Client Worthiness Index
Client Intake Worthiness Scale
In my last Resolution (on trusting your gut), I mentioned the new LexThink Client Worthiness Index (CWI). I only included a link to the pdf version of it in that post. Here's a pic of what it looks like, if you're interested.
Resolve to Trust Your Gut
Every time you interview a potential client, you have a "gut" feeling on whether they will be a good client or a bad one. Unfortunately, too many lawyers ignore our gut, and end up paying for it in the end.
Today's resolution is to Trust Your Gut. Don't ignore those uneasy feelings you (or your staff) have about potential clients. Instead, pay attention to them, and trust yourself to differentiate good clients from bad.
To help you trust your gut better, I've created a LexThink Client Worthiness Index Worksheet (links to .pdf) for you to use every time you interview a potential client. Fill in the blanks (and ask your staff to help) after your meeting, and you'll come up with a "Client Worthiness" number between 1-100. Do your best to take clients scoring 75 or better, and you'll weed out the bad ones before it is too late.
Resolve to Fire Better
In yesterday's resolution I encouraged you to understand what makes your bad clients bad, and avoid taking any more like them. But what do you do with the terrible clients that are already on your books? Fire them!
Sounds easy, but the reason so many lawyers continue to serve clients they shouldn't is that it is uncomfortable/awkward/difficult/etc. to let those bad clients go -- especially early in the relationship when we know the client is a difficult one, but promise ourselves they'll improve. Sound familiar?
So today's resolution is an easy one: Resolve to Fire Better. Start by reviewing the ethics rules in your jurisdiction regarding termination of the attorney-client relationship, and then:
- Add a "Client Expectations" section to your retainer agreement that sets out the kinds of things you expect from your clients and the things they're prohibited from doing (like belittling your staff, constantly canceling appointments, etc.).
- Draft three form letters (first warning, stern reminder, and "You're Fired!") that you can pull out on a moment's notice and use with minimal modification when clients deserve one.
- Write a script of the what you'll say when you tell the client they're fired.
- Practice your script! Difficult conversations become less so when you're accustomed to having them.
Once you've cleaned out your waiting room, you'll be able to start focusing on the clients you love to serve, and on building your practice to serve them better. More on that in tomorrow's resolution.
(Thanks to Julie A. Fleming, who's comment on yesterday's post contained some great advice on firing clients.)
Resolve to Understand Your Worst Clients
Admit it, you have clients you hate. Whether they're not paying you, always coming up with excuses for not following your advice, or belittling your staff, your worst clients don't deserve your best work and probably aren't getting it anyway. Their work is the last you do, and their calls are the last youreturn. You wake up worried about their file, but then find a myriadof excuses to avoid touching it all day. Your worst clients sap your energy and take the fun out of practicing law.
So, in 2010, I challenge you to resolve to understand your worst clients better. This isn't about liking them, but about avoiding more like them. Here's how:
1. Identify your 10 worst clients (past and present).
2. List at least three things they all share in common -- things like the warning signals you ignored when they hired you, the kind of problems they asked you to solve, or even the type of lawyer on the other side of the case.
3. Title the list: "Types of Clients and Cases I'll Never Take Again."
4. Review the list before every potential client interview, and think twice before taking on another "worst" client.
Once you've resolved to understand the kinds of clients you hate to serve, you can start building your practice around serving the clients you love.
Resolutions are Back!
In the first few years of this blog, every December, I'd share one "resolution" each day of the month (here are the ones from 2004, 2005 and 2006). The purpose of the posts was to give my readers a handful of things they could implement in the coming year to make their practices better. I skipped 2007, and did a single Ten Resolutions for Lawyers post last year.
Since one of my resolutions for 2010 is to write more, I figured this was a good time to get the series running again. Between today and the end of the year, look for 31 "Resolutions" focused on identifying your best clients and serving them better. Some you've seen before on this blog, and some are new. I hope you enjoy them all.
Does Your Firm Know Customer Math?
Jackie Huba has a great Q and A with Jeanne Bliss, the author of "I Love You More Than My Dog": Five Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad." There's a lot of meat in the interview (and probably in the book as well), but the real nugget is this reminder to pay more attention to serving existing customers than to pursuing new ones:
Q: Do companies need to be customer-driven to grow?
A: Companies forget that customers keep them in business. Customers who love companies grow them. To understand this, think of customer math -- a rigorous way to track incoming customers by volume and value and then reconcile that number with the lost customers in that same period, comparing incoming and outgoing customer volume and value. The ‘aha moment’ comes when the math reveals that company marketing dollars are spent replacing customers lost rather than growing the business with the addition of new customers. In essence, many companies are running in place. I believe in elevating customers as the asset of the business. That means creating a competency for rigor around a) identifying and getting rid of those things driving customers away; and then b) getting really great at specific things that create a distinct memory and impression about a company and its people. We forget the fact that it’s the creation of those memories that we make on purpose or accidentally through our operations decisions or policy choices that connect or repel us from customers.
More on this in a few weeks...
Keep Your Clients Healthy
John Jantsch, of Duct Tape Marketing, tweeted this "killer retail traffic strategy" that could work for law firms:
hook up with RN and offer flu shots in your store or business.
Could you offer a free flu-shot to your clients? Especially if combined with a legal check-up, too?
Ask Your Clients What Surprised Them
Paul Graham collects some sage advice from the founders of startups he's helped fund. Preparing for a talk, he sent emails to all the founders and asked them "what surprised them about starting a startup?" According to Paul, asking what surprised them amounted to "asking what I got wrong, because if I'd explained things well enough, nothing should have surprised them."
This is a very powerful question that should be on every lawyers post-matter client survey:
What surprised you the most?
Like Paul, you're asking your clients in a polite way about the things you got wrong (or that they think you did because you didn't communicate well). And I'm quite certain you'll get powerful, surprising and sometimes harshly critical responses -- which are just the types of feedback you can use to eliminate surprises in the future for you and for your clients.
Motivational Interviewing for Lawyers
I'm helping facilitate a workshop later today titled "Working with Difficult Clients" for Legal Services of Eastern Missouri's annual conference. One of the exercises we'll be doing teaches how lawyers can use Motivational Interviewing techniques to get better responses from distressed clients.
Here's a quick way example of Motivational Interviewing questions (be sure to ask them in this order):
How important would you say it is for you to ______________?On a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 is not at all important and 10 is extremely important, where would you say you are?
Why a 3 and not a 0? OR: Why an 8 and not a 10?
Give this method of questioning a try next time you're talking to a client. It is a great way to understand what they think is important, and most importantly, why they feel that way.
Advertise What Matters (to Clients)
If you're wondering what to put on your website (or in that next yellow pages ad), take a cue from the Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford, Florida. Instead of trumpeting just how great their doctors are, they're using a nearby billboard to display a real-time statistic that lots of people care about: ER wait times.
From the Orlando Sentinel:
To find out how long the wait is in the emergency room at Central Florida Regional Hospital in Sanford, you can check its Web site, send a text, or, now, cruise past a billboard on Interstate 4.The hospital this week started posting its ER wait times on the billboard, on the eastbound side near State Road 46. It's part of a campaign to use technology to spread the word about decreasing the wait.
"Putting our wait times to see a physician in real time on a billboard is just one more step in educating the community about our service," said Wendy Brandon, the hospital's chief executive officer. The wait times to see a physician are updated every 30 minutes and reflect an average from the previous four hours.
What do your clients want to know about you? Do they see the answer in your advertising? They should.
Prepare Better for High-Stakes Meetings
Here's a checklist from The Eloquent Woman that she uses to prepare herself for every presentation she gives. As I was reading it, I realized that her list isn't just for presenters. Instead, it is the perfect preparation for nearly every client meeting, negotiation and court appearance.
My favorite section are the questions about intent:
- Do I know what the audience wants from me?
- Is that what I'm going to give them? Do my goals match theirs? If not, why am I speaking to them? How will I reach them?
- What do I want to get out of this speaking experience?
- What do I need to learn from the audience? How will I find out?
- Do I intend to engage the audience? Do I just want them to listen? Do I intend to get them to act on something?
Before your next high-stakes meeting, answer each question, first replacing "Audience" with Client, Judge or even Opposing Counsel. I suspect you'll gain answers that make asking the questions worthwhile.
Test for Toxic Clients
Not sure whether to take that client? Here's a great test from Milton Glaser he uses to avoid toxic people:
[T]here is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.
Perhaps something to think about after every initial consultation?
(via Kareem Mayan's Weblog)
Want cooperation? Think reciprocation.
If you struggle to get prospects to fill out a lengthy form before meeting with you, perhaps some new research will change your mind.
In a study summarized here in the Nuromarketing blog, rearchers compared the effectiveness of two strategies often employed by websites to collect personal data from visitors: requiring the visitor's info before allowing them to access specific content (a reward strategy), or requesting it after they've already seen the content (a reciprocity strategy). The result:
It turns out that a reciprocity strategy works better – give them the info they want, and then ask for their information. In the impressively titled Embedded Persuasive Strategies to Obtain Visitors’ Data: Comparing Reward and Reciprocity in an Amateur, Knowledge-Based Website, Gamberini et al found that twice as many visitors gave up their information if they were able to access the information first. It’s counterintuitive, perhaps, but even though these visitors were under no obligation to complete the form, they converted at double the rate of visitors seeing the “mandatory” form.
What does this mean? Whenever you ask prospects to do something, work with reciprocity in mind. Instead of demanding their cooperation before meeting you, ask for it after they do. You'll likely get more cooperation and better information from them, while starting the representation off on the right foot.
What Do Your Clients Think About You?
Here's an exercise I'm working on for a Client Service Workbook that's been an on-and-off project of mine for a while.
There will be several comic strip-like panels depicting scenes of a client interacting with you and your staff. Each will be on a worksheet you can give to yourself and your staff. Everyone will fill in the empty thought-bubbles with what they believe the "client" is thinking in situations like when:
They're in the reception area waiting for their appointment:
They're listening to you give them advice:
They just received their bill:
Once the thoughts are filled in, you compare and discuss the similarities and differences. To make the exercise even more valuable, ask your current and former clients to complete the same exercise.
Let me know what you think. I'm committed to finishing the Workbook by the end of the year, and will be testing similar exercises with my consulting and coaching clients 'til then.
Meet Me in Missouri
I'm headed down to Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks this week for the Missouri Solo and Small Firm Conference to speak about marketing, innovation, technology and the web. There will be over 900 lawyers there this year -- which makes it the largest solo and small firm conference in the country.
If you'll be there, be certain to say hello. If you can't make it, I'll be covering as much as I can on Twitter and will be using the hashtag #mossfc
Looking for Cool Ways to Connect with Clients? -(STOP)-
Telegramstop is a company that will send an old-time looking telegram to anyone in the world for under five bucks. Could be a cool, retro way to connect with some clients or friends.
Ten Rules PDF Preview
As I gear up for several speaking engagements this summer, I'm putting together my slides and handouts this week. While most of these will ultimately live at my LexThink site, I thought I'd share the first one with you here on the blog.
Here are my Ten Rules of Client Service (from my original post here) in a spiffy new pdf format that I hope will turn into an e-book of sorts.
I hope you enjoy the look, and find the pdf easy to share. Let me know what you think.
Get a Life -- In Only Two Days
I've been spending some time talking to the organizers of the Get a Life Conference, after connecting at Techshow and on Twitter. It looks like a great event, and I'm really working hard to figure out a way to make it -- and perhaps do some cool LexThink-like unconference stuff with them if I do.
Lots of great speakers, including the incomparable Gerry Riskin, are on tap. Expect lots of talk about practical ways to make your law practice a more profitable business. From their site:
In this two-day workshop, you’ll learn how manage all the moving parts of a successful law practice and still have a life. But there’s one very important thing missing – you! One of the greatest challenges you have is making time for what’s personally important to you – your hobbies, friends and family.
It happens May 27th and 28th in Chicago. Check it out, and if you'd like to go, here's a link to a 25% discount (Enter INSIDER upon check-out). I hope to see you there!
Your Clients Multiply Your Mistakes
Another fun "Rule of Thumb" that sounds about right, even with no empirical proof:
Every time you mess up, your boss will remember it as three times that number. If the total number of actual mess-ups is greater than 3, your boss will remember it as "always."
Works for clients, too!
Client Collaboration and the IKEA Effect
One of my favorite lists of the year is Harvard Business Review's Breakthrough Ideas for 2009. As always, the entire list is worth a read, but the one that caught my eye is one labeled The IKEA effect, which suggests that people are willing to pay more for things they had a hand in creating:
When people construct products themselves, from bookshelves to Build-a-Bears, they come to overvalue their (often poorly made) creations. We call this phenomenon the IKEA effect, in honor of the wildly successful Swedish manufacturer whose products typically arrive with some assembly required.In one of our studies we asked people to fold origami and then to bid on their own creations along with other people’s. They were consistently willing to pay more for their own origami. In fact, they were so enamored of their amateurish creations that they valued them as highly as origami made by experts.
What does this mean for professional service providers? Instead of defaulting to a "Let me handle that for you" position with clients, require them to actively participate in their case. By collaborating with them, and allowing them to make meaningful contributions to the work you (both) do, they'll likely value your services more and be happier with the end result.
