Becoming a legend

With the advent of the Legal Services Act, the monopoly which solicitors have enjoyed for hundreds of years is finally coming to an end. One area in which solicitors can differentiate themselves from the new players is trust and service. Solicitors are still trusted and their independence is respected; however, frequent recent surveys have pointed to poor service and communication as being the key areas where complaints against solicitors are made.

What is needed is service so exceptional that clients are shouting about it from the rooftops. Your clients are spreading the word instead of you needing to conduct costly marketing and advertising campaigns. Everyone knows how effective word of mouth recommendations are. So, how do you get clients raving about your services? Well, the bad news is the bar is unbelievably high in terms of service. Whereas five years ago it would be enough to go the extra mile, clients now expect you to go the extra marathon or two. The public has seen it all. Achieving that elusive 'wow factor' requires genuine creativity and courage.

It is not sufficient to have chocolate biscuits and fresh percolated coffee in meetings, to have sleek modern reception and meeting rooms with flat screen televisions scrolling News 24. Everyone does this.

I was involved in developing a legendary client service programme for my last firm. Legendary client service is where the service provided to clients is so exceptional that a legend is created. This is the concept of legendary service where the stories told about your firm's service are spread from person to person.

Designing a legendary client service programme

The first step is to achieve buy-in at senior management level because the staff need to see that everyone without exception is buying into the programme. It would help if the champion was the managing partner or of equivalent status, but at the very least the person behind the programme needs to be at partner level or have 100 per cent backing of senior management.

The next step is to devise a firm-wide training programme. It needs to include everyone '“ from cleaners to senior partners. The training sessions must carry a three-line whip and failure to attend must be considered a disciplinary offence.

The training sessions should be fun. It cannot just be a single person droning on at the end of a room. There should be a variety of speakers both internal and external (if budgets permit). The advantage of the firm's personnel giving the talk is that the training course material is tailored to the firm's culture and practices and is easy for the attendees to identify with. Very often external speakers can get the culture wrong and end up alienating the audience.

The training should be a mix of hands-on groups of two or three working through role-play scenarios; for example, how do you handle a complaint, or how do you answer the phone to a new potential client? There should be some videos to watch. My firm used clips from Fawlty Towers and Victoria Wood to illustrate key points in an amusing way. Audio material can also be very effective. We used a clip of two actors re-enacting a real conversation from a potential client which was completely mishandled by the secretary concerned. It really drove the points of service home in a dramatic way.

Once the initial training session is complete, follow-up sessions should follow two or three weeks later on more specialised areas such as answering the telephone (including picking up other people's calls) dealing with new enquiries, presentations and networking skills. All of these reinforce the initial training and create a real sense of momentum.

The training is further reinforced by building legendary client service into the appraisal system so that staff are deliberately graded on how good they have been at providing legendary service. Get the staff involved in coming up with their ideas for legendary service. This achieves much higher ownership and buy-in if the staff feel they have created the ideas. Staff who produce outstanding examples of legendary service should be openly and generously rewarded with a day off or a gift voucher or bottle of fizz. Get the buzz going in the firm '“ report successes and wins on the intranet or in a newsletter.

There is no point in spending a fortune in rolling out a training programme firm-wide if the staff are all demoralised, underpaid and undervalued. The members of your firm will only really start providing legendary service if they are happy in their workplace. This accounts for the failure of most large firm's service programmes.

Measuring success

It is important to have some way of gauging how successful a legendary client service programme is. The designated 'service partner' must receive copies of all letters from clients who have commented on service, whether positive or negative. He needs to act on any complaints memorably and rapidly. Clients need to be routinely phoned by the service partner to ask for feedback on their transactions. Some firms routinely send out client satisfaction surveys but these are not popular with clients. Key clients should be invited in to give their feedback on the programme and provide suggestions for the future.