[OLD - Removed per HelpSpot request #12674] Client Service for Law Firms : Client Satisfaction, Surveys. Repeat Business Drivers & Criteria

Thanks to JD Hull for linking to an old post of his on what he tells his associates. The comment by Mr. Robins below isn't bad, either. Here's the (partial) quote from JD Hull:

Every day, the client service...should be good enough to permit those employees to actually steal any client, and take them to another law firm...if they were to leave your shop tomorrow morning.

If you are not...willing to go that far with your own employees...you are neither confident about client loyalty (not to mention employee loyalty) nor really serious about delivering outrageous client service to your clients.

That's  fabulous. However, one might pause and rightly ask what level of client service the senior partner delivered if the decision were that easy for the client!!  :-)

A great concept to live by, though. (Don't miss the "employee loyalty" comment, too!).

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Thanks to a friend, Jack Mowreader, for an HBR link of Jeff Bezos being interviewed. Feel free to read the entire thing, but here's the kicker as it relates to client service. I love this quote:

"You should wake up every morning terrified with your sheets drenched in sweat, but not because you’re afraid of our competitors.Be afraid of our customers, because those are the folks who have the money. Our competitors are never going to send us money."

Well put!!!  Anything else I add will just diminish its beauty.

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Michelle Golden covers an annual rite of fall in her post on developing marketing budgets for marketers. Since I like Michelle's work I'll look forward to her additional posts on the matter. But I want to emphasize one thing she alludes to already (and hopefully will be expanding on):

When planning your spending, bear in mind that it is far (FAR) easier to keep an existing client or get additional business from that existing client than it is to generate new clients altogether.

Your spending should reflect that reality.

If your scheduled expenditures are largely geared towards acquisition of new clients expect a lower ROI. Conversely, if your dollars are geared towards things that help you serve your existing clients better expect higher ROI.

And for goodness' sake avoid the temptation to spend your dollars on things that are "sexy" but shaky in their ROI. Unless, of course, you're paid to be sexy but ineffective (i.e. your name is Anucha Browne Sanders and your boss is Isaiah Thomas). OOPS. I digress....

Tom Kane agrees, apparently, but with less verbiage.

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I alluded in a previous post to the 2007 Women's World Cup call that allowed Japan to tie the game against England on a phantom call. I was thinking about it this weekend at my sons' soccer games. Like it or not, referees hold the power to determine the game's outcome. They can call (or not call) whatever they please.

Clients and client service are much the same way. Like it or not (here we go again!!), clients hold the "whistle," and they have the power to take their business elsewhere. Whether or not we agree with them, if we want to keep serving them we will listen to their wants.

Another analogy: It's rare to see a call successfully argued and reversed. The time to listen is before they blow their whistle on you!  

By the way, the refereeing was fabulous this weekend. Frankly, the referees are rarely the problem. It's the rose-colored glasses we as parents see through that create the problems. And frankly, clients are the same way: rarely unreasonable. Firms just need to take off those rose-colored glasses.

Good game, Nate and Sam. I'm really proud of you guys.

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I really enjoyed JD Hull's post this morning about the loss of human touch. In talking about how we so frequently use e-mail now, he adroitly notes:

But what happened to voices, vibes, faces, bodies, winks, hand gestures, touching another's hand or shoulder impulsively, stares, grins, frowns, hand-written thank you notes, human electricity, NOT-typing, non-virtual joking, yelling, ragging and flirting, occasional confrontation, intimacy and the "god-in-the-room" magic that starts with two breathing humans in one real place.

A great reminder to not forget to connect with our clients on occasion. They'd probably enjoy having lunch with you, or having you stop by their office.

The women's World Cup 2007 is upon us. I watched the second half of the England-Japan game. It ended in a 2-2 tie on what can literally be described as a last-second goal. Worse, on a phantom call that allowed Japan to tie it. Credits to the Japanese player for a beautiful shot in the corner, but England got ripped off. There just was no foul there. To the utter disregard of my post, I'm going to e-mail one of my favorite customers who comes from England. :-)

The US goalie to the right, Hope Solo, comes from my home state (Washington) and played ball for the UW. Sorry for the shameless promotion.

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A great post by Seth Godin on treating clients differently. It has a direct bearing on client service. Every client is different. If we treated everybody the same we probably haven't taken the time to ask how that client wants to be treated.

It's okay to treat clients differently. In fact, it's fine to give preferential treatment to key clients. I'd be nervous if my bank treated me just the same as it treated Bill Gates. Would I really want to trust my money to an organization devoid of any business smarts?

I wish churches would figure this out. When you treat every congregant the same, you really only treat some right and the rest get left behind, or end up leaving. (David Murrow's book, Why Men Hate Going to Church, is a great read for those interested in the topic). No more holding hands across the aisles; the perfect sermon length: 20 minutes; if you have more than one drummer who can join the worship team, they should arm wrestle--the loser plays.  :-) 

Oh yeah, there are wrong answers. And it's a virtue for someone to care enough to confront you on it. But I've digressed.

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Tom Kane's recent post touches on a nerve for most lawyers: asking for business. He closes with this comment:

The point is that there ways that lawyers can ask for work in a professional manner that doesn't involve groveling. It is part of the closing process that comes with business development.

I really do not disagree with his post. In fact, I highly recommend reading it. I'm going to offer my naive opinion, though, that the firm that really gets client service right will at least ask less often than others. Clients will want them to handle their additional work badly enough that they'll often ask.

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A very interesting post by Jim Hassett on defining your ideal client. Good advice, and worth reading. I'm no expert on that side of it by any stretch. But a thought comes to mind as it relates to client service.

When I was in high school, I received a great piece of advice relating to girls. While my memory of those years is fading (at least my confidence that I remember them accurately), I can recall my share of crushes on the good-looking young ladies. And there were a few that were interested in me that I deemed sub-par. The advice, simply put, was even if there's a girl that's less than attractive, and you're just not interested in her, be very, very nice to her. She almost certainly has "hot" friends.

Time has shown  that advice to be true. Very true.

Even if you have a client that you're not particularly keen about, or is 165 degrees off from being your ideal client, as long as they're your client, serve them well. They may have "hot" friends.

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Today we're going to present a puzzle for you. What, you may ask, does a puzzle have to do with client service? Well...nothing, actually, except that providing outstanding client service sometimes means thinking outside the box. Let's see how you fare!

Long ago a merchant had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a lender. The old & ugly lender fancied the merchant's beautiful daughter, so he proposed a bargain. He would forgo the merchant's debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the merchant and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. The cunning lender suggested they let providence decide the matter.

The lender would put a black and white pebble into an empty bag. The girl would then pick one pebble from the bag.  If she picked the black pebble, she would become the lender's wife and her father's debt would be forgiven. If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father's debt would still be forgiven. If she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the merchant's garden. As they talked, the lender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them in the bag. He then asked the girl to pick her pebble from the bag.

What would you have done if you were the girl? Here are some options (remember the consequences!):

1. Refuse to take a pebble.

2. Show there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the lender as a cheat.

3. Pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself to save her father.

4. Another option?

The girl put her hand into the bag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles (OOPS!).

"Oh, how clumsy of me," she said. "But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked."

Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one.

How did you do? Did you "save the day?" 

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