Approach with care
Date: 01 October 2010
Authors: Joe Reevy
Issue: Vol 160, Issue 7435
Categories: Features, Marketing, Profession
I was recently asked for some examples of poor service by the law firms used by the companies I am involved with: compiling the list got me thinking about one of the big differences between legal and accounting practice.
Accountants’ professional ethics require the new firm to write to the old firm what is called a “clearance letter” when a client moves.
Unlike a law firm, an accountant always knows when a client has moved to another firm. This is a very important piece of information.
Not knowing when you have lost a client is a really big problem, because if you don’t know you’ve lost the client, you don’t know why you have lost the client and the answer to that question can help you run a better and more profitable practice. This is especially so because clients are expensive things to find. Many firms lose chargeable time of £30,000 or more per annum per partner to “marketing”. If this time is accounted for as a separate cost, marketing is one of the biggest expenses of most law firms.
Clients are much less expensive to retain than obtain. A firm’s client bank is a considerable asset (your bigger clients are probably worth more to the firm than most of your partners) and, like any other asset, it needs to be protected from loss or damage and made to pay.
Clients tend to think that since they are paying for everything, they deserve the level of service they expect, which is often a higher level of service than the firm gives.
This is a crucial weakness in many law firms. The failure to meet service levels expected by clients is the surest way to lose them.
Alienation
Clearly, no one ever sets out to alienate clients (other than some firms’ receptionists and PAs). Do get friends to “cold call” your firm and report back on the treatment they receive. The results may not please you, but many firms do.
The following are some examples from real life of things firms should do to keep clients “in the fold”.
Keep them informed
The biggest single mistake many firms make is to fail to keep their clients “in the loop”. When a matter is progressing, all the client normally knows is what he is told by their contact. To the firm, it is a matter. To the client it is their life, their business, their future…and their wallet. The senior partner of a successful private client firm says: “In our firm, if a matter is ongoing, we talk to the client to bring them up to date at least every month and normally far more often.” You should too.
Be on time every time
If you promise work by a date, deliver it by that date. Missing deadlines implies lack of care and can cause problems for the client who (justifiably) schedules his workload around your promised delivery time. If you MUST be late, give a lot of advance warning.
Stick to your quote
If you estimate a figure for the work, stick to it. Only in very exceptional circumstances—and then only with the explicit agreement of the client—should you exceed an estimate.
The common practice whereby an invoice well above the estimate is simply despatched by the fee-earner gets more bad press from those of us who create the income for the profession than anything else. It is a frequent and relationship-destroying occurrence.
Be commercial
If doing £5,000 more of work means your client will recover another £1,000 and get 60% of your costs back, don’t be surprised if the client balks (they are losing money).
Get it right
Check the documents you send out. Getting documents with basic and easily avoidable errors destroys confidence in the firm and at charge-out rates which average about ten times the average wage, is inexcusable.
Tips:
Make sure you are easy to get hold of and return calls very promptly or by making a telephone appointment. The client wants to feel involved and, to the maximum extent possible, in control.
Avoid gaffes—I was told by a fee-earner recently that he might have to request a postponement of a hearing we were involved in because he had “something more important to do that day”.
Don’t forget clients have lives. I well remember getting—at 4.30 pm on a Friday—more than 200 pages of documents from a biggish firm. These had to be digested prior to signing on 9 am Monday morning. They had had three months to do the work, but thought it fine to destroy my weekend and those of all my fellow directors.
Clients are too valuable to throw away. Make sure you have the systems, training and attitudes necessary to make sure you don’t.
Joe Reevy, director, Words4Business.
Website: www.words4business.com
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