Culture shock: Creating a customer service-oriented firm culture

Key takeaway points:

1. Answer every call

2. Talk to clients – surveys and feedback forms are essential

3. Accept criticism – don’t defend bad practice; instead, implement better service

4. Train staff and keep on training them

5. Embed a culture of customer service in your firm

6. Reward excellence

7. Set KPIs and monitor them frequently

8. Treat every complaint as a potential threat to your business and solve the problem for the client

9. Be helpful – it pays to go the extra mile

 

The pace of regulatory change to the legal sector in England and Wales over the past few years have been relentless and bewildering for the profession. What with the changes to ‘no win, no fee’ and legal aid, and the simultaneous arrival of competitors such as the Co-op on our doorsteps, it has been difficult to focus on constructing new business models to meet these challenges. But, as the dust begins to settle, now is a good time for managing partners to examine everything their business does to create a new strategy to fit the current market paradigm.

Customer service is as good a place as any to start, as it is the ammunition our commercial competition wealds to best effect. It’s also something the legal profession has not quite come to grips with yet.

The management at DBS Law ?has spent the past five years putting in place a customer relations management strategy designed for us by some Californian postgraduate students. They came and examined our operations from top to bottom and then advised us to turn the whole thing upside down. At first it ?was a shock; we hadn’t yet accepted the need to change our ways and we were making a good living. But, they convinced us that, without radical new thinking, we could not survive in an increasingly commercial environment.

So, we bit the bullet and went radical – and I’m very glad that we did. During the period that we were implementing the strategy, we achieved various quality standards, including Lexcel. Most recently, we were awarded the Customer Service Excellence standard by the government’s cabinet office.

Our service levels have been independently audited, which found that 84 per cent of our clients would recommend us to a friend or family member. It’s this statistic that validates the change in strategy more than anything else, because personal referrals have been key to the 170 per cent growth in income we have seen over the past five years.

Change in direction

Fundamental to the plan given to us by our American friends was answering the phone, answering it quickly and having it answered by someone who can immediately assist the potential client.

A missed call is an open goal for your competitors. A call that is hesitantly put through to a colleague who seems just as vague about the service your firm is selling will end your chance of converting the caller into a client – and will probably damage your reputation with that person’s contacts as well.

To defend against this problem, we introduced an in-house call centre. We called it the ‘Elite’ team in order to stress its importance to the business. Importantly, our call centre operatives are paralegals with ambitions to train as solicitors. They are well paid and highly trained, chosen for their drive and enthusiasm and strong emotional intelligence.

We have found that empathy from the person who has first contact with a prospective client is vital in demystifying the legal process. Putting the caller at ease and explaining all of the technical issues clearly without a sales pitch is very important in converting the caller into ?a client.

Realising that there was a basic principle behind providing immediate access to a well-informed firm representative, we extended the hours ?of our Elite team using a shift system. ?We also made the call centre available 365 days a year, as we represent a wide range of ethnic groups, not all of whom celebrate Christmas.

Listening and feedback

“Promises must be kept, so don’t promise anything that can’t reasonably be delivered,” our advisers told us. This seems obvious but, if you run a traditional sales team incentivised by individual targets, the overstating of the possible is an occupational hazard. A client who signs up with overblown expectations will endure frustration and is bound to be disappointed with even the most positive of outcomes.

All of our staff are trained to be absolutely clear with potential clients about what they can expect. Our first-contact team hand over to our home visit team, who subsequently hand the case over to the legal representative with an unvarying message. The potential outcome, the duration of the case and the level of service the client can expect from us are all specified and set out in writing.

Listening to customers is the most important work we can do. Finding out what customers want is the most basic market research. It is, however, discomforting that any criticism can ?easily be taken personally and ignored ?for being unfair. To avoid the temptation ?to be selective about the client feedback we receive, we decided to survey all of ?our clients. Their experience is tested either during the running of the case or after it is settled.

We ask clients about their understanding of the case, how well they know their case handler, the communications they receive and how we measure up against the expectations they had before we began acting for them. The final survey includes the key performance indicator question: “Would you recommend us to a friend or family member?”

The listening principal is extended through the service too. Our staff are trained to listen to more than just the facts of the case; they are encouraged to see the person and understand the case through his eyes.

Complaints and handling them properly is a very important part of giving great customer service. There is of course an instinctive reaction that we all have to ignore a complaint – the damage is done, after all, and there’s no point wasting any more time on it. This approach is potentially disastrous, however, as our American advisers were at pains to point out; news of appalling customer service travels fast.

Happily, we have received very few complaints from clients but, when they do come in, I oversee them personally. We keep the complainant in touch with the investigation and always look to find a solution, if there is one to be found, as soon as possible. We advise clients that they have the right to take their complaint to the Legal Ombudsman, of course, but we also offer independent investigation if the complainant is not satisfied with our initial response.

We also use the complaint constructively to continue the CSR training of our staff. We ask for each representative to respond with his own version of the events, without any hint of judgement. Staff are asked to examine the problem and suggest ways it may have been avoided. More often than not, complaints arise because of failures in communication, so the solution is found in the examination itself; forewarned is forearmed.

Training and measurement

Training staff is of course vital for successful implementation of any change programme in business. We began the process with an intensive introductory course for all fee earners and call handlers. This is developed further by three one-day top-up courses every year. Thereafter, the process is about a constant reinforcement of the messages in the initial training.

We also introduced a new element to the bonus scheme, which had previously followed a traditional above-target earnings reward model. Each fee earner now has one third of his bonus awarded according to a measurement of customer satisfaction derived from client feedback. Our intensive surveying of clients helped us to sell this measure to the fee earners, as they were able to see that the process was objective and not subject to selective management judgement.

All of the comments from the customer surveys are posted on our intranet in the ‘what our clients say about us’ section. Extra special mentions are brought to the attention of the whole business in firmwide announcements, which serve as further positive reinforcement of the policy.

Team leaders are encouraged to ?raise the most recent customer feedback in their weekly meetings. They engage the whole group in discussions around remedying problems and improving on encouraging signs.

Customer service is always a theme for firm celebrations and teambuilding days. On one occasion, we booked a theatre group to pose as incompetent waiting staff for a firm function. As the performers dropped plates, ignored the diners and held their own private (but very public) conversations, our staff watched on, horrified, until the penny dropped. It was all great fun, but the point was well made.

Culture of empathy

To embed a culture of empathy for clients in our staff, we looked at the way in which we were doing community outreach work. We had been involved in charitable activities for many years, but it was sporadic and mostly involved running or slimming to raise money for worthy causes.

So, we decided to create a stronger link between our business and the help we gave to the community. Road safety is a major theme for us because of our experience of dealing with the aftermath of car accidents, so we chose to support Brake and the Midlands Air Ambulance.

In addition, in partnership with Birmingham City Council, we produced a schools road safety show delivered by our staff to thousands of kids in the city.

We even asked our friends at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra to produce a road safety concert for us, which 3,000 children have seen so far.

We don’t just fund these projects; all of our staff, managers and directors are given time off and encouraged to take part in these activities. This is the key to developing the empathy for others we were looking for. Probably the most efficient project for achieving this goal is our involvement with The Prince’s Trust, of which our firm is a patron. We fund its enterprise course in the West Midlands, which gives unemployed young people training and loans for starting businesses.

Our people are involved in fundraising for the trust; they also teach on the courses and help to mentor the young entrepreneurs. In addition, we expose them to the young people who have benefited from the help of the trust.

Young ambassadors make visits to our offices to talk to staff about their lives before and after The Prince’s Trust gave them an opportunity to make something of themselves; it never fails to move our young executives.

Value-added service

This whole cultural change helped us with another area of the process designed by our American postgraduate friends: they told us we must always be helpful and offer our customers something extra.

The helpful part refers to offering advice outside of the case and not always being on the clock. As a firm, we offer added value to corporate clients with seminars, briefings and periodic newsletters (as many others do), but our staff supplement this by actively going the extra mile by responding to calls out of hours and giving free additional advice.

In terms of giving something extra, ?we provide assistance in 17 languages ?on the telephone and in writing. Home visits and online document signing are ?an important extra benefit for clients, as ?it removes the daunting prospect of visiting a lawyer’s office.

We also keep in touch with customers throughout the case, even if it is only to explain that no progress has been made. We also provide extra information in our client care pack over and above that ?which is required by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Whatever you prefer to call it – customer service or client relations – understanding the needs of the people who pay for our professional services is the key to a successful legal business in the 21st century. The easiest way to discover what the needs of our potential clients are is to speak to them. As the BT adverts used to say, it’s good to talk.

 

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Questions for partners

• Do you return calls within 24 hours?

• Do you offer clients a range of contact options?

• Do you consider customer relations to be a CPD issue?

• Do you take complaints personally?

• Do you analyse trends in client feedback?

• What is your benchmark for a satisfied client?

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?Rob Bhol is CEO at DBS Law ?(www.dbslaw.co.uk)