvement.

8. How satisfied are you with Lovetts Service? We are delighted to say that 89% of clients that took part in our satisfaction survey said that they were either very or extremely satisfied with our service. We take great pride, at Lovetts, in making sure that our clients come first and that they receive the best service possible. Hence why we dedicate each client their own executive who they can contact should they need any help and ensure they have complete control over their cases via CaseManager.

9. Would you recommend Lovetts to others? 94% said that they would recommend Lovetts which is very rewarding.

10. Do you have any comments, questions or concerns? Responses we received here were as outlined:

‘In particular X is extremely helpful and efficient. She answers all my queries promptly and professionally and is always very knowledgeable and puts it across in a way that I can understand, knowing I don’t come from a Legal background.’

‘In the 11 years + I have dealt with Lovetts I have always been extremely satisfied with the work they have done on my behalf’.

‘Keep up the great work’

The client satisfaction survey allows us to gage an understanding of if/where we need to make improvements in order to meet our client’s needs and make the debt recovery process as painless and stress free as possible.

Lovetts Managing Director, Michael Higgins explains why Lexcel is so important to Lovetts

“Lexcel is important to our business because it gives reassurance to our clients and prospects that we work to the highest standards. To receive zero non-compliances is an incredible achievement and credit goes to the Lovetts staff. It was particularly pleasing to receive praise for our IT systems which allows us to deal with a high volume of cases whilst maintaining a fast and efficient service to our clients.”

For every survey that we completed, Lovetts donated £2 to Oakleaf; a mental health charity that we support. Oakleaf do amazing work to support people with their mental health and provide a safe and comfortable environment for their clients to come and seek support.

Lovetts Solicitors has received positive results from its Client Satisfaction Survey. Lovetts clients range from FTSE 100 companies through to SMEs. The feedback confirmed that 94% of companies would recommend Lovetts Solicitors for debt recovery.

Lovetts is committed to providing its customers with the best service and quality. In line with its commitment to continuous improvement, Lovetts looked to examine its current performance across some issues that are critical to our success.

The best way to do this was by asking its clients to participate in a Client Satisfaction Survey. The survey was completed online. As you can see below, there was a high level of satisfaction.

89% of clients were either extremely satisfied or very satisfied with Lovetts service.

Every client receives a dedicated Account Executive that is responsible for their cases. Our clients can contact this account executive to discuss their cases whenever they wish. 86% of clients found staff either extremely helpful or very helpful.

In our experience, speed is the key to debt recovery. If clients instruct us to send a letter before action (LBA) or issue a claim before 2pm we guarantee it will be sent the same day. 86% of our clients found that Lovetts follow up on requests was either extremely quick or very quick.

As mentioned above, 94% of clients would recommend Lovetts Solicitors to others in respect of recovering business debts.

Lovetts CaseManager is a unique online case management portal providing debt recovery software that puts control of the legal process back into our clients hands. CaseManager is so comprehensive that our clients can manage an entire case using only this system. It was pleasing to find that 82% of clients found CaseManager to be extremely or very user friendly.

Lovetts Managing Director, Michael Higgins, said

“These are really positive results. For over 25 years we have been determined to provide an excellent service for our client. Speed is key and we seek to be as transparent as possible through the use of our client portal CaseManager. Credit goes to all the Lovetts staff who work extremely hard and pride themselves on building great relationships with the clients.”

For every survey completed, Lovetts donated £2 to Oakleaf, which is a mental health charity Lovetts supports. They carry out fantastic work and Lovetts would like to thank all the clients that participated in the survey.

Lovetts Solicitors is furthering its sustainability commitment by becoming Planet Mark certified through measuring and reducing its carbon footprint.

Planet Mark is an internationally recognised sustainability certification for every type of organisation, for real estate and for products. A Planet Mark certification recognises continuous improvement, encourages action and builds an empowered community of like-minded individuals who make a world of difference.

In this crucial Decade of Action, Lovetts want to ensure that it is a force for good: positively transforming society and the planet by measuring its own impact on the environment.  

Over the next year Lovetts will be working towards reducing our carbon emissions, and we want to share this journey with our community to encourage others to join us.

Through Planet Mark we are protecting an area of endangered rainforest thanks to Cool Earth; a charity working alongside rainforest communities to halt deforestation. Our pledge through Cool Earth goes directly towards supporting the Asháninka community in Central Peru.  

Through our commitment to Planet Mark we are also helping the Eden Project – an educational charity building connections with each other and the living world, exploring how we can work together towards a better future.  

Each and every one of you plays an important role in our sustainability commitments, and Planet Mark will help to embed sustainability in our business culture so that we can make continual progress.  

We look forward to sharing our sustainability achievements with the wider community as we progress with our plan.

Lovetts Solicitors Managing Director, Michael Higgins, appeared on a Federation of Small Businesses panel with the Member of Parliament for Guildford; Angela Richardson and MBE, EM3 LEP Board Member; Ren Kapur to set out the post-pandemic Roadmap to Economic Recovery.

Michael Higgins expressed his ‘admiration for the way businesses have coped during the pandemic’ before giving advice on the importance of cash flow and the impact late payment has on businesses.

Key metrics prior to the pandemic showed an economy that was already struggling. These included:

The pandemic will undoubtedly have impacted the economy even further. Cash flow for businesses will be crucial as part of the roadmap to post-pandemic recovery. Michael gave attendees some key tips for businesses to help protect their cash flow. These inclused:

Could the government do more? It was mutually agreed by Michael and Ren that the government could go further in providing support for businesses in order to aid in the economic recovery. However, credit was given for the introduction of the furlough scheme and government grants to help businesses and the general public.

The potential impact of the pandemic in respect of the mental health of employees was also discussed. The panel agreed that employees working from home and in isolation from colleagues was likely to have an impact on mental health and would have to be managed carefully. Michael explained how Lovetts Solicitors had partnered with Oakleaf, a mental health charity based in Guildford, and that mental health first aid courses were offered. Oakleaf also work to support individuals with their mental health by arranging activities that can be attended to via zoom, hampers for their members at Christmas, they offer one to one support and recently have helped 95% of their clients to feel less isolated during the pandemic.

One thing we know can have a positive impact on our mental health is going on holiday. As things stand at present, the government are stating that travel is going to be possible from the 17th May. Ren Kapur had to say that we should still be a little cautious when it comes to the idea of being able to go on holiday as things could change on a week by week basis. Angela Richardson was able to shine some light on this situation as she confirmed details such as the fact that nothing is set in stone and International travel after 17th May is subject to review, much closer to the time. Angela put forward the concept of the ‘traffic corridor system’. This is the idea that depending on the infection rates and how safe it is to travel, countries will be put into either red, amber or green categories to prevent the further spread of the virus or new variants from other countries. She went further to encourage stay cations which seems to be the best way of continuing on our pragmatic road map to recovery.

To share some final thoughts, Managing Director of Lovetts Solicitors, Michael Higgins had to say; “it is going to be a tough road to recovery but there is a lot of faith to be had in businesses”. A similar thought was shared by Ren who agreed that she had a lot of faith in our country and our communities that we can all work together to support one another on our Road Map to Recovery.

Lovetts Solicitors has been Highly Commended in the 2020 Law Society Excellence Awards, in the category of Excellence in Business Development. A series of virtual ceremonies for the 2020 awards programme took place earlier this month, in which the winning and highly commended entrants were announced.

“It’s obviously a huge honour to have received this recognition,” said Michael Higgins, Managing Director for Lovetts. “As a firm, we’re proud to have been recognised by a number of awards programmes in recent years. This one resonates particularly strongly, because it comes directly from the Law Society itself, – an organisation that sets the highest standards for our sector. Congratulations to the entire team, all of whom have worked tremendously hard, particularly during the Covid disruption of the last six months.”

Over the past two years, Lovetts has seen significant growth across clients, caseloads, and staff count. Earlier this year the Firm’s Founder & Chairman, Charles Wilson, received the Outstanding Contribution to the Industry Award, at the Chartered Institute of Credit Management (CICM) British Credit Awards 2020.

Despite the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, every single individual across the firm has worked tirelessly to ensure we maintain the highest standard of service for our clients. As we look ahead to 2021, Lovetts expects to grow its business debt recovery offering even further.    

Managing Director of MBL Collections, Mark Bebbington, has been working with Lovetts Solicitors for more than 10yrs. Here, he talks about his experiences working with the firm, and how our bespoke CaseManager debt recovery software can provide significant assistance in the day-to-day credit management process. 

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Lovetts Solicitors has been named as the 2020/21 homeshirt sponsor for Woking FC. The announcement comes after two seasons spent as a ground and advertising sponsor with the National League side, and increases the firm’s visibility across the club and the local community. 

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Lovetts Solicitors has joined the growing list of almost 6,000 UK businesses that have been accredited with Living Wage Employer status. The cross-party project seeks to encourage businesses to go beyond the government’s basic national living wage and pay a ‘real living wage’ based on what employees and their families need to live.

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