Client service focuses on the various interactions that clients have with you and your firm. It’s the way in which clients’ needs are met through the delivery of professional, helpful and effective service during client matters or engagements. Many firms tout exceptional client service among their distinguishing attributes, but clients are more interested in the customer experience.
So what is the customer experience, then? It’s more than client service and more than the various touchpoints and tangible interactions clients have with your firm. It encompasses the intangible aspects that your services create ― how your clients feel about your firm and your brand, the promises you make and whether you deliver on them.
Law firm clients will evaluate their satisfaction and loyalty based on the overall experience — the cumulative experiences they have over multiple touchpoints over time.
When it comes to implementing a customer experience review process, firms will have to be truly committed to creating a customer-first/superior CX corporate attitude. This will require top leadership support, as it will take time and resources and likely will result in changes to policies and normative behaviors within the firm and an openness to constructive criticism and continuous improvement. Institute formal and ongoing feedback mechanisms internally and externally to fully capture from the clients’ perspective what you do, how you do it and how it makes them feel.
MAP THE CLIENT JOURNEY
The first step is to map out the journeys that clients take over the lifetime of a matter or engagement, and hopefully over a long-term relationship. Firms must identify — through the eyes of their clients — where the critical junctures are and what the pain points or areas of improvement are.
Effective journey mapping requires an organization to look at all touchpoints and operational aspects of engaging with and getting work done on behalf of a client. This is particularly difficult to do in law firms, as they so often operate in silos that not only challenge and jeopardize service consistency but also create disconnects between all the critical touchpoints on a client journey.
“Law firm clients will evaluate their satisfaction and loyalty based on the overall customer experience — the cumulative experiences they have over multiple touchpoints over time.”
Even within the lawyer ranks, partners often act independently of one another and don’t always communicate effectively with other partners and lawyers on the team. And then there are the paralegals, contract attorneys and support and operations professionals.
Don’t forget about all the other client-facing support personnel that clients often interact with: lobby security staff, receptionist, conference/meeting setup attendants and administrative assistants. Clients are also touched by billing and collections personnel, IT staff and e-discovery and legal research professionals.
