Client likeability: How to build rapport and relationships with clients

Douglas McPherson discusses how to develop professional likeability for enduring client relationships

Frequently, the first thing purchasers of professional services say they want from their lawyer, patent attorney or accountant is professional likeability. Technical expertise, deep-set support mechanisms and creative fee structures lag some way behind a client’s desire to just get on with his adviser.

Given the nature of professional service relationships, conversations between clients and advisers will rarely be enjoyable or comfortable. This only underlines the importance of professional likeability – not only in new client acquisitions but also in client retention and cross-selling opportunities.

If you’re worried this is going to turn into some sort of sandal-wearing self-help article telling you how to increase your emotional intelligence quotient and be kinder to animals, cast your fears aside – professional likeability isn’t about self-improvement, it’s about satisfying a primary client requirement.

Because of the highly technical nature of the law, too many practitioners still focus solely on the detail but ignore the delivery, ignoring the fact the delivery is often the only part the client really sees.

In the film The Untouchables, Robert De Niro as Al Capone says: “I come from a neighbourhood where they say you always get further with a kind word and a gun than you can with just a kind word.”

Substitute ‘gun’ for ‘incisive and decisive legal advice’ and that’s the definition of professional likeability in a nutshell. At no point will the necessity to provide an accurate technical performance ever wane. Fee earners just need to be able to provide it seasoned with the level of client care that will not only make clients come back time after time, but will also encourage them to tell their networks why they should work with the fee earners and their firms.

Recent studies have shown that when serious mistakes have been made in hospitals, the doctors who provided high levels of patient care were more likely to escape prosecution. Obviously this doesn’t apply to significant malpractice, but lawyers should take note of these studies and recognise effective bedside manner is crucial to their legal futures.

In a world where there are too many law firms for the volume of work available, the work that is out there will go to the fee earners that clients like to work with. On top of that, with the service proposition of so many firms looking so similar, likeability can become a point of differentiation if marketed and promoted effectively.

Attaining likeability

So how can you attain professional likeability? There are four key steps.

1. Empathy

Empathy is a word that’s been worn to threadbare, but too few fee earners use it in the right context. Empathy isn’t sympathy; empathy is the ability to really understand your clients and the issues they face.

The longer you take to understand a client’s circumstances, the easier it becomes to define the real issue (often hidden a few layers behind the initial query), and the more the client will value your involvement.

This takes time and not an insignificant number of questions but, by drilling down and solving the real issue, you’ll establish a depth of relationship that will be difficult for any competitor to break.

2. Approachability

It’s obvious that you need to be approachable, but don’t just concentrate on ‘when’; think about ‘how’.

Early in your relationship, establish how your client likes to communicate. Is he a face-to-face person? Does he prefer email? If more people are involved (all with their own busy schedules), would a conference call be better?

Too often, partners dictate communications based upon their own preferences – lengthy letters or meetings in their own offices – but clients like their advisers to contact them in the way that they find convenient.

3. Responsiveness

Do not underestimate the positive effect which an immediate response has, even if it’s just a holding email that buys time to consider the correct approach. With smartphones and immediate email access being standard, there’s no excuse to not get back to a client by return email.

If the primary point of contact is indisposed, ensure a colleague (preferably of the same level, as the client will feel more valued) responds.

Also, ensure all responses are delivered in plain English and in terms of ‘if I were in your shoes’. Nothing pushes you up in a client’s estimation faster than committed jargon-free advice.

4. Balance check

Once you think you’ve got the balance right, ask the client.

If you have got it right, ask for a testimonial. It brings your skills to life in a relevant way a one-dimensional biography on your website never will. Prospective clients (even those referred to you) will find you eminently more likeable if they can see that people from their world have positive things to say about you.

If you haven’t got it quite right, listen to and take your client’s advice. The client will recognise that you’re working hard for him, which will increase (not damage) your likeability.

Meeting clients

A common client complaint is that partners insist on holding meetings in their own offices. If you’re serious about establishing likeability, try an alternative approach.

Get out and see clients

Seeing clients on their home ground underlines your interest in learning about them and their business – just don’t turn the clock on as soon as you leave your office! That’s one thing proven to erode any likeability which you’ve banked.

Get on with them

Chat. Ask them about their lives, their business and their interests. Find common ground. See if there are any introductions you could make to other professionals who could help them elsewhere. This may even lead to a cross-selling opportunity for your firm.

When you are talking to clients, remember the following two golden rules.

1. Listen to learn. An easy way to be instantly liked is to listen. Don’t constantly talk about yourself or interrupt. Remember, most clients often want nothing more than to be heard, and that is why the most skilled listeners are the most liked.

2. Make them feel special. As Cavett Robert, founder of the National Speaker’s Association, said: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. The more you show clients you care about them, the more they will like you.

Get in with them

Many aspire to the trusted adviser status, but few achieve it. This is because, all too often, the key steps of going out and seeing clients and then getting on with them are missed.

Just as it takes time for people to get to know and like you outside of work, it takes time to build professional likeability. Unless you invest time in the relationship, you won’t succeed.

The managing partner of a very successful law firm in Scotland once said that he made his name with a pair of wellies. The client list he inherited was largely agricultural – a world he knew nothing about – so he bought a pair of wellies for himself and went out to see them on their farms. He got on with the clients by taking an interest in them and, after initial cynicism, got in with them by cementing personal and professional relationships with them. These have endured, despite the fact he hasn’t practised law on their behalf for 20 years.

Build confidence

The last step to professional likeability is to always be confident. People pay handsomely for your advice, so be confident when presenting it. If it takes a bit more time and a few more questions to formulate that advice, don’t worry. The client will only see your willingness to understand his situation, not the extra time spent, and that too will only add to your professional likeability.

Always remember that purchasers of legal advice want definitive ‘if I were in your shoes’ advice, not multiple choice non-committal alternatives.

Finally, as Henry Ford once said, “my best friend is the one who brings out the best in me”. If you want to be liked, bring out the best in people.

Invest the time and interest in ensuring you can confidently provide advice that will both make clients’ lives easier and save them time, money and hassle. Your professional likeability will be assured and work will continue to flow in your firm’s direction.

 

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Checklist: Being liked by clients

Do

• Be empathetic – take extra time to understand your clients’ unique situations.

• Find out how your clients like to be contacted and stick to it.

• Respond with definitive advice.

• Respond in plain English.

• Get out, get on and get in with clients.

• Listen to learn.

• Bring out the best in clients.

Don’t

• Provide advice based on the first thing you’re asked or the first thing you hear.

• Dictate communications according to how you like to work.

• Offer advice as a string of alternatives.

• Send clients lengthy jargon-heavy responses to their questions.

• Always meet in your office (or bill for every minute spent travelling between your office and the client’s).

• Miss out on opportunities where you can help the client outside of the matter at hand.

• Think the matter is all about making you look good in front of your client. 

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Douglas McPherson has 18 years of professional sales and marketing experience and is a director of business development consultancy Size 10 1/2 Boots (www.tenandahalf.co.uk)

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