Ten Rules of Client Service

Quick, name your favorite customer service class from law school.  Can’t do it?  I’m not surprised.  Most lawyers don’t learn much about client service in school, and the only class that touches upon service at all is Legal Ethics -- which is kind of like teaching someone to ride a bike by showing them lots of bicycle accidents.

By delivering great service, you can delight your customers, increase their satisfaction (and reduce malpractice exposure), cut your marketing budget and turn your clients into your best salespeople.  And because many of your peers believe something as simple as returning client calls is optional, the bar to delivering the best client service in your community is set pretty low. 

Here then, are 10 simple “rules” to help you remember that it is your customers who keep you in business, and when you work to delight (instead of frustrate) them, you’ll both be successful.

1.  Just because clients don’t expect great service from lawyers doesn’t excuse you from providing it.

2.  Don’t assume you’re great at service because your current clients don’t leave.  Many remain your clients because they fear their new lawyer will treat them just like you do.

3.  It costs less to delight a client than it does to frustrate them.  You pay to delight them once, but you pay for frustrating them forever.

4.  It is also far cheaper to compete on service than it is on price, because there will always be someone far cheaper.

5.  People tell others about service they receive, not competence they expect.  Ever heard someone brag about how clean their dry cleaners get their clothes? 

6.  The time clients care about isn’t yours, it’s theirs.  Build your practice to save them time and they’ll be less reluctant to pay you for yours.

7.  Though you might be measured against your peers in a courtroom, when it comes to service, you’re measured against everyone.  If your clients named the top ten places they get great service, would your business make the list?  It should.

8.  Eighty percent of your time should be spent on satisfying your clients’ expectations and twenty percent should be spent on exceeding them.

9.  You can’t measure how you’re doing when you only ask how you’ve done.  Improving client service begins with learning how to serve your current clients better.

10.  If your clients can go months without hearing from you, they can go forever without recommending you.  To lawyers, indifference and incompetence are two different things.  To clients, they are one in the same.

If you'd like to see some more posts like this one, check out: Ten Rules of Rainmaking,  Ten Tweets about Twitter,  Ten Resolutions for the New Year,  Ten Rules for Law Students, Ten Rules for the New Economy, Ten Rules for New Solos, Ten Rules of Legal Innovation,  Ten Rules of Legal Technology, Ten Rules of Hourly Billing and Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing. 

Also, if you'd like to see hundreds more ideas on creative ways to deliver great client service, check out all of the Client Service posts here on this blog.

Replace "Fiance" with "Client"

Found this one over at Rules of Thumb.  Replace Fiance with Client and Married with Retained:

If your fiance does something that bothers you before you're married, it will bother you ten times more after you're married.

Do Your Best Customers Know They Are?

This week I received a letter from Hotwire (which is, along with Tripit, my favorite travel site) that began:

"Welcome to Hotwire Express, a new service designed for our best customers.  Given the volume of business you do with Hotwire, you've earned this enhanced level of service and support, which includes..."

The letter continued to list a series of benefits I'll now receive as an Express member including faster response times, dedicated travel specialists, and increased flexibility to change already-paid-for bookings.

I wasn't expecting the letter, and didn't know I was one of Hotwire's "best" customers, though I've spent thousands of dollars with them.  I hadn't even thought I needed the additional services Hotwire's now giving me for free.  In short, it was the kind of pleasant surprise that made me feel good about my past use of their service and more likely to use them again. 

I also realized that this strategy lends itself well to other businesses.  What could you do to surprise (and better serve) your best customers? Take some lessons from Hotwire and:

1.  Identify your best customers.

2.  Tell them they are, in fact, your best customers and sincerely thank them.  They'll be surprised and happy to know you're grateful for their business. 

3.  Finally, give them additional services and benefits that they'll appreciate without them having to ask for them.

What's the worst that can happen?

Use Conferences to Build Your Practice in a Down Economy

If you have a niche practice, you should already be asking your clients what conferences and trade shows are "must attends" in their industry.  If you're not already a regular attendee (or speaker) at these events, you should be -- now more than ever.  Here's three reasons why:

1.  You Can Increase Client Satisfaction:  One of the first things your clients will cut back on in a down economy is attending these events.  Go in their stead, and promise to report back to them on what you learned.  You can do so in a letter, newsletter, blog or even on Twitter (more on that in a second).  They'll appreciate you being their eyes and ears at the event and will always remember how you cared enough about their business and industry to attend when they couldn't.  As a bonus, they'll likely introduce you before the event to their friends/colleagues/peers who'll be there.

2.  You Can Meet Quality Potential Clients:  The attendees who will be there are potential clients (but ones who CAN afford to attend) who will be impressed by your commitment to your existing clients and your desire to increase your expertise in their industry.  You'll also be one of the few lawyers in the room.

3.  You Can Become an Industry Expert:  Your clients aren't the only ones interested in what's happening at the event.  Instead of saving your updates for your clients, broadcast them (along with your expert analysis) to the world via your blog and Twitter -- especially Twitter.  By doing so, you'll not only reach other attendees at the event, but capture the attention of others in the industry watching the conference from home.  Depending on the technological sophistication of the attendees, you may be the ONLY source of real-time conference news to non-attendees.

In short, forget legal conferences (except for LexThink, of course) and go to client conferences instead.  You'll get much more bang for your buck, impress existing clients, meet new ones and establish yourself as an industry expert.

Meet Your Future Clients

The other day, I suggested in my Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing that:

9.  Your future clients have been living their entire lives onlineand will expect the same from you.  If you’re invisible on the web, youwon’t exist to them.

Now, I've stumbled across this article from Adweek titled Generation Watch Out that explains better than I ever could what I meant:

Today's young talent represents not-able cultural shifts: They'redigital, message savvy, global and green. (Listen to the Flobots'"Handlebars" and you'll get the picture.) They mark fundamentalchanges from previous grads entering the industry. They're moreassociative, culturally networked, nimble and intuitive. Whilethey're more cynical than cohorts past, they're also more apt tocall BS or volunteer for environmental or political causes. Theyare easy in their gay-or-straight, vegetarian-or-meat,tatted-or-not choices. F-bombs are tossed around like Frisbees.These kids run hard, adapt easily....

It's the shortcut generation. That toolbar up top is forold-timers; these guys learned to Cmd-Option-Shift-A in middleschool because it was cool, not necessary. Desktops areinstitutional holdovers. Everyone has a set of on-the-go tools:camera, laptop, videocam, hard drive, cool bag to tote it all.They're experts early on, manhandling Final Cut or Flash withintuitive authority. They're Idea 2.0, the mashup generation andone with confluence, that place beyond convergence where the oldsloughs off and the new quickly gets morphed into the cultural DNA.

All this makes them, at their best, unbelievably creative andproductive. On the other hand, they also think they have all theanswers. Morley Safer wrote recently of this generation'sentitlement issues: They've grown up with everyone as winners, withinspired birthday parties and planned events, with middle-classprivilege and opportunities at every camp, academy andtake-your-kid-to-work experience. They expect careers, not jobs.And they expect to have their names—very soon—in an annual or thismag. Hell, they know their blog on a good day might get moreeyeballs than the trades.

Get to know them. Understand them.  Because love 'em or hate 'em, they're not just your children, they're your future clients, employees and partners.  Learn to serve them or they'll serve themselves.

Want to avoid your clients?

OK, I'm not advocating this, but if you've got just a minute and don't want to talk to that client who goes on and on and on ..., try Slydial.  The free service promises to to connect you DIRECTLY to a person's mobile voicemail.   They don't answer, but get your message, and you can go back to being productive. 

Ten Rules About Hourly Billing

After the great response I got to yesterday's Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing post, I've decided to share a few more "Rules" of Hourly Billing I've culled from my blog and my speeches.  Enjoy!

1.  Ask your clients what they buy from you.  If it isn’t time, stop selling it!

2.  Imagine a world where your clients know each month how much your bill will be so they could plan for it.  They do.

3.  If you don’t agree on fees at the beginning of a case, you’ll be begging for them at the end of it.

4.  Sophisticated clients who insist on hourly billing do so because they’re smarter than you are, not because they want you to be paid fairly.

5.  When you bill by the hour, your once-in-a-lifetime flash of brilliant insight that saves your client millions of dollars has the same contribution to your bottom line as the six minutes you just spent opening the mail.

6.  Businesses succeed when their people work better.  Law firms succeed when their people work longer.  Your clients understand this -- and resent you for it.

7.  Every time your clients jokingly ask you, “Are you going to charge me for this?” they aren’t joking -- and they’ll check next month’s bill to be sure.

8.  The hardest thing to measure is talent.  The easiest thing to measure is time.  The two have absolutely no relationship to one another.  Your law firm measures talent, right?

9.  Would you shop at a store where the cost of your purchase isn’t set until after you’ve agreed to buy it? You ask your clients to.

10.  There are 1440 minutes each day.  How many did you make matter?  How many did you bill for?  Were they the same minutes?  Didn't think so.

If you'd like to get more ideas like these in real time, follow me on Twitter.

Touch Your Audience with These Touchy-Feely Tips

Here's a must-read post from Laura Bergells with six "touchy-feely" tips that will help when you rehearse your next presentation (you do practice, right?). 

If you ever give presentations to clients, to peers or to juries, you need to be thinking about these practice ideas.  My favorite:

Record your presentation without video. Then, listen to it without watchingthe slides. I like putting my audio on my portable mp3 player -- andtaking a walk. While listening to myself on the ellipse machine at thegym last week, I found an area of my presentation that dragged sodismally, I barely registered a heartbeat while chugging along at ahigh incline! I went back to the office for a rewrite and added morepowerful visuals. Listening to "audio only" helps you spot pace andpitch problems -- but it also helps you later recall the words andinflections that work well.

The Value of a Free Consultation is What You Charge For It

Again from Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive:  Don't give away anything for "free" because the "the value of an item declines when it is offered as a gift." 

So, instead of offering in your Yellow Pages ad (you're still doing those?) a "Free Consultation," try offering a "$250.00 case analysis at no cost to you."  Your clients will value your continuing services more highly, and they'll feel like they've already gotten something of value from you to begin with -- making them more likely to reciprocate and hire you to take their case.

Pack a house with nervous clients?

Your clients are worried about their financial futures more than ever.  If you do divorce, estate planning, real estate or corporate work, you should be preparing a seminar NOW on the impact of the current situation on your clients. 

Make it "invitation only" and give each client the ability to bring another person.  Make it two hours or less.  Have a handout with the "Top 7 Things You Need to Know Now" or something similar.  Give each attendee at least three copies.  Encourage them to share it with people like them.

Tell it like it is.  Don't sell.  Your clients (and their hand-picked referrals) will appreciate the information, and look to you as their advisor in times of need.

Looking for the Ugly in Potential Clients

Kevin Kelly writes another insightful essay on The Technium titled "Looking for Ugly."  Using FAA reporting on aircraft maintenance as his main example, he suggests that when we don't penalize minor infractions (the FAA encourages penalty-free reporting of minor safety errors), we reduce major ones.  Put another way, to avoid major catastrophe, it is important to encourage people to look for and report "the ugly:"

Looking for ugly is a great way to describe a precursor-based error detection system. You are not really searching for failure as much as signs failure will begin. These are less like errors and more like deviations. Offcenter in an unhealthy way. 

I think he's right on.  When evaluating new clients, for example, keep track of those things that don't "feel quite right."  It could be something as simple as the fact that they rescheduled three times, showed up late for an appointment, or "forgot" their retainer check.  While many of those prospects will turn into great clients, the handful of them that don't probably have a lot of those little things in common. 

The more you pay attention to those "little things" as they enter your head (as opposed to using your 20/20 hindsight once the relationship has gone sour) the more likely you'll get better at choosing great clients -- and avoiding the "ugly" ones.

The Perfect Law Firm Retreat: Let Your Clients Set the Agenda

So you're working on the agenda for your firm's next retreat?  You've got the standard bases covered:

Message from the Chairperson?  Check.
Firm financials?  Check.
Important legal decisions?  Check.
Practice-group breakouts?  Check.
Rainmaking training?
Golf?  Check.

Client concerns?  Huh?

You've asked your clients what they'd like you to talk about, haven't you?  You should.  And I'm not just talking about mastering their new billing requirements.  I'm suggesting you should poll your most important clients and ask them what they'd like you to cover at your next retreat. 

You might be surprised at what they'd like you to learn -- and they'll be surprised you cared enough to do so.

You're really not that funny.

Trying to be funny in your client emails?  You are probably not succeeding. From Psychology Today:

[I]n a series of studies, participants were only able to accuratelycommunicate sarcasm and humor in barely half—56 percent—of the emailsthey sent. What's worse, most people had no idea that they weren'tmaking themselves understood....

The fact that we're usually very good at makingourselves understood is also what trips us up in the email domain."We're all so adept at processing nonverbal cues that we do it withoutthought, in a happy-go-lucky way." So much so, that we often don'trecognize ambiguous meanings, like in that dashed-off email that couldbe read two different ways."

Tips?  Reread your emails, aloud if possible, and listen closely for ambiguity.  For important emails, compose them, take a break, and come back and re-read before you hit send.

Via Guy:

Reactivate Past Clients

John Jantsch gives us Seven Tips to Dig Out from a Recession.  The one you should focus on today:

Reactivate past customers - Where did I put thatcustomer anyway, I know they are around here somewhere. Sad but true,sometimes we don’t bother to communicate with current customers unlessthey call with an order. By the time they have decided someone elseappreciates their business more, it’s too late. Reach out to lapsedcustomers and make them an apology, promise to never ignore them again,and make them a smoking hot deal to come back.

Thanksgiving Cards: Another Reason

From my friend Jim Canterucci comes this comment to my post about Sending Thanksgiving Cards:

Matt, I couldn't agree more. We've been sending T-giving cards for at least 15 years. We actually get thank you notes for the cards. It's great to visit a large client office and see our cards displayed in many offices. We also get Christmas cards from people who likely wouldn't send otherwise. This is just one more connection.

Do your clients know you're thankful for their business?

It is roughly ten weeks until Thanksgiving.  Have you ordered your Thanksgiving cards yet?  Here's five reasons why you should:

1. Thanksgiving is a holiday about giving thanks.  Thanksgiving is the perfect opportunity to offer your clients a genuine "Thank you for being our client" greeting from the entire firm.  The holiday itself reinforces the message to your clients.  A win-win.
2. Thanksgiving cards are uncommon.  How many Thanksgiving cards did you get last year?  That's what I thought.  Your clients don't get them either.  That's why yours will stand out.  It is also why yours will be talked about.
3. Thanksgiving cards have a long shelf life.  Literally.  What do people do with holiday cards?  They display them.  If you send a Thanksgiving card, it will be likely be the first one up on the mantle, and will probably stay there, alone at first, until Christmas card season is done.
4. Thanksgiving isn't Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza.  Hate the minefield of picking the right not-too-religious "Happy Holiday" card?  Avoid it all together with a Thanksgiving card.
5. At Thanksgiving, there's still time for your clients to do end-of-year work.  This is perhaps the least-recognized, yet best reason to send Thanksgiving cards:  they'll generate more end-of-year business for you.  When you send a Christmas card, it is already too late for most clients to get more legal work done before the new year.  By the time the holiday rush is over, they've forgotten what they wanted you to do, and wait probably wait another year.  A Thanksgiving card can give them that subtle prompt when there's at least a month left before the rest of the holiday's hit, allowing you to close the year on a high note.

If Lawyers Didn't Exist

I know, the title of this post sounds like the beginning of another lawyer joke, but it comes from a very thought-provoking article from Indi Young on A List Apart titled Look at it Another Way.

Indi suggests several ways we can "step out of our problem-solving role." This is important because:

Whether we’re improving what we make, how we make it, or how we shareit, we normally take the perspective of the creator by default. Wecan’t help it. We’re drawn into decisions about all sorts of details.We love the minutia—solving problems, finding a way around alimitation. We don’t try to see past our own role in the process.

Instead of trying to improve our businesses (or our processes/outputs/etc.) from the inside, she suggests we drop our problem-solving role completely, forget about our business' existing limitations and become the person we serve.

Pretend you and your organization do not exist, and study what this person doeswith all the resources available in her life. For example, what does acitizen need from her town government? She needs a way to get from herhouse to the grocery store, the library, the post office, herworkplace, etc. These could be roads, bike paths, public transit, andsidewalks. She needs utilities like water and electricity to bedelivered to her property. She needs assurance that her property willbe defended from fire, protected from floods, and accessible during adisaster. She wants to feel safe from assault, whether by a human, ananimal, pollution, noise, or disease. This list goes on.

Like governments, lawyers (though some might argue) exist to fulfill a need. Here's a way to identify those needs: Think about your clients for a moment. But, as the article suggests, don't think of them as a “user” of the thing you provide.Instead, "think about how and why they accomplish what they want to get done."

So, who are your clients? What do they look like? Where do they live? What do they need? What do they want to get done?

Most importantly, what wakes them up at 2:00 am the morning before they call your office? Would they say it is because they wanted "estate planning" or because they want to make sure they can "take care of their family" when they die?

Put another way, if lawyers didn't exist, what unmet need would your clients have? And if you were the only one to recognize that unmet need (in a world without lawyers, remember), would you invent your firm as it exists today?

Would your client?

Would Steve Jobs?

Start Clients Off Right With a "Starter Kit"

Mark Hollander shares a Patient Starter Kit from drug manufacturer Shire on his Group8020 blog (great company name, btw). The "Kit" consists of:

• 16 page, full color booklet with basic information about the disease state
• An interactive CD-ROM that plays on both Windows and Macs (thelatter representing a smart marketing decision. In the US, Applerepresents two thirds of all new computer sales)
• An ATM-like card to be used at local pharmacies for a free 30-day trial of the product
• Standard P.I. insert

According to Mark, "Theprocess of converting the “concerned and curious” to new customersbegins immediately. The right front page prominently displays aserialized card used for enrollment in the 30-Day trial."

Some other really cool things in the kit (for an ADHD drug):

• “Success Tracker” to chart and reinforce a child’s improvement in tasks that had previous proven difficult
• Recognition Certificate for the child - we’re assuming it works onthe principle of “accomplish so many things and your reward will be..”
• Household Organizer Chart - for both child and parent, bringing a little structure back into home life

Put aside what you think about how drug companies market for a moment, and think about this instead:

What would a New Client Starter Kit look like for your firm?

Would it have basic information about the area of law concerning theclient?

Would it contain links, scanned articles and documents (likequestionnaires and forms) on a CD-ROM that would work on both Macs andWindows PC's?

Would it contain photos of your office, including theoutside of your building and the parking lot, as well as pictures (andbios) of all your staff?

Would it contain a FAQ?

Would it be cool?

If you're looking for a project this month, perhaps building a New Client Starter Kit should make it onto your short list.

Criminal Defendants: What I Learned

Want to know what defendants really think about their experience with the judicial system? Add Courthouse Confessions to your reading list. It is a blog by Steven Hirsch, and he interviews people as they leave the courthouse. In many ways, it reads like a more real-life version of Esquire Magazine's What I've Learned series.

Some gems:

Moral of the story is my friends, hang with people in your caliber. Ifyour a person person hang with good people. That's the moral of thisstory. I'm a good person. I consider myself a good person. On a scaleof one to ten I consider myself an eight.Timothy Jones

I kinda felt better on the sofa than I did feel in jail. 'Cause I don'thave like a violent history, I don't have no crime, I don't have norecord, period. Honestly, I should've stayed at home, it would've beenmore comfortable.Jamali Brockett

I just got out on five hundred dollars bail and I'm stressed out andI'm mad but um this is life, so this is what it is. Come to find outthe marijuana that was supposed to be sold was Lipton tea.Tyrone Carter

I'm here on assault charges which I obviously didn't do. All theassaults that I actually have done, I've never been to court for. Daniel Sbarra

Let me say on the record, I'd like to apologize to the City Of New Yorkfor taking a pee. I'd like to apologize to the garbage man that took mypee away in a garbage truck. There's a reason that garbage man getspaid more then the police. Mark Mark Mark

Never buy phones off the streets. You know, I gotta go to a store anddo like everybody else does. I'm not really interested in phones, longas I can make a call, you know? Cori DeSilva

Actually I'm proud and happy that I hit the cops. They deserve it. I feel better. Now I feel better.Evan Munoz

Graffiti is a part of my life. I start when i was a kid. Its like aspirit, it's my life. I'm a student in graffiti design. Writing on thewall is like I was here, I was in New York, I was in Paris, I was inAmsterdam. It's like a dog make a pee on the wall. I'm animal.Esteban Gonzalez

So she actually gave me a second chance at getting community service.So when I signed up for community service and they gave me the dates toappear I got drunk again and lost the paper work. Ian Jernigan

As long as I don't sell no more weed to uncover cop, I'm good money. Kevin Dorsey

In my opinion drugs, selling drugs in my opinion is not a crime, in myopinion.... I'm not doing a publicservice but in my opinion at the time I was doing more like anentrepreneurship, an opportunist, I saw a large market, decided to gofor it, supplied their demand.Jonathan Sierra

I stole a bra. I did. 'cause I wanted it, and I didn't have enoughmoney.... Sure, I would [do it again.]I had so much fun coming here to court, I met beautiful people, and Isaw that it's not as bad as you think. They were all laughing, thewhole time through, we were laughing, joking. Stay good, don't do badthings, you know? Do good things, don't steal. Janet Braha

I may look like sh*t right now, but when I dress up and do my hair, andeverything, I look very elegant, very classy. But my dream is to keepstudying politics and run for the presidency when I get older.... I'm not gonna say that I'm gonna win, but I can say that I'm gonna trymy hardest, because I have a lot of great ideas on a lot of differentthings, and I think I can make a difference and make a change, a betterchange in the world.... I feel that I'm qualifiedfor that. Judy Guadalupe Schiller Perez Aversa

Stop Painting a White Room White

I was talking with a friend the other day, and he was telling me how he felt that at work they kept doing the same things over and over again with similar, less-than-remarkable results. He said it was like "painting a white room white." While the new coat of white paint was fresher and cleaner than the one it replaced, nobody really noticed the difference except the ones who did the painting.

I think the same is true about the incremental changes many of us make in our business. We notice them, and over-value their worth to others even though they're not likely to realize we've made any changes at all.

Next time you contemplate a change in your business, ask yourself, "Will my clients (or co-workers) notice?" If the answer is no, perhaps you should concentrate your energies on changing something they will.