courting consumers in the new legal marketplace
There’s been an evolution in consumer ethos. There’s a new market culture that lawyers can no longer afford to opt out of. It’s been called by different names: the experience economy, the conceptual age, the creative age and the culture of meaning (among others).
But, the given name is largely irrelevant. It’s the market’s core message that matters to lawyers and other service professionals.
And that message has been beautifully captured by blogger Hugh MacLeod in his now-classic commentary, The Hughtrain. For those of us needing the quick-fix version, MacLeod gives voice to the new legal consumer in this memorable quote: “We are hungry. Meaning is the prey.”
I believe that their quest for meaning – in the form of feeling valued, valuable, important and visible – fuels a client’s decision to retain or relinquish a legal service provider. So, as lawyers wanting to meet our clients primary needs and build our book of business, we can’t ignore the power and pull of this quest. We need to be open to the two-way conversations and continuous connections that allow our clients to co-create their legal representation experiences.
The essence of this approach is conveyed in a thoughtful Customer Experience Crossroads post in which Susan Abbott reflects on market trends driven by the desire of people to be the producers and creators of their own lives.
A relevant snippet from a recent post over at my blog HowToMakeItRain.com/blog:
. . . Over the past 30 years our present Service Economy displaced the previous economy based on goods.
In other words, it became less important to have a better mousetrap, than to be able to just catch the mice for your customers, who began to think of themselves as clients.
And what we're beginning to see are signs of our Service Economy being replaced by one where a person's Experience with a product or service is of tantamount importance. In other words, it's no longer good enough to catch the mouse faster & cheaper & more reliably. Now you have to give the customer/client an interesting Experience, not just the expected result.
We're already seeing this happen throughout the legal industry where so many legal services are percieved to be commodities. The authors of The Experience Economy write, "Those businesses that relegate themselves to the diminishing world of goods and services will be rendered irrelevant. To avoid this fate, you must learn to stage a rich, compelling experience."
I know it's scary to think that when you went to law school, all you were told you had to do was learn how to be a great lawyer and everything else would take care of itself. Then, reality hit you in the face and you begrudgingly accepted that not only did you have to be a great lawyer, but you had to give great service - fast, valuable and predictable service - which law school never taught you anything about.
And now here I am telling you even THAT is not enough! Not if you want to grow your practice and prevent clients from being poached by all your competitors.
So, the question you are faced with, if you want to make more money and have a better life, is how can you package your services to deliver an EXPERIENCE clients will pay for?