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

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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Patrick J. Lamb has an interesting post on the whole alternative fees topic. One of my customers (nameless) once told me they tried doing that with their clients. With very little uptake.

And I thought it was supposed to be all the rage. I guess the devil we know is better than the demons we don't.

I appreciate Patrick's posts. And I'm guessing his analysis is right on target. What surprises me is that for budgeting certainty purposes I would think in-house counsel would rather spend slightly more with the fixed rate. Apparently not.

Not sure how this relates to client service, except to add that if your clients ask for it, you should at least offer it. Even if they don't do it, at least you showed your client-friendly face.

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I just returned from a week up in Whistler, British Columbia.  It has become my family's favorite vacation spot. The scenery is beautiful, and there's tons to do for the outdoors enthusiast.  Soon to be the site for the 2010 Winter Olympics, it's known for it's outstanding skiing.  In the summer, though, it's the holy grail for the downhill mountain biking enthusiast.  More power to them, I guess.  I happen to like my body in one piece, thank you.

The picture to the left is us standing in front of the breathtaking Nairn Falls (a short 20-mile trip--one way--from the Whistler Village).

I live in Puyallup, Washington.  It's a small town that doesn't get much tourism (apparently traffic gridlock and our local daffodil princess have fallen short of expectations).  Local businesses rely on repeat business if they want to stay in business.

Whistler, on the other hand, is a different story.  Merchants there could almost certainly prey on tourists, and hardly feel the bite at all.  There's a steady enough stream of tourists that with some decent marketing they could keep the cash registers buzzing with ease.  Flying in the face of that logic, though, what really amazes me is the outstanding level of customer service that the vast majority of merchants provide. And largely from a 20-something year-old set of employees, no less.

My best guess: the vast majority of those working in Whistler are there because they truly want to be there. They came to Whistler to live the dream, and they're doing it.

You draw out the implications for customer service.

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I'm going to piggy-back off Tom Kane's post about internal marketing. Albeit somewhat tangentially. Some people forget that one of the easiest places to get new business is sitting on the other side of your drywall. They'll hop on an airplane to chase a prospect, but won't walk 10 feet next door to communicate with a co-worker who might have a client that needs their services. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard lawyers sending the work to someone outside the firm when they have someone in their own firm who could handle the matter. Which brings me to the point of my post.

Your own co-workers are potential clients. Even if they aren't going to buy your services directly, they could (and should) send those clients to you. Provided you give them every reason to believe they'll be taken good care of.

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Trust is the backbone of any good relationship, be it with your spouse, friend, employer, doctor, or, yes, your law firm. You simply cannot deliver good client service without trust. Without trust you have an adversarial relationship. You have a problem.

It came to mind for me in a conversation I was recently having with a new client of LexBlog's, legal search recruiter Courtney Sapire (whom I would rank extremely high on the I-trust-her scale). Thanks Courtney. In my conversations with her I've always come away with a sense that she's extremely trustworthy. I'd recommend her in a heartbeat if somebody asked me who to call.

Would your clients do the same for you? It's the highest compliment. They're telling you indirectly they trust you enough to put their reputation on the line, like I'm doing for Courtney!  That's huge.

If I could think of only one question to ask as a good indicator of your client service posture, the question "Do you truly trust us?" would be given serious consideration. It answers a lot of other questions in the process.

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David Maister has a post about what a consultant should do in a particular situation and is asking for alternate opinions. Sweet!! I'm going to offer mine. Here's a brief synopsis as I read it:

A consultant is hired to do a project. There's a CEO who railroads the process and is making it difficult or impossible to complete it. The consultant wants to know if he should try to step in and help with the group dynamic (i.e. reign in the CEO) to get the project done successfully. Maister's advice is no, that's not what you were hired to do.

I'm in total agreement. However, I would add that the consultant should walk away from the gig. It appears highly likely the project is doomed to failure. You're just not serving your clients by sticking around. (From my reading of him, my guess is Maister would agree.)

Client service means doing what's best for the client. Always. One can only hope the short-term financial loss is more than compensated down the road by an impeccable reputation and a long list of successful projects.

Stay tuned for my upcoming book, Everything I Needed to Know About Dealing with Frustration I Learned from my CEO, complete with pretty pictures and one of those spongy ball-thingeys.

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If you really stop and think about it, client service is nothing more than a couple simple items.

1. The golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. How would you feel if somebody didn't return your call? How would you feel if somebody spoke disrespectfully to you? The list goes on.

2. Proactively look out for the best interests of your customers. Serving your clients means just that: serving your clients. If you see or know of something that your client could benefit from, you should be proactive and tell your client about it. That applies whether you're selling them something, it's free for them, or quite frankly even if it means you'll lose something in the process.

Client service can ultimately be boiled down to those simple rules. Executing is tough, however. Nowhere is that more true than at home. How is it that we can treat our customers so well, and then go home and treat the most important people in our lives so poorly? What would happen if we applied those principles with our spouses (or significant other, if that's you) and our children?

Just yesterday I came home to a messy house, and my middle son quickly learned of my displeasure (I'm being euphemistic). I wouldn't treat a customer the way I treated my son. So why treat my own son that way?

Ben is a good kid. He makes me smile and laugh and love life. He just made a mistake. I think it's somewhere in the definition of being a kid. And I should've extended him the kind of grace I extend my customers, or I want my customers to extend to me if I mess up.  Ben, buddy, I'm really sorry.

Anyway, I didn't mean to "get preachy." I just thought it was worth sharing.

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