legal sanity

Over the last few years, I’ve written quite a bit about the breakdown of the lawyer-client relationship and the resulting discontent and attrition. My coverage includes posts on:

• client experience management

• evangelizing legal service delivery

• re-booting the lawyer-client relationship

• fixing the legal professions broken windows

The last post on this list refers to a business application of the Broken Windows Theory. The theory holds that companies should place a premium on identifying and quickly repairing their broken windows – those aspects of their operation that signal an indifference to consumer satisfaction. By all reports, the law firm-client relationship window is still broken.

For some time, blogger Patrick Lamb has examined the law’s Lake Wobegon Effect, which he describes as “the phenomenon by which law firms always overestimate the degree to which their clients are satisfied.” He updates his study in a post reporting the results of a new General Counsel survey. According to Lamb, the survey shows that law firms continue to overrate their legal services and underestimate their clients’ dissatisfaction.

So, the question persists: How can law firm’s fix their client service problems?

Like any pervasive issue, the first step is to lift the blinds and admit that something is wrong. That isn’t easy for service providers to do, as evidenced by this article titled CEOs Think that Customer Service is Great (tip to Bryan Eisenberg) and this one describing the Top 10 Reasons Why Customer Service Fails. Unfortunately, the admission often comes only in the wake of a major service lapse or client departure.

Once the problem is out in the open, the next step is to cure it. Some law firms are indirectly appeasing disgruntled clients by switching to a performance-based or two-tier approach to associate compensation. Firms can also use an array of client feedback programs to improve their services. But, as many observers point out, it’s difficult to create a service model that begets client evangelists without consistently listening to your clients and sharing their feedback with the entire firm.

Over at Legal Business Development, Jim Hassett offers lists of 34 questions for clients and prospects and 24 more questions for current clients. Together, they make a great starting point for firms looking to engage clients in an ongoing, candid dialogue about the state of their legal services