the [non]billable hour

What Do Your Clients Think About You?

Here's an exercise I'm working on for a Client Service Workbook that's been an on-and-off project of mine for a while.

There will be several comic strip-like panels depicting scenes of a client interacting with you and your staff. Each will be on a worksheet you can give to yourself and your staff. Everyone will fill in the empty thought-bubbles with what they believe the "client" is thinking in situations like when:

They're in the reception area waiting for their appointment:


They're listening to you give them advice:


They just received their bill:

Once the thoughts are filled in, you compare and discuss the similarities and differences. To make the exercise even more valuable, ask your current and former clients to complete the same exercise.

Let me know what you think. I'm committed to finishing the Workbook by the end of the year, and will be testing similar exercises with my consulting and coaching clients 'til then.

Meet Me in Missouri

I'm headed down to Missouri's Lake of the Ozarks this week for the Missouri Solo and Small Firm Conference to speak about marketing, innovation, technology and the web.  There will be over 900 lawyers there this year -- which makes it the largest solo and small firm conference in the country.

If you'll be there, be certain to say hello.  If you can't make it, I'll be covering as much as I can on Twitter and will be using the hashtag #mossfc

Looking for Cool Ways to Connect with Clients? -(STOP)-

Telegramstop is a company that will send an old-time looking telegram to anyone in the world for under five bucks.  Could be a cool, retro way to connect with some clients or friends.

Ten Rules PDF Preview

As I gear up for several speaking engagements this summer, I'm putting together my slides and handouts this week.  While most of these will ultimately live at my LexThink site, I thought I'd share the first one with you here on the blog.

Here are my Ten Rules of Client Service (from my original post here) in a spiffy new pdf format that I hope will turn into an e-book of sorts.

I hope you enjoy the look, and find the pdf easy to share.  Let me know what you think.

Get a Life -- In Only Two Days

I've been spending some time talking to the organizers of the Get a Life Conference, after connecting at Techshow and on Twitter.  It looks like a great event, and I'm really working hard to figure out a way to make it -- and perhaps do some cool LexThink-like unconference stuff with them if I do.

Lots of great speakers, including the incomparable Gerry Riskin, are on tap.  Expect lots of talk about practical ways to make your law practice a more profitable business.  From their site:

In this two-day workshop, you’ll learn how manage all the moving parts of a successful law practice and still have a life. But there’s one very important thing missing – you! One of the greatest challenges you have is making time for what’s personally important to you – your hobbies, friends and family.

It happens May 27th and 28th in Chicago.  Check it out, and if you'd like to go, here's a link to a 25% discount (Enter INSIDER upon check-out).  I hope to see you there!

Your Clients Multiply Your Mistakes

Another fun "Rule of Thumb" that sounds about right, even with no empirical proof:

Every time you mess up, your boss will remember it as three times that number. If the total number of actual mess-ups is greater than 3, your boss will remember it as "always."

Works for clients, too!

Client Collaboration and the IKEA Effect

One of my favorite lists of the year is Harvard Business Review's Breakthrough Ideas for 2009.  As always, the entire list is worth a read, but the one that caught my eye is  one labeled The IKEA effect, which suggests that people are willing to pay more for things they had a hand in creating:

When people construct products themselves, from bookshelves to Build-a-Bears, they come to overvalue their (often poorly made) creations. We call this phenomenon the IKEA effect, in honor of the wildly successful Swedish manufacturer whose products typically arrive with some assembly required.

In one of our studies we asked people to fold origami and then to bid on their own creations along with other people’s. They were consistently willing to pay more for their own origami. In fact, they were so enamored of their amateurish creations that they valued them as highly as origami made by experts.

What does this mean for professional service providers?  Instead of defaulting to a "Let me handle that for you" position with clients, require them to actively participate in their case.  By collaborating with them, and allowing them to make meaningful contributions to the work you (both) do, they'll likely value your services more and be happier with the end result.

Ten Rules of Client Service

Quick, name your favorite customer service class from law school.  Can’t do it?  I’m not surprised.  Most lawyers don’t learn much about client service in school, and the only class that touches upon service at all is Legal Ethics -- which is kind of like teaching someone to ride a bike by showing them lots of bicycle accidents.

By delivering great service, you can delight your customers, increase their satisfaction (and reduce malpractice exposure), cut your marketing budget and turn your clients into your best salespeople.  And because many of your peers believe something as simple as returning client calls is optional, the bar to delivering the best client service in your community is set pretty low. 

Here then, are 10 simple “rules” to help you remember that it is your customers who keep you in business, and when you work to delight (instead of frustrate) them, you’ll both be successful.

1.  Just because clients don’t expect great service from lawyers doesn’t excuse you from providing it.

2.  Don’t assume you’re great at service because your current clients don’t leave.  Many remain your clients because they fear their new lawyer will treat them just like you do.

3.  It costs less to delight a client than it does to frustrate them.  You pay to delight them once, but you pay for frustrating them forever.

4.  It is also far cheaper to compete on service than it is on price, because there will always be someone far cheaper.

5.  People tell others about service they receive, not competence they expect.  Ever heard someone brag about how clean their dry cleaners get their clothes? 

6.  The time clients care about isn’t yours, it’s theirs.  Build your practice to save them time and they’ll be less reluctant to pay you for yours.

7.  Though you might be measured against your peers in a courtroom, when it comes to service, you’re measured against everyone.  If your clients named the top ten places they get great service, would your business make the list?  It should.

8.  Eighty percent of your time should be spent on satisfying your clients’ expectations and twenty percent should be spent on exceeding them.

9.  You can’t measure how you’re doing when you only ask how you’ve done.  Improving client service begins with learning how to serve your current clients better.

10.  If your clients can go months without hearing from you, they can go forever without recommending you.  To lawyers, indifference and incompetence are two different things.  To clients, they are one in the same.

If you'd like to see some more posts like this one, check out: Ten Rules of Rainmaking,  Ten Tweets about Twitter,  Ten Resolutions for the New Year,  Ten Rules for Law Students, Ten Rules for the New Economy, Ten Rules for New Solos, Ten Rules of Legal Innovation,  Ten Rules of Legal Technology, Ten Rules of Hourly Billing and Ten New Rules of Legal Marketing. 

Also, if you'd like to see hundreds more ideas on creative ways to deliver great client service, check out all of the Client Service posts here on this blog.

Replace "Fiance" with "Client"

Found this one over at Rules of Thumb.  Replace Fiance with Client and Married with Retained:

If your fiance does something that bothers you before you're married, it will bother you ten times more after you're married.

Do Your Best Customers Know They Are?

This week I received a letter from Hotwire (which is, along with Tripit, my favorite travel site) that began:

"Welcome to Hotwire Express, a new service designed for our best customers.  Given the volume of business you do with Hotwire, you've earned this enhanced level of service and support, which includes..."

The letter continued to list a series of benefits I'll now receive as an Express member including faster response times, dedicated travel specialists, and increased flexibility to change already-paid-for bookings.

I wasn't expecting the letter, and didn't know I was one of Hotwire's "best" customers, though I've spent thousands of dollars with them.  I hadn't even thought I needed the additional services Hotwire's now giving me for free.  In short, it was the kind of pleasant surprise that made me feel good about my past use of their service and more likely to use them again. 

I also realized that this strategy lends itself well to other businesses.  What could you do to surprise (and better serve) your best customers? Take some lessons from Hotwire and:

1.  Identify your best customers.

2.  Tell them they are, in fact, your best customers and sincerely thank them.  They'll be surprised and happy to know you're grateful for their business. 

3.  Finally, give them additional services and benefits that they'll appreciate without them having to ask for them.

What's the worst that can happen?