Law Firm Client Surveys – Developing a Client Service Improvement Plan

Question:

Our firm is a twenty-four attorney litigation firm in Pittsburgh. We represent insurance companies and business firms. We recently conducted a client satisfaction survey of our top tier clients via telephone and face-to-face interviews. We have discovered that we have numerous issues regarding client satisfaction. Where do we go from here?

Response:

Nothing is more important to your firm’s future than exceptional client service. An effective client service improvement program is one of the most important marketing initiatives that a firm can undertake. National studies demonstrate that approximately 70% of clients who stop using a particular attorney do so because they feel they were treated poorly or indifferently and 30% changed attorneys because their previous attorneys weren’t available. Clearly, from what law firms’ clients are telling us in our telephone interviews with them – attorneys and law firms need to improve client service by integrating a client-first service focus into everyday practice.

Frequently when we mention action plans and implementation to a group of attorneys we get the following reactions and responses:

Lets create a committee and study the matter further
We need more time
We don’t have enough data or information
We have always done things this way and we don’t want to change
We don’t have time to do it
We are already busy – we don’t need any more business – everything is fine the way it is

Moving from debate to action planning and implementation is difficult for attorneys. However, unless a firm can move from debate and ideas to actual accountability and implementation it will remain anchored in the past in a field of dreams, obsolete practices, and unhappy clients.

Here is a road map to help you get started:

Assemble the client service improvement team
Review the issues discovered from the client survey
Identify and write a client service mission statement and client service goals
Brainstorm solutions you can and are willing to implement
Put together the client service improvement plan
Implement the plan
Notify clients, especially the clients that were interviewed, of the changes that the firm will be implementing.

Click here for our article on developing your client service improvement plan

Click here for our blog on client service

Click here for our article on client satisfaction

Click here for our article on client surveys

Click here for our article on analyzing survey results

John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

Posted at 09:58 AM in Client Service
Tags: a, Client, Developing, Firm, Improvement. Plan, Law, service, Surveys

Oct 24, 2018

Law Firm Client Surveys – Developing a Client Service Improvement Plan

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