The Seven
C’s
Of Good Service
By Art Italo
In the competitive legal market, good service differentiates you from the thousands of other attorneys who would love to have your business. Lawyers sometimes forget they are not only in a profession, but in a service profession. Too often they take their clients for granted in the crush of expedient work that overwhelms them. They then wonder why they don't get many referrals from their clients.
One of your greatest marketing tools for developing new business is client satisfaction. A satisfied client is your best advertisement. Most lawyers believe doing good legal work is enough. It is not. Clients don't respond as strongly to the technical excellence of your work product as they do to the excellence of your service.
What do clients respond to most? They respond to how you treat them. Your professional conduct is often far more important to them than the work you do or the outcome of their case. As a professional dedicated to getting results and solving problems, this may seem incredible. It is nonetheless true.
The Seven C's Of Good Service
To be a top provider of legal services, you need to master the seven C's. These are not concepts that are unique to the legal profession. They are basic service concepts that apply to all businesses that want satisfied customers.
The seven C's of good service are:
- Communication
- Courtesy
- Cooperation
- Cost
- Commitment
- Competence
- Caring
If you operate a practice consistent with these basic principles, you will surely gratify all but the most unreasonable clients.
Communication
The area that draws the most frequent complaints among clients about lawyers is communication. The biggest fuss is usually over returning client phone calls. Most lawyers are terrible about this.
Let me be direct. You must return all client calls within 24 hours if you hope to be successful. I know all the reasons this is tough. Imperative matters don't always allow it. Clients call every five minutes and answering every call will prevent you from getting any work done. Too bad. Fit it in.
If you cannot do it yourself, direct a member of your staff (your secretary, paralegal or associate) to return the call. As an intermediary, this staff member can strike a balance that allows timely response and work efficiency for the attorney. There is no leeway here. This is an absolute.
Another area of complaint about communication involves updates on legal work. This one is particularly true in litigation. The litigation process tends to progress in fits and starts. There are often long periods where nothing happens followed by a flurry of activity. Clients assume that the quiet periods are the result of the lawyer not working on their case. This is usually because the lawyer doesn't call or correspond with the client unless there is something of great consequence to report.
It is important to call your clients periodically, even if nothing is going on in their case. Emphasize the efforts you have made to move things along. Explain the nature of the process and that the lawyer can only move the process to a certain point before he must wait for a judge, lawyer, witness, adjuster etc., to respond. If a reasonable period of time has passed, tell the client you are going to call the person slowing the process to check on the status and nudge them if appropriate. This shows you are proactive and aggressive rather than helpless and reactive.
A good technique is to write short notes confirming conversations with other lawyers for depositions and points discussed. "This note confirms my request to schedule Mr. Jones for his deposition. Please get back to me by Friday with possible dates and times." This kind of undocumented conversation goes on routinely between lawyers, but it often takes a month to set a date. To no avail, you've traded five calls each during that month, but as far as the client knows, you've done nothing. A one line note with a copy to the client keeps the client informed about all the behind the scenes work you are doing.
Courtesy
There is no area that irks clients more than a lack of common courtesy. Lawyers don't mean to be rude, they are just busy. They are so attentive to the six crises they are handling, they don't realize they are doing things that are inconsiderate to their clients.
A good rule of thumb is to treat your clients' time as if it is as valuable as your own. Start meetings on time. Hold your calls during client meetings. If you have to take a call, never take it in front of the client. Excuse yourself and take the call in another room.
Don't leave clients on hold interminably while you take another call. Tell one of the callers you will get back to him/her and do it immediately upon conclusion of the other call.
Greet clients personally rather than sending someone to fetch them. Don't smoke, eat or drink while meeting with clients in your office.
Lawyers are so driven by urgent matters, they feel they have to do ten things simultaneously to get through the day. In the heat of battle they are inadvertently discourteous to their clients. There is only one solution here. Don't ever get so busy that you become insensitive to the people who make your livelihood possible.
Cooperation
A good lawyer-client relationship requires teamwork. Too many lawyers take a paternalistic attitude with their clients. They don't take time to make clients valuable team members in their own matters.
Clients resent being treated like children. Treating them as if they can't understand what is happening gives them a feeling of helplessness and dependency. Though some people are actually comfortable in this mode, most are not. Most clients will feel frustrated and anxious when they feel things are out of their control.
This feeling can foster a relationship that is as unstable as nitroglycerine. When the client feels completely dependent on you and things aren't going as fast or as well as the client wants, you get all the blame. This is often punctuated by an explosion followed by termination.
When you make the clients team members, they feel they are active participants in the process. This lowers their feeling of helplessness and it takes the onus off you because the client perceives that the responsibility is shared.
The best way to involve the client in the process is to provide alternative solutions. Explain various options, highlighting possible risks, rewards, cost of legal work, future exposure, emotional cost, etc. Make recommendations and give reasons for your recommendations, but make sure you let the client make the final decision.
If you feel the client has made a really bad decision, persuade but don't demand. Ultimately, if the client persists, you should send the client written correspondence reiterating your recommendation and telling the client you will pursue the course they selected, but that you have reservations about the prudence of the action.
This will place the responsibility for the result on the client, and it will make it very difficult for them to blame you if the matter turns sour.
Cost
The key to providing reasonable cost is to provide good value. Good clients don't generally select the attorney with the lowest price. They select the one with the best price-value relationship.
In recent years, there has been much discussion of value billing in the legal profession. The whole legal fee conundrum is fueled by the fact that there is really no way to measure the value of what an attorney does. The only point of reference any consumer has to establish a price-value relationship is to compare the benefits of competitive products or services. In legal services this comparison is veritably impossible since each attorney has different skills and each case is uniquely different.
When it comes to billing, most firms and attorneys have lost sight of what the client wants. Clients want the service received to be worth more than the money spent, and they want the final bill to be as low as possible without sacrificing the results.
Clients have less trouble with the hourly rate than they do with the number of hours billed. Attorneys mistakenly believe the reverse. They think clients are most concerned with the hourly rate and the retainer. Clients have a basic conflict with the attorney about billing. The client wants the bill to be as low as possible, the attorney wants the bill to be as high as possible. Clients often blow this out of proportion and assume the greedy attorney is gouging them. Though this is seldom the case, you need to be prepared for the repercussions of this widely held belief. Remember, reality is irrelevant. Perception is everything.
Unfortunately, there is a definite tendency among some attorneys to err on the side of litigiousness and pedantry, because these provide additional billings. This only reinforces the negative image clients have of the profession.
Many of my clients have told me of attorneys who provoke conflict and whip their clients into a frenzy over ridiculously small matters with the only possible motive being to stay on the gravy train. This is definitely not bringing value to the client. In the long term, these tactics will undermine the firm or practice that employs them. It will cause clients to look elsewhere for legal services. They will not refer to a firm that they feel is overbilling them.
Oddly enough, most of this churning of hours and provoked litigation is not rooted in greed. It is rooted in insecurity. The firm or attorney doesn't feel confident in the ability to bring in new clients, so they feel they better bill the ones they have.
The key to giving the clients value in billings is to be active in your efforts to keep each client's bill as low as possible. Look for ways to achieve the best result in the fewest possible hours and let clients know about it. Show clients how they can avoid legal fees. Encourage win-win solutions. Try to avoid litigation where possible through negotiation, mediation or arbitration. If you come up with a way clients can save money, tell them what you did and how it saved them money. Clients appreciate this. It also differentiates you from the image they have of attorneys being greedy and self serving. These are the types of billing strategies that make clients loyal and cause them to send their friends.
Remember, clients are skeptical of hourly billings. They usually think the work could have been done in fewer hours. The best way to overcome this is to be sure the itemization is adequately detailed. Clients get less perturbed when they know exactly what they are paying for.
You can also ease the pain a bit if you sprinkle in a few N/C's on the invoice. Most attorneys will do some work they don't charge to the client. If you do this occasionally, make sure you note it on the invoice so clients know they got something for nothing. This creates good will and those non billed hours will multiply into repeat business and referrals.
If you believe in billing every second, consider investing a quarter hour in your own future occasionally. If you think churning hours and pushing litigation are helping your practice, you are investing in fools gold. The way to improve total billings in the long term is to keep individual fees down in the short term. Your reward will be a thriving practice with many loyal clients.
Commitment
Another frequent complaint clients have about lawyers is their apparent lack of commitment to the client. My observation is that most lawyers are very committed to their clients, but are poor at conveying that fact.
When it comes to the clients' perception of commitment, actions speak louder than words. The greatest and most frequent sin perpetrated by lawyers is setting unrealistic deadlines. To please clients, lawyers will promise to get work done by the earliest date they believe they can have it done. Naturally, something always bursts into flames in the interim and the deadline goes unmet.
Clients don't know how long legal work takes, but they do know what you tell them. If you give them a date, they will expect the work done on that date. As far as clients are concerned, anything less shows a lack of commitment on your part.
When you make commitments, make sure you give yourself plenty of extra time to account for the unforseen events that are lurking. If they never occur, you will get done ahead of schedule and your clients will be impressed. If gremlins get into your well oiled machine, you have a cushion.
If you are forced to miss a deadline, always call the client before the deadline to apologize and tell him/her that it can't be met. Set a new deadline and this time meet it without fail. Clients are much more understanding when you use this approach than if you are incommunicado and deliver late without an explanation.
Competence
This is probably the most fundamental service concept. Your product is knowledge and your ability to use it. When you have a great product, the word gets around. When you have a terrible product, the word gets around even faster.
The best way to increase your competence is by continual and never ending education. Read, read, read, read, read. Take continuing legal education lectures. Find a mentor in your practice area and consult with him/her. If you are a trial lawyer, go to court occasionally and watch other lawyers' trial techniques.
Associate yourself with successful people. Successful people are successful because they understand what works and they consistently execute well. Such associations will expose you to their knowledge and their winning attitudes.
You can never be too competent or know too much. Read, learn and master, and when you are sure you have completely mastered any subject, read and learn some more.
Caring
In a recent survey done for the
If you want your clients to believe you care, you have to take an active interest in them as people. You need to be empathetic and concerned about their feelings. You need to reassure them constantly and acknowledge that you can appreciate the anxiety they are experiencing.
If you are a corporate attorney and think this doesn't apply to you, think again. Everyone wants to be treated like they are special. People appreciate it when it is clear to them that you can relate to them as people and not just as meal tickets.
Conclusion
Being a good lawyer is more than just being technically capable. The key to success in your practice is your commitment to delivering excellent service to your clients. Shoot for a level of service that places you at the top of your profession and your earnings are sure to follow.
Copyright © Art Italo, 1996. All Rights Reserved
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Art Italo is a consultant working exclusively with attorneys in the areas
of business development and strategic planning. He speaks internationally on
legal marketing and strategic planning.
He has developed and refined the concept of Leveraged Networking after
over 15,000 hours of individual consultations with attorneys. He has personally consulted with over 250
attorneys in
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(770) 859-0600
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