Firm Marketing

I have always been an advocate of getting more junior fee earners involved in marketing activities, perhaps even managing their own campaigns. My thinking has been that, if you instil, at an early stage in their careers, an understanding of the importance of actively generating business, you give them a chance to develop their skills and you are making them more valuable to the firm. I always say to them that – “there are lots of good lawyers out there but very few that can market effectively, if you can show that you are a rain-maker, it will advance your career far quicker than just being a good lawyer”. However, despite this advice being very sound, those that embrace its concept is has always been lower than I would hope.

What is worse is that those who do show willing require such a high level of mentoring and their efforts so ineffective that there is a temptation to say that it is just not worth all the effort.

Despite this, I still feel that it is important to get more junior fee earners involved as much as they are willing. These younger guys and gals are the next generation of partners, perhaps we owe it to our future selves (as marketing professionals) to keep plugging away.

I would like to hear your thoughts about your successes or frustrations when working with more junior fee earners.

Googles core values have spread from Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s idealism to an “Organisational legacy” spread over 20 thousand employees and across every continent in the world. Would Google be the same company without these core values, or would they have been as successful? The answer is undoubtedly not.

Google are seen as one of the most values driven and trusted companies in the world and the reason for this is that their core values consistently underpin their every decision. Any corruption of these values could topple consumer confidence, even in the mighty Google brand.

Your firm has a unique culture which currently rests only in the minds of those that have been with the firm the longest. As the firm grows, the introduction of new blood will ultimately dilute the culture that once defined the firm. Like Google, you must define your founding vision as your own organisational legacy in order that you may continue to benefit from it and allow it to support your growth.

Your core values are a set of principles meant to endure and never be violated. Since they are at your core, everything else should flow from them. They are to be applied during times that are good, and perhaps more importantly, during tough times when it might be tempting to choose otherwise.

The influence of core values to the firm include:

1. Bring the firm together

2. Create an organisational legacy

3. Promote higher levels of company loyalty

4. Defines your brand

5. Help define your unique selling point (USP)

6. Influences our decision making

In summary the decision to implement core values within your firm is not one that should be taken lightly. Without the full support of all your employees and especially that of the Partnership you cannot hope to successfully implement them.

It is a well known fact that it is easier to keep existing clients than it is to get new ones. This is can be said to be especially true when we talk about marketing within professional service firms, where relationship building is the key to good marketing. The following simple, yet very effective, tip can be a quick win in gaining a lot of goodwill with your exiting client base.

When you are reading any newspaper, magazine or web article, think about it from your clients’ perspective. Consider which clients would be interested in it and why. Then send a simple email or letter saying “I saw this and though of you” and attach the information you found.
This does a number of things; Firstly it shows your client that you are thinking of them, it makes them feel special and it further cements the relationship between you. It is arguably as good in terms of kudos with your client as having written the article yourself, with the obvious advantage of not actually having to spend time writing.

What is more, it also gives you a reason to follow up with them a week or so later to see what they thought.

If, every time you read a newspaper, you scan it for articles your clients might like, imagine how much goodwill could be created. However, be careful not to send all of your findings to the same client or too often.

The little things are important and going extra mile for your clients really does pay off and when it is this simple there really is no reason not to.

Networking, especially when you are busy, can be a real pain. However, what most people fail to realise is that every contact is a good contact. In practice you can get a lot of opportunities from some unusual places, as long as you are open to them.

I met a very successful lawyer, a while back, who told me about his situation when he was starting out as a solo practitioner. He told me how, in spite of the pressures of setting up in practice, he would force himself to meet new people. It did not matter to him who they were, what walk of life they came from or how obvious the end pay-off might be. However, he was soon finding that, as his practice grew, he had less and less time to engage in this activity. So, he started to build networking into his everyday life.

For example; he would get his hair cut every 3 weeks but he would visit a different barber every time, he joined a gym with 6 locations close to his office visiting each one over the course of 2 weeks, he went shopping 2 times a week and visited a different supermarket each time. He applied this theory to almost everything he did during a working week; banking, getting his car washed, eating out ect…All the time he was open to meeting new people.

He claimed to meet on average 50 new contacts each and every week. Even as a low estimate that is well over 2,500 people each year. He also claimed that perhaps 2% of these contacts were eventually useful to him in gaining work. That means that (by a conservative estimate) he got 50 new clients each year simply going about his normal day-to-day activities with a different mind-set.

The moral to this story is simple – Yes, pressing the flesh (this was my lawyer friends term) is hard work but if you incorporate networking into the things you already do it becomes a way of life.

Many of us have a guilty secret. Many of us harbour something, which we keep away from prying eyes, locked in the top draw of our desks, hoping, beyond hope, that somebody will not, one day, open that draw and discover the source of all our shame. I am talking about those stacks of business cards. The result of all of those expensive and time consuming trips to conferences, exhibitions and meeting which, with the best will in the world, you have failed to follow up.

Many are now limp and faded. There they lay, still glaring up at you from where you put them, on your first day back in the office, after last year’s event. Even now, as you make arrangements to visit the same conference again this year.

You tell yourself; this time it will be different. You convince yourself that you are more motivated now, that you were simply too busy and that this year you will make time. But, in your heart of hearts, you know you won’t.

I am positive that you will recognise this story, if not in yourself, perhaps in those that you work with. That is because it is an all too common occurrence. Fee Earners are willing to spend a week out of the office to visit a conference in some far away land but upon their return are not willing to allow a couple of hours ensuring that they follow up properly. So, while you might have had a few nights in a posh hotel, drinking free champagne and gorging on all the bite sized canapés you can eat, your trip, from a business development perspective, was a waste of time.

Now, I am not wishing to criticise anyone, nor do I blame anyone for doing this, because, it is an all too easy trap to fall into.

There seems to be a few of reasons people exhibit this behaviour, especially lawyers and other professional service fee earners.

1. There is perhaps an embarrassment at having to “sell” your self. That you feel there is something a bit gauche in being forward or that you do not want to let on that you are looking for work, because you think it somehow undermines your standing in the eyes of others
2. Many hold an underline fear of rejection which creates a mental barrier that some cannot overcome.
3. Some feel awkward in their approach and are simply not sure of how best to follow up, without appearing “cheesy” to too pushy.

You will note that, not having enough time was not part of the above list of reasons.

Not having enough time is an easy excuse attorneys fall back on with regularity, and while, I am sure some are busy, if you have enough time attend the event, you have enough time to follow up.

As you can see, most of the real reasons people tend not to follow up are physiological and, on paper at least, a little silly. That is not to undermine the reality of what you feel. However, the only means to breaking free of these fears is with a little aversion therapy. In other words – Just get on with it!

This might be a little easier said than done but I have compiled some tips that may help you approach your follow up more effectively and with more confidence.

The First Contact: 72 Hours
Like a journey of a 1000 miles beginning with the first step. So, a long term, and profitable relationship, begins with the first contact. The sooner you kick things off, the sooner your will reach your goal. I would recommend that you follow up within 72 hours of meeting your contact.

This tells your contact a number of things; you are organised, practical, and approachable. It also tells them that your meeting was important to them. I am sure that you will agree these are things that you, as an attorney, want your contact to know about you. If you leave your follow up too long, the result can be the opposite.

Your follow up might be as easy as sending a quick email or a hand written postcard on which you write – “Dear Bill, It was nice to meet you the other day at the conference. It would be nice to get together again soon. I will let you know when I am next in town and perhaps we could meet up for a drink?”

The fact that you write the same thing on 30 post cards does not matter. The recipient is going feel like you have thought about them and is going to be impressed with your efficiency.

Keep the dialogue open
With each interaction you have with any given contact, try to set some expectation as to where the relationship is going. In other words try not to reach a dead-end in your dialogue which will require a surprise contact 2 months from now under some spurious pretence. This makes long term follow up far easier.

Example:
1. I am currently writing an article on X that I think you might find interesting. When I finish it I will send you a copy.

2. Here is that article that I promised you. What do you think?

You are basically trying to arrange the next contact, thinking one step ahead and so steering the future of the relationship.

Anyone can be useful
Do not dismiss anyone and follow up with everyone that you met. This might be the Hotel Manager, where you stayed, or the Conference organiser. There may not be an obvious or direct link to work, but the streams in which new work travels are often never direct.

Be systematic
Have a system. Log your activities and the results of those activities as a running diary of events and set alerts as to when you are next going to make contact. It does not matter how rudimentary your system, just make sure that you stick to it.

Touch me
For the last 10 years, or more, there has been a marketing cliché based on the number of times you need to ‘touch’ a contact before you are in a likely to be in a position to be able to influence their decision making. This advice suggests, in admittedly mercenary terms, that you need to have substantial interactions with a contact between 6-8 times over the course of 12-18 months, in order for that person to be useful to you. While this advice may be a bit of a cliché in marketing circles, it is non-the-less true. Follow up is a long term activity. If you cannot commit to this undertaking, do not bother going to the event in the first place.

Be Diverse
As we have seen, you need to touch a contact, on average, 7 times over the course of a year. You don’t want to appear boring by sending the same email or making contact under the same circumstances.

Try to approach your contact in different ways or find different reasons to stay in touch with them. Again, time does not have to be a crucial issue here; much of what you can do is simple and can be repeated across multiple contacts without the fear of it coming across disingenuous.

Do not be too formal
People do not build real relationships with systems, corporations or automations, so make your interactions personal. Work on a first name basis, try to engage in conversation about issues outside of the work place and interact on a human level.

Actually care
Most of the advice given in this article relates to making your contacts feel like you have thought about them. It’s about getting them to think that they have made an impression on you and that you care about them. The only way to do this is to actually care. It might seem simple but once you care about your contacts you will not need anymore advice on how to follow up. You will be doing it all naturally.

As for those business cards, currently left dejected, in your top draw? While it may be a little late, get them out and follow up anyway. It is about time you showed that you care.

Well, it’s that time of year again… and I have, like many of you, just gone through the process of designing, printed and sending out this years’ Christmas card (or should I say holiday card). Every year I make it a personal project to design something a little different, and this year was no exception. I set myself the task of designing a pop-up card which required me to spend far too long learning the basics of paper engineering (if you can believe such a thing exists) than was reasonably justifiable. While being a logistical nightmare the result is great… apart from one thing.

For as long as I can remember I have used the same or similar festive message with a fear of the term Christmas appearing anywhere on the card. ‘Happy Holidays’ is often used by our American counterparts, while in the UK we generally favour ‘Season’s Greetings’, my self included.

The fact that the word Christmas is omitted from the marketing dictionary is a strange one. The idea that someone somewhere might get offended by its use has been past down through the annals of marketing history. To me the idea that anyone could be offended by its use is somewhat ludicrous but I still feel bound by this convention.

I wonder who is brave enough to send out a card saying what we all really mean… ‘Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’?

- not me!

While touch screen interfaces have been around for a while, they have never been common place and have never really managed to capture the public’s imagination. There are many reasons for this; the cost of producing the hardware and thus the final cost to the consumer was very high, there was a lack of finesse and accuracy in the controls and really there was nothing touch could do that the good-old-mouse could not do better. Apple seemed to have ironed all these problems and so touch screen technology is set to explode. However, is this something that marketers in the legal industry should be worrying about?

The iPad is likely to be the first in a new wave of affordable touch screen devices to be released in 2010, with all of the other major computer manufactures following not far behind. At this stage in the game it is easy to miss or even dismiss the potential that this technology will have on our future marketing activities. However I might be willing to go so far as to suggest that this could be the single greatest leap forward computer technology has made in the last decade. As such, I predict that in the next five years we could see a struggle between firms to get the most out of this technology, harnessing its power to deliver content to clients in new and exciting ways.

One of the greatest changes touch screen technology will make is likely to be in our interactions within web-space and our experience when browsing the internet. There will, undoubtedly, be a new wave of ingenuity from developers to take advantage of all that touch browsing has to offer. I imagine developments like; being able to drag frames in a page from one place holder to another, zoom in or out of sections easily (a la iPhone), or perhaps flicking pages open from one screen to another all being common place. Our experience of corporate websites is set to become more interactive and intuitive. Customers will be psychically able to feel their way around sites and get more emotionally connected to the products or services on offer. Some of the dispassionateness of current e-commerce and e-sales is likely to be addressed with this added sensory development and it is likely to be seen as a very powerful tool for the future legal marketeer. I can even see the potential for aspects of navigation or ingenious elements of website operation being incorporated into the very brand of a firm.

This will, as with all developments of this type, begin with boutique websites aimed at a niche community most likely connected directly to the iPad user. I would be surprised if we didn’t see the first touch screen specific website, (likely by Apple themselves) by the end of 2010. However, this technology is unlikely to be of any practical use for law firms until the hardware begins to permeate the corporate world. As more companies begin to use touch screens within their businesses there will be an increased requirement to optimise your firm’s website to account for those users with touch screen computers. At this point it is likely to be used more and more in corporate websites and online brochure development. Now, my prediction does rely on the there being a general acceptance of this technology within the legal industries general client base. I see no reason to suggest that this should not be the case so long as Microsoft develops a good touch screen compatible OS and related software is readily available.

Unfortunately, I can see law firms being among the last to take up these new developments. This supposition is based on the legal industries slow uptake of past innovation and the apathetic development of marketing within the industry as a whole, but perhaps this is a separate topic for another time. The initial cost, due in part to the need to employ a specialist web developer and the slow uptake of corporate users, will be enough to put off all but the most progressive (or press hungry) partnerships from taking this up early.

However, I also suspect that even the most innovative of companies have plenty of breathing space before having to consider the introduction of touch screen technology within their websites or e-brochures.

While I have stated that there is certainly going to be a long wait before we see the first touch friendly law firm website, I also wouldn’t underestimate how this could change the face of online marketing and the traditional corporate website in the long term. I for one look forward to this technology adding a new dimension of creative colour to the legal marketing palette, having it as a new weapon in my marketing arsenal and the ensuing race to develop this functionality within the industry.

I am ready to be touched!

I have been marketing legal practices for many years now and I have been involved in all aspects of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) from the legitimate to the darkest depths of SEO trickery. In this article I want to dispel some of the myths of this little understood practice, how avoid a potentially unneeded consultancy bill running in to thousands of pounds and share some of my experiences in this field. I would welcome your feedback or details of your own experiences with SEO.

As I mentioned in my introduction, while working at various law firms over the last 10 years I have had my fair share of run-ins with SEO firms. I will start by saying that they vary widely in terms of reputability and I certainly don’t want this article to be an out and out attack on this industry. Indeed, I know a number of very good SEO consultants that, if you wish to contact me, I can put you in touch with. However, for me personally I doubt that I will ever employ another SEO consultant. Why? Well not simply because of the bad experiences I have had, but because with a little knowledge, you can easily do it yourself.

Let me begin by telling you about just one of my bad experiences with an SEO company that was happy to engage in, so called, black hat* methods. Quite early in my career I was employed as the marketing manager for a small firm of personal injury lawyers. Approximately, 6 months before I joined the firm had instructed an SEO company on the basis of their claims that “We will get you to the top of Google by the end of the year”. Upon reviewing the site that they had created on my first day in the office I was horrified. This SEO company had employed every black hat technique available, including;

Keyword stuffing: They has packed long lists of keywords into the site and creating Doorway Pages specifically designed to contain these lists.

Invisible text: The website was on a white background and so they stuffed the footers of pages with white text. This text can be seen by Google’s spiders but not by the visitor to the site.

Linking Sites: They had created about 20 satellite sites, all with personal injury content, whose only purpose was to increase the amount of incoming links into the main site.

Having reviewed the historical data for the site over the preceding 6 months the site had indeed shown a significant spike in terms of page rank and our overall standing within Google. However, it is worth noting at this point that the site never achieved first page listing in Google and it looked an absolute mess. The conclusion to this story is that before I was able to repair the damage, the site was banned by Google and the SEO firm went into hiding. I know that this is an extreme example but this kind of thing still goes on, so be warned!

Here is my first tip to you, if an SEO company tells you that they can get you to the top of Google within any time frame, especially in such a competitive market as Personal Injury, lock away your check book and run to the hills.

There are also grey hat techniques which can include things like; long lists of page links on your homepage, adding long lists of keywords into title attributes of links or alt tags or arbitrarily tucking away keywords in a page in order to maximize its keyword prominence. These techniques are unlikely to get you banned but are borderline unethical and generally make your site look very untidy. I would recommend that you stay away from any of these activities also.

My advice, especially in regard to legal websites, is to design your site with the user in mind rather than the Google-bot. Creating a good quality site which is logical, simple and easy to navigate will always win out in the end. No, you will not see your site on the front page of Google inside of 6 months, probably not even the first year, but a well developed site with growing content will get there eventually. Google’s love must be earned over time rather bought. However, there are things that can be done easily by yourself to ensure that you certainly don’t hinder your website and, best of all, they are free.

If you have Dreamweaver (or some other web editor) and a little knowledge, then this is going to be easy. However, most large firms will be likely to have some form of CMS system to manage their sites but most of what I am going to tell you can be done through any decent system. If your changes are made by a web developer, reading the following will at least give you some idea of how to instruct them and ensure that you don’t pay for services you don’t need.

Basically, there is no secret to SEO, it is not as complex an operation as SEO firms would like to make out and I would suggest that anyone with even a little bit of web literacy can do it. In fact Google themselves produce a far better guide than I could produce, outlining everything you need to make your site the best it can be. Click here to see Google’s Search Engine Optimisation Starter Guide(http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&sou…5Swpqx7sfqSC2Q). As a general rule of thumb, no matter how tempting, don’t do anything that is not contained in this guide.

The basics:

Tags
Ensuring that your meta tags, headers, alt tags, anchor text and titles are all relevant and above all, different to each other. These tags are basically text that is unseen on the page but exists as titles and names in the back end. The guide Google produces tells you how to do this, were they are on a page and how to exit them appropriately. You might think that this is something that your web developer would have done as a matter of course but I would like to bet that they haven’t. The most you can really expect from them, without them asking for more money for SEO, is to title the pages all similarly with your company name. This, while not wrong, is not making the best of your site. When adding tags don’t simply add words randomly, think about the page and make them connected to the image or title or page they are related to.

Keywords
Each page on a site allows you to add keyword. These words appear in a list form in the back end code and allow you to be more descriptive about the content. Don’t simply add the same list of keywords to every page. The most important thing here is to consider the content and make them relevant to that page. One again, Google tells you have to do this.

Good URL links
CMS systems generate new page URL’s automatically, most now create bot-friendly URL’s which are beneficial to searching and most descriptive to the visitor. However some don’t, and generate meaningless URL’s which are going to nothing to improve your sites search position.

Good URL: www.example.com/good_url_example_for_you.html
Bad URL: www.exmple.com/bad123.fht757.page2.html

When purchasing a CMS this should be a consideration.

Site Map
Make sure your site has a relevant site map containing links and page names of all of the main pages on your site. You will need to link this somewhere on every page and register it with Google using their web tools. Again, they tell you how to do this in the guide.

Make the site easy to navigate
Really this should have been considered when you first designed the site and if your site is user friendly it should be Google friendly. Your homepage in invariably the root from which your main navigation pages branch off (e.g Homepage>related topic list>specific topic).

If you do not have a Google account I would recommend that you sign up for one today. Google offers loads of free tools which will help you monitor your site’s progress and even tell you where you are going wrong as far as SEO is concerned. Google Analytics, Web tools and Website Optimiser are all essential in my book. They are easy to set up with just a little knowledge and are among the best tools available for anyone managing a website.

Google Analytics
By simply copy and pasting a few lines of code into your pages Google will provide you with one of the best analytical tools around. The Analytics shows you how many people visit your site, how they came by your site and where they are from. If you don’t currently have access to your web stats then you are marketing blind. This should be an essential part of your marketing armoury.

Webmaster tools
The webmaster tools do a number of interesting things which are essential to SEO. Firstly, it tells you if all of your pages are being crawled by Google and if not why not. It is essential that all of the content that you want seen by Google is, to ensure that you are getting the benefit from those pages.

Secondly, it tells you what Google thinks your sites current Keywords are. This can often make very surprising reading. Should your keywords be unexpected this is a clear sign that you need to reconsider the content of your site.

Website optimiser
This tool allows you to test various adaption’s to your site before you release them thus ensuring that your site is as good as it can be.

Obviously there is more to these tools than explained here but they are all very easy to use and together provide you will all of the information that you could ever need to ensure that your site performs well in Google.

As far as I am concerned, if you do what Google themselves tell you to do and continue to grow your site organically then, given time, your site will be as competitive as any other around. Adding relevant content like articles, case studies and press releases will pay off in the long term. Basically, anything that is going to make your site more beneficial to your visitors is going to make it more relevant to Google.

I would welcome your feedback or details of your own experiences with SEO. Please post your comments in our dedicated forum: http://www.firmmarketing.co.uk/showt…ur-Experiences!.

*Black hat or Black hatting is defined as techniques that are used to get higher search rankings in an unethical manner.

Nothing speaks to a client more than you demonstrating to them that you really understand their business. I have a simple trick which will do just that, as well as giving you a tool to help market your practice ‘smarter’.
I am going to talk to you about Google Alerts (but any RSS aggregator can be used in a similar way). Google Alerts is a free tool which monitors news and blogs from the most popular sources around the world, and emails you (or delivers those updates by RSS) with the complied results in real time.

Many companies use these services to monitor their own exposure to the press. However, my simple tip is – use this tool to monitor the activities of your biggest clients.

I said it was simple, but then the best ideas are.

Setting up Google Alerts for personal monitoring is easy. Simply complete this online form (http://www.google.com/alerts) with your search term, some simple preferences and your email address. However, to get maximum benefit I would suggest that this activity form part of your wider strategic account program and managed centrally. This might take a little bit more technical skill and forethought but is still within the means of any sized firm.

Monitor the news of your top 5 clients to start off with. Over time you can add to this, produce separate reports by department and really target the information’s delivery. To be really slick, you can get your IT department to stream this information through your intranet or internal systems. A simpler method would be to get your marketing department to circulate a weekly email, complied with the latest client news, to all staff. Perhaps even make this part of your departmental/team meetings. Whatever the delivery method, the goal is to ensure that all of those involved with these clients are aware of any new news as soon as possible.

Now, it is all well and good having a system in place, but how do you utilise it?

Having access to this information affords you the following benefits:

1. You will be able to see what your clients are working on, what projects they are undertaking and, most importantly, if there is anything you can offer advice on. This might be an opportunity to get involved in work that you may otherwise miss out on.

2. It will give you some indication, for forecasting purposes, of the relative fortunes of these companies, and how those fortunes, good or bad, might effect you in the future.

3. It may give you an excuse to make contact with your client, to offer congratulations or comment, depending on the type of news. This keeps you visible and suggests to them that you really understand their business.

4. When pressed, you will, genuinely, be able to approach your clients’ business needs with a deeper insight into their issues and market place.

5. It makes you look good in the eyes of your biggest clients.

This is a really simple thing to set up and can make a huge impact in how you are perceived by those bread-and-butter clients. Give it a try and let me know how it works for you.

Notes:

RSS: RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Many news-related sites, weblogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS feed to anyone who wants it.

Strategic Account Program (SAP): A combination of system, reports and rules aimed at getting the best from those clients which offer the greatest revenue streams.

LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell survey reveals that 59% of law firm leaders are not prioritizing customer feedback programmes.

A new global study of client feedback initiatives found that the majority (52%) of law firms still do not have a structured client feedback programme, but those that do generally find the feedback to be instructive in improving client relationships.

The survey of 415 senior personnel at law firms around the world shows a stark division among respondents about the value placed on client feedback. In total, 83% of survey respondents “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that clients value the opportunity to provide feedback to their lawyers and law firms. In addition, more than 70% of firms report adjusting firm behaviours in response to feedback received. However, despite the importance firms place on obtaining feedback and the acknowledged benefits gained from well-executed feedback initiatives, worryingly 56% of all respondent firms admitted their lawyers were “ambivalent” or “not enthusiastic” about their firm’s feedback efforts.

These findings are based on a global law firm survey on client feedback initiatives among the world’s law firms. Commissioned by LexisNexis® Martindale-Hubbell®, the research was conducted by the Wicker Park Group, a consulting group specializing in client feedback initiatives for professional services firms.

“The most surprising aspect of this survey was the reasons given by firms for not seeking feedback,” says Derek Benton, director of International Operations at LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell. “For example, 38% of respondent firms reported insufficient staff or resources as the main reason for not doing so. Yet, among those firms that do seek feedback, 64% invest less than 5% of their firm’s marketing budget to obtain it. Considering that feedback can be collated with relatively little effort and the clear benefits it brings to client retention and profitability, one wonders why so many law firm leaders would not want to make this impactful investment.”
In general, the survey found most law firms that ask for client feedback do so for genuine service development reasons – they typically want to measure client satisfaction or improve the firm’s level of client service overall. Leveraging a client feedback programme to identify business development opportunities or generate additional revenue are secondary considerations.

The survey also casts doubt as to whether firms that currently organize client satisfaction surveys actually act upon the feedback and share learnings throughout the firm. Firstly, client feedback tends to be shared within firms on an informal basis, rather than via detailed reports with planned follow-up strategies. Moreover, it appears that feedback may not always be shared as openly as possible, with only 51% of firms agreeing that feedback is broadly and openly shared, and only one-third of all respondent firms saying they communicate feedback to lawyers and other staff that actually deal with the client.

“Firms that proactively use insights given by clients are more likely to improve and protect a relationship in the longer-term. Corporate counsel report that one of their biggest frustrations is giving feedback that is neither properly fed back to relevant parties in the firm, nor acted upon,” Benton adds.

The overall responsibility for leading client feedback programmes tends to fall to managing partners (53% of all respondents). However, perhaps surprisingly, managing or marketing partners are also nominated as those responsible for collecting feedback on behalf of the firm.
In relation to the feedback gathering process itself, written/electronic surveys or face-to-face interviews are by far the most preferred methods used by 48% and 47% of all survey respondents respectively. In contrast, collecting client feedback by telephone is not a popular option, except in one-quarter of cases where it was used by client relationship partners as part of their management of key clients.

Looking ahead, 56% of respondent firms have plans to obtain client feedback in the future. Of those firms, nearly half expect their feedback efforts to increase “somewhat,” while only 17% expect their efforts to increase “substantially.” Only 2% of this group expect to decrease client feedback efforts.

“Overall, our research suggests that, in the future, a majority of law firms will have feedback programmes in place,” concluded Martindale-Hubbell’s Derek Benton. “Given that clients are increasingly more demanding and the legal sector ever more competitive, we expect that law firms will want to take positive steps such as seeking client feedback to aid client retention and ultimately boost their financial performance.”