Some 41% of firms agreed with the above statement, when surveyed by independent law firm marketing collective First4Lawyers for its 2021 White Paper, Making your customers happy.
More than half the firms (55%) use review and comparison sites, although only 47% actually encouraged clients to post a review, only 24% responded to every review and 13% only responded to positive ones.
First4Lawyers managing director Qamar Anwar said: ‘Clients will usually be unable to assess the quality of your legal work, but they can judge the service they receive and are increasingly happy to write about it online.
‘This means customer service needs to be of equal importance. Getting new work without a strong online reputation, which is heavily influenced by service quality, is only going to get harder.
‘The issue of customer service and feedback is only going to get bigger – there’s no point closing your eyes and hoping it will go away. Law firm marketing has rapidly become digital first and you need to take control of what is being said about your firm online. There are practical consequences too – not responding to reviews can affect your website’s page rankings.’
Only two-thirds of firms provided fee earners with customer training, although 86% required fee earners to adhere to service standards. More than half (56%) say their firms understand the customer journey and have mapped out all their interactions with the customer, with a communications plan for each stage.
The research highlighted potential for improvement, for example, only 53% nominate an agreed point of contact from the off, and 61% of PI firms but only 46% of general consumer firms agree costs from the start.
Half the law firms said they take contact details in a consistent manner but only a minority of firms mentioned other customer service practices such as agreeing the format for communication and frequency of contact.
PI firms in particular are responding to demands for out-of-hours opening, with 52% offering services both in the evenings and weekends, while 48% track how often follow-ups convert into business, compared to just 28% of other firms.
The research was conducted by IRN Research among 100 law firms, split between personal injury and general consumer practices. View and download the White Paper here.
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