legal sanity

I just finished reading a great ClickZ article by Pete Blackshaw on the interplay of emotions and customer service. Blackshaw notes that we’re in a “new era of consumer control” marked by the rise of Consumer Generated Media (CGM) -- also known as User-Generated Content (UGC) and User-Created Content (yes, it’s the other UCC). These platforms include:

• Blogs

• Podcasts

• Web Forums

• Discussion Boards

• Wikis

Citing Dan Hill’s new book Emotionomics: Winning Hearts and Minds, Blackshaw explains that “nothing else is more emotional for the consumer” than customer service. So, with this new shift in control over publicity and reputation, businesses are at risk if they don’t “get a handle on consumers' (read clients') emotional needs and wants” as they play out through the multi-tiered service dynamic.

I’ve discussed this issue before in posts on:

• Client experience management

• Lawyer experience management

• Fallout from our failure to listen to clients

• Client happiness and the power of mea culpa 
  

But, as Blackshaw makes clear, it’s getting more and more imperative for lawyers and law firms to be cognizant of our clients’ emotional response to our services. After all, we aren’t immune to the kind of viral backlash that millions of disgruntled consumers spread across the Web every day.

The question remains: how do we monitor and manage how our clients emotionally experience our services?

As this article called Love the complaining customers suggests, we start by paying close attention to client complaints. As the piece highlights, “the person who complains is doing you a favor, because he or she highlights the problems that silently cost you customers.”

Before you’re tempted to think of this as the exclusive province of firm marketing departments or management committees, it’s good to remember that each and every one of us can make or break our clients’ emotional experience.

This point is well made in a Wall Street Journal article about United Airlines Capt. Denny Flanagan, who regularly “goes out of his way to make flying fun for passengers” (tipped at Church of the Customer).

On this same note, I heard renowned restaurateur Danny Meyer speak 10 years ago. He said that the key to creating a 5-star restaurant is to field complaints about the dining experience before the customer leaves the restaurant. By being proactive in this way, you gain the priceless opportunity for an on-the-spot fix and can make other improvements going forward.