Through the grapevine

Legal practitioners should be well aware that the market is now much more competitive than a few years ago. Firms and solicitors are chasing too little work and are up against some aggressive competitors with huge marketing budgets.

As a recent example, in the same day I saw advertisements for one of the UK's largest private client firms, Slater and Gordon, on the London underground, on TV, and in printed media. The firm is also investing heavily in web marketing and SEO. It's great if you have that kind of budget available, but the vast majority of law firms and solicitors are working
at a different level.

The good news is that a relatively low cost but effective way to spread the word about your firm is through good client feedback. To paraphrase a well-known phrase, it's reputation, reputation, reputation. You don't need a huge budget for this, but you may need to change a few attitudes and devote some time to it.

Paying lip service to the gathering of feedback and management of your reputation is missing a great opportunity but, in general, law firms are not active enough in requesting client feedback or following up on it.

Active reputation management of the whole firm's brand and, the individual reputation of its fee earners are vital.
It will also give you a marketing advantage and help to boost your competitive edge.

This article describes how client feedback can be used for business development and marketing, the role of client feedback in online marketing, and offers some tips on effective client feedback.

Limited client feedback

There are still many law firms that do not even send a client feedback questionnaire, let alone act on the results. You may dismiss this process as collecting 'happy sheets', but at the very least contact with existing clients and follow-up can be a great opportunity
to stay in touch.

The figures in the table below are from an annual YouGov survey, that asks private clients if they have been asked to complete a satisfaction survey. Only one in five of those surveyed were asked to do so in 2015 and, nothing has changed since 2013.

 

 

 

If a law firm does nothing else,
it should at least make sure it knows what its clients want and whether the law firm is delivering a relevant and good service. To satisfy compliance issues, law firms should have systems in place to demonstrate that they provide a proper standard of service to their clients. This can only be substantiated by a regular programme asking clients about their experiences of the services and legal advice received.

At the most basic level client surveys are a measure of how well you are serving your client base, but they can offer much more than that.

Client feedback for business development and marketing

Feedback can identify demands for other services and start to play a role in business development and planning, thereby directly leading to more business.

First, you may be able to offer additional services to a satisfied client. The client may have come to you for a specific matter but may not realise that you also offer other legal services.

Why not ask a question in the client feedback survey to see if they are interested in other services? If you keep your client databases up to date, then you should also be contacting existing clients at regular intervals to check their need for legal advice.

Successful companies know that it is much easier to get new business from existing clients, rather than find new clients. However too many firms fail to take advantage of this and too many practice teams within a firm act in isolation, failing to consider the wider opportunities for the firm. A coordinated client feedback system can help to overcome this issue.

Second, satisfied clients may have friends or relatives who are looking for legal advice and they may be willing to recommend other clients to you.

At a broader level, positive feedback can also be used for marketing. Good reviews from satisfied clients will spread the word about how good your service is, with recommendations from clients bringing in new work and new revenue.

Individual client reviews should be used in a law firm's PR and marketing and included on their website. Also, if the law firm has regular and systematic client feedback in place, then phrases like '96 per cent of our clients are satisfied with our services', are more credible and can be backed up by data on number of responses.

Word of mouth has always been important in the legal services sector where, for many, the need for a solicitor is not a regular one but when required, is frequently a 'distress' purchase.

In these circumstances, the experiences of others are vital and advice on who to approach for legal representation from friends, relatives,
or work colleagues is key.

However word of mouth is now increasingly moving online. Solicitor review sites and law firm comparison sites are empowering potential clients with the experience of others, and recommendations are hugely influential. Your positive client feedback can be on these sites, as well as your own website.

Compared to other sectors, these sites are still at the early stages in the legal sector and some have dismissed them as a passing phase. Here are three drivers that suggest they are here to stay and are becoming more influential:

• The latest YouGov survey results (cited earlier) show that the use of legal comparison sites is increasing year-on-year.

• Standards among comparison websites are improving and the way they operate is becoming more transparent, following the creation of the Legal Services Board Consumer Panel self-assessment standard for sites.

• The larger firms (like Slater and Gordon again) are already embracing these sites and see them as a central part of the marketing mix. However some sites level the playing field. Legallybetter.co.uk, for example, which I have an interest in, sets up the search results so that smaller firms have as good a chance of coming top of searches as larger firms.

Dealing with dissatisfied clients

The overwhelming majority of private clients are satisfied with the legal advice they receive, but there are always a few dissatisfied ones. While positive feedback can be used for PR and marketing, it is just as important to respond to negative feedback and act upon it if necessary.

A robust and systematic feedback programme will enable you to pick up some, if not all, of this negative criticism quickly and respond to it. Surely this is better than the alternative of not knowing about disgruntled clients who might be tarnishing your reputation through comments to friends or relatives or, even worse, postings on social media?

Legal comparison and review sites, if they are independent, can also help to channel negative feedback back to law firms and solicitors. It was recently reported in the legal press that lawyers might be using libel threats to 'intimidate' clients who post negative solicitor reviews online.

The comments were made by Dr Michelle Goddard, a lawyer on the Legal Services Consumer Panel and director of policy and standards at the Market Research Society. Rather than adopt a litigious approach, I would
hope that most law firms would understand that negative feedback can have more value to them than just another positive review.
Outsourcing client feedback

Law firms should consider outsourcing their client feedback surveys to a specialist rather than try to do it themselves. I have a vested interest of course, as I run a research company that undertakes these surveys but the reasons are as follows.

First, very few law firms have the range of internal expertise to cover all areas, e.g. designing the survey, formulating the questions, setting up the system for inputting and outputting of results, following up to boost reply numbers and providing a full analysis of the results. When internal resources inevitably come under pressure, something will get put off or abandoned altogether; survey results will gather dust and no action will be taken.

Second, using an external resource offers a completely independent view, which can be reassuring to the clients and the firm. Clients are also more likely to be open with their responses.

Third, if you are concerned about client confidentiality and passing on client details to an outside agency,
then choose an agency that is part of the Market Research Society (MRS) and abides by its Code of Conduct on survey participant confidentiality.

You can look for additional safeguards, for example, whether the agency is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and governed by the Data Protection Act.

Finally, it is probably not going to be as expensive as you think. For example, Legallybetter's feedback services, using a combination of printed survey forms and online survey forms, are £330 a year for law firms completing up to 250 cases a year, and £870 a year for those completing 1,000 cases.

Think ahead

Every law firm should be active about their reputation-based marketing. You could have a great reputation among your peers, a filing cabinet full of customer testimonials, belong to various lawyer accreditation panels and associations, but if you don't use all the tools at your disposal, then competition you weren't even aware of could pass you by.

One of these tools is client feedback but it only works if it is conducted in a robust and systematic way. Use the feedback to spread the word about your brand and reputation across as many channels as you can.

In particular, do not ignore the influence of comparison websites which are increasing in influence and can have a major impact, even for smaller law firms, on the development (and dismantling) of reputations. n

David Mort is director of IRN Research