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Legal Staff News & Views Letter Is Your Law Firm Client Friendly? Most seasoned attorneys realize the importance of client care in today's market. However, it's easy to let some of the client services slip into disuse. Ask yourself these questions:
Increasing the value of your firm's services can mean the difference between a happy, long-term relationship and the opposite. The following 15 steps work with any billing method and can help focus lawyers and staff on nurturing client relationships. 1. The attorney should greet the client in the reception area and make them feel at home. Make sure that everyone does this, including the receptionist. It is a small but important touch. 2. Partners should reinforce service strategy at an annual retreat or out-of-the-office site. The benefit is to promote open discussion without interruption and offers lawyers and staff members to make suggestions for improvement. It also provides a forum to problem solve in-house issues. 3. Attorneys need to communicate proactively. Keeping in communication with clients regularly is crucial, not just around deadline time. An attorney should make phone calls or have face-to-face visits routine. Even a quick up-date letter to the client will be appreciated. 4. Attorneys and staff members need to understand your client's business, respond in a timely manner, and make themselves available. It's all to easy to neglect the nurturing that client relationships require. Also, ask questions to determine all your clients' needs, even beyond their business needs: Attorneys should ask how things are going, whether anything new has happened, and if they're moving closer to their goals. 5. Attorneys should create a client service and development plan for each business client. Think how your clients will feel if they receive an individualized client service plan for the coming year. Of course this aspect does not apply to all areas of practice. 6. Clients are now more apt to judge the law firm team comprised of partner, associates, legal assistants, and even secretaries. Each member of the team must show confidence in dealing with clients; this is a big part of how those clients will perceive the firm's work or clients will lose confidence. Never make excuses for poor quality or lack of timeliness. Instead, focus the client's attention on the future. Spend time and energy on making things better, including implementing and maintaining effective internal review procedures to confront competency issues as they arise. 7. Address concerns immediately. Take action as soon as problems surface. Failing to do so sends a message that you don't consider your client's concerns a priority. 8. Award free time. Some clients may hesitate to contact the firm, fearing an invoice for every phone call. Be reasonable about such charges, and even give clients some "free" time. Try a luncheon meeting to discuss business and improve results. 9. Keep track of lost business. Keep a record of proposals, the clients lost , and new clients. These records, compared year-to-year, will help to monitor firm stability. 10. Before starting a matter, the partners should meet with the client to determine benchmarks or points at which someone from the firm will discuss the project's status with the client. 11. If you sense that something is wrong in the relationship, get the client to discuss it. Even if nothing is wrong, clients appreciate being asked for input. 12. Make sure all clients have at least two points of contact in the firm. 13. Maintain professional ties at all times. If clients leave, make the exist as gracious as possible, and be cooperative. This preserves the possibility that the client may return someday. 14. Stay in touch. For the same reasons as above. You make be able to recapture lost business by sending occasional notes along with an article of interest, keeping departed clients on the firm's mailing list, or sending a polite letter stating that the firm hopes things are going well after matters have come to a close. 15. Keep all promises made to clients-no matter what. This is the key to valuable service. What's Cookin' Cucumber Sandwiches Mix the dry Good Seasons with the cream
cheese, blend thoroughly. Generously spread the cream cheese mixture
on the bread and top with a cucumber slice. Sprinkle with seasoned
salt and serve. Add Miracle Whip/mayo to the lettuce and toss, add pineapple and toss again, add more mayo is desirable. Serve immediately. Unfortunately you cannot make this too far in advance because the lettuce will wilt. Quotable Quotes... I base most of my fashion taste on what doesn't itch. Gilda Radner "Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth." Erma Bombeck. For information contact Gloria Norton at DuPage County Bar Association, 126 S. County Farm Road, Wheaton, IL 60187-4597, Telephone 630-653-7779, Fax to 630-653-7870 or E-Mail to: gnorton@dcba.org. |
