A legal startup's journey to revolutionize debt cancellation through digital customer experience

Meet Debify

The Spanish Second Chance Law (“LSO”, for its name in Spanish, “Ley de SegundaOportunidad”) allows individuals and self-employed people to get rid of all the debts they cannot pay. Unfortunately, the law was not widely used due to lack of public awareness. However, Debify, a successful startup, was created to change that.

Founded over 3 years ago by Carlos Guerrero, a bankruptcy law expert and serial entrepreneur, Debify has already helped over 5,000 customers cancel more than 30M€ of debt.

The Challenge: Freeing customers from their debts without drowning in emails and paperwork

Debify was created to provide legal assistance in cancelling debts and help people with financial needs. Its goal is to offer a fast and efficient solution to those who require help in starting over, even with limited economic resources.

However, applying for the protection of the LSO, as in any legal procedure, involves a lot of paperwork.

To begin with, lawyers must study each case to find the best options for their clients. To analyze a situation, they need to collect specific information and documentation from the client who, in turn, has to request it from different people or public administrations.

Debify began collecting information manually. They would email new customers instructions in PDF format, along with Word and Excel documents that the customers had to fill out.

Once this was done, the team had to spend a lot of time trying to organize and keep track of the data they had received from each client. Additionally, they had to identify the missing documentation and constantly follow up with clients to obtain the necessary information. Communication through phone calls and WhatApps was frequent. To manage the information, they resorted to using various methods such as notebooks, post-its, emails, and a shared Excel document that required manual updates.

"We always tried to give clear instructions, but people were not used to this kind of process. There were always questions and we never got the right information the first time. This created endless email threads and clogged up Debify's inbox, with a constant drip of emails. The information we received was scattered and incomplete, which made it very hard to keep track. It was difficult to know what was sent, what was received and how things were progressing." – Albert Ruíz, Legal Advisor.

Moreover, the customers also felt frustrated by the long duration and the amount of information required in the process. They often didn't even know where to find the documentation, causing friction and leading some to give up on canceling their debts.

This process could take 1 month. This was not the digital and easy experience that Debify wanted to offer.

In addition, as a result of Debify's work of dissemination about the LSO, more and more people turned to them as a solution to their financial problems. As a result, this process became unmanageable for Debify as they were overwhelmed with new customers and struggled to handle the workload efficiently.

The solution: Maximizing time in case management to enhance customer satisfaction

Carlos, aware of what was the main source of friction between the client and the team, sought a solution to improve the relationships.

"We were looking for a digital solution, that fit our legal startup vision, that made it easier for us to track documentation, and automate repetitive manual tasks." – Carlos Guerrero, CEO and Founder

Carlos was looking for a solution that was easy to use for his team and helped them track files and collaborate internally. But, above all, there were two essential requirements:

• It had to be comfortable and easy for their clients, as the goal was to guide them and improve their experience.

• I had to be bullet-proof secure since the information provided was highly sensitive.

"Above all, I was surprised how easy Parallel was to use, both for my team and for the clients, since both parties are generally not very tech-savvy. In addition, all the file tracking could be automated and centralized in a single dashboard." – Carlos Guerrero, CEO and Founder

With Parallel's help, Albert Ruíz, Legal Advisor at Debify, started to create templates with conditional logic questions (decision tree) easy to set up to provide the best experience for the clients. With these, they began to collect the necessary information and documentation for the study and presentation of the LSO files.

As a result, they were able to complete this process in half the time!

After a year, when Alejandro Molina joined Debify as COO, he took Parallel to the next level.

• He automated the creation of economic proposals for clients. Now, the sales team and lawyers just need 5 minutes to answer a few questions and select options to get service proposals ready to sign. They use Signaturit’s native integration with Parallel.

• With the integration between Parallel and Bankflip, Debify was able to include a field with a button in the LSO form that connects clients directly with public administrations (Tax Agency, Social Security, DGT, etc.), in just one click. This saves time and makes it easier to interact with government services.

• To streamline the onboarding workflow, Parallel was connected to Debify's CRM, Hubspot. Now, when a lead moves forward in the sales funnel or judicial procedure, parallels are automatically sent and vice versa. This eliminates manual errors and saves time.

• Lastly, documents from Parallel are automatically downloaded to Dropbox, making it comfortable for lawyers to have them ready for filing lawsuits.

"We always had the support of the Parallel team to keep improving our efficiency and service. That way, we achieved a smooth and fully integrated process in our workflow and with other tools." – Alejandro Molina, COO.

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The benefits: the digital and scalable process a legal startup deserves

Debify has entirely revolutionized the customer experience with Parallel.

From the initial contact with Debify, which includes an automated economic proposal with Parallel, to the client portal featuring the LSO form and seamless connections with public administrations, everything is now easy and convenient for customers.

Now, clients provide crucial case data right from the start, allowing lawyers to begin analyzing the case earlier. This enables both parties to work together in real time, with complete coordination and transparency.

"Now it takes half the time to have all the information and documentation." – Alejandro Molina, COO.

Internally, Debify professionals have experienced a significant reduction in time spent on non-value-added administrative tasks. They now send service proposals in just 5 minutes, and they no longer have to spend hours chasing customers or manage endless email chains. Everything is now centralized and automated, resulting in increased efficiency and productivity.

"Parallel has provided us with an end-to-end solution for our debt cancellation process. It seamlessly integrates with our other tools and offers a secure and convenient platform for our customers. Thanks to Parallel, we have eliminated friction and errors from the process, resulting in improved productivity and profitability for our business. I highly recommend Parallel to any startup in the legal sector that wants to differentiate and grow." – Alejandro Molina, COO.