A primary education in client service

For parents of children age four to five, April will have marked something of a milestone.

After months, if not years, of planning which primary school they wanted their children to attend, they finally will have received confirmation as to whether their child had been accepted by their school
of choice.

As one of those parents, I watched, with interest, the breakfast news reports stating that tens of thousands of pupils would not be allocated to their first choice. Never did I think my child would be one of them.

However, I was in for a rude awakening. Not only did my child not get into our preferred school, neither was he given a place in our second or even third choices. In fact, he was given a place at a school that I actively did not want him to attend. Apart from going on the waiting lists for the schools I wanted, my only other choice was to appeal.

I was consumed for days researching appeals on the internet, downloading advice guides and reading anything that might give me an advantage in my appeal letter. By the time I had written said letter, I felt drained and couldn’t bear to talk about the situation any longer.

While for us, it is now a case of preparing for an appeal hearing, the whole unpleasant situation has prompted me to think about the turmoil that many of our clients are often in when they first step in to the office seeking advice.

It also made me realise that when I am dealing with a client, while my focus is on giving them the best advice in a pragmatic and straightforward way, they could feel that I’m actually being cold and unsympathetic to their needs.

While I appreciate that there always needs to be a level of professionalism, maybe there are times when we could all
try harder to understand that clients may not be thinking
as logically as they may do in other situations and could need more time to take on board what the options are.

Failure fear

When it came to finding a school for my son, the need I had to find a solution almost immediately, and the frustration I felt that the solution I wanted was not readily available, was overwhelming. And on top of that was the fear that if my appeal failed, there would be no solution – or none to my liking.

It doesn’t require a great
leap in imagination, then,
to understand the fear, confusion and frustration that our own clients probably feel about their own situation, combined, in some cases, with financial worries around how they are going to afford the costs associated with finding
a solution.

Of course, as professionals with an intent to give the very best advice we possibly can,
we cannot ‘water down’ the recommendations we make
to our clients to make it easier for them to digest.

However, first-class legal advice is what we’re trying
to provide – all self-respecting solicitors and legal experts should agree with that.

So, we must bear in
mind that such a level of
service isn’t just about talking
at the client, it’s also about giving them a quality experience and making
them feel that they have
been listened to, understood and advised accordingly.

That’s the level of service
I’m hoping for from my local authority. And that’s exactly
what I want clients to feel
they have received from me. SJ

Claire Currie is a partner at Kirwans 

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