Raising standards: Introducing a client service charter

Key takeaway points

1. Truly put the client at the heart of all you do if you want to ensure differentiation – lip service will not help you to face up to the slick techniques of new competitors

2. Recognise that management doesn’t know everything and involve staff from every level

3. Don’t underestimate the cultural shift ?that’s needed to create customer-?focused lawyers

4. Don’t reinvent the wheel – look for tools designed by others to take you forward and bring consensus

5. Listen to customer feedback, measure what you’re doing and use that to drive future improvements

We decided two years ago ?that client service was to be ?the core of differentiating ourselves as an independent law firm if ?we were to square up against the alternative business structures (ABSs) coming into the UK legal market. In future, all of us will be competing harder than ever against new entrants who have the experience and resources to invest heavily in customer service.

Surveys have repeatedly shown that clients are dissatisfied with solicitors, saying that the quality of service is poor or not up to scratch. But many lawyers still don't want to know what consumers are thinking; a YouGov Sixth Sense legal services survey recently reported that only 20 per cent of respondents had been asked by their legal advisers to provide feedback on their customer service.

An important first step for us was ?to recognise that we may have our own idea of what defines excellent service, ?but that's not enough - as a profession, we have not been good at hearing what our clients tell us. So, we set about developing a client service charter that would embody our principles and set out our service standards.

Measuring service

Recognising that management does not know everything, we set up a team to work on the charter, drawing from all levels, with all having input. The team included partners, fee earners and support staff, all of whom volunteered or were invited because they were recognised as delivering very good service and were natural drivers for the initiative.

Six months later, we had a good working model, but had yet to resolve some of the issues around targets and how to measure performance against the charter. There was some disagreement across departments on issues such as reasonable response times, and we had stopped using paper-based questionnaires about two years ago.

We then looked into obtaining LawNet's national charter mark of excellence. An add-on to the network's existing ISO 9001 quality standard, it audits service across member firms. Of course, it's not about more compliance, but rather about meeting the challenges of increased competition head-on.

The mark has a measurement-focused customer charter at its centre. There's a requirement to have regular mystery shopping, both by telephone and walk-in, delivered through the professional services division of Shopper Anonymous, which provides one-to-one feedback and in-practice training to respond to the key findings. Alongside that are online satisfaction questionnaires for clients delivered through the Law League online portal, so that we can benchmark ourselves against member firms and ?others nationwide.

The fact that we had already developed our own charter helped us internally, as it showed that we were ahead of the game, while highlighting the profession's shift in this direction and the need to avoid complacency. Because we had already started going through the process, we found many common themes - the importance of promptness, clear estimates and keeping clients informed.

A big plus for us in seeking accreditation was finding that there was room to use the client service charter we had already developed, as long as we made sure that it at least matched the standards of the mark's integral charter. This allowed us to keep the personalisation we wanted, but to take on board the solutions we had been seeking.

So, for example, in trying to agree what constituted a prompt response, we had become mired in different demographics and departments. For corporate clients, the expectation for a call back may be two minutes; they may also expect a mobile phone number for out-of-hours advice. For private clients, the expectation could simply be a letter by return of post. The mark's charter set out timescales that made it easier for us to decide how to roll out our plans.

Examining results

Measurement is vital for future development, as well as satisfying any external audit. Since launching our charter to customers in April this year, we have been able to use the mystery shopping and online surveying to filter back feedback to departments on what is working and what needs changing, which is hugely valuable.

Satisfyingly, our first set of mystery shoppers gave very positive feedback, but we drilled down to use the information to drive levels of satisfaction even higher by identifying the general trends for improvement for each department, and then holding departmental sessions to go through details of the feedback.

One of the big areas flagged up was the importance of early identification of leads and the systematic following through on the sales process. Also, we found there was a need for personalisation of the customer experience and a genuine 'thank you and farewell'. While this may seem at best intangible and, at worst, cheesy for some lawyers, it's things like this that make the leap into what is perceived by customers as 'fantastic service'.

The mystery shopping has also shown us where to plug gaps on the coalface such as emphasising the role of fee earners in identifying the source of new enquiries to help build marketing intelligence. Another area highlighted was the handling of 'walk-ins'; while there were no particular problems identified, the feedback helped us to reinforce exactly how we should be handling them.

We did not launch the online surveying tool immediately because we wanted to link it to a revised file closure process but, since starting the surveying, we have had around 80 responses. We're focused on ensuring that it is integral to our processes and used to drive improved performance. So, we are using it to provide a feed to our complaints procedures and to ensure we have a stringent process for dealing with expressions of dissatisfaction. Equally importantly, it is allowing us to provide much more positive feedback to individual fee earners, which is vital.

Our marketing manager looks at every questionnaire response on a daily basis and takes note of any feedback that needs to be discussed with a head of department to review what has happened and understand how to improve. Clearly, if something was very wrong, that would demand an escalated response, but in the main it's about making minor improvements to resolve niggles.

It's also about getting a real understanding of the feedback. If a client says something like "I would have liked to have had a faster response to my voicemail" then part of the follow up is to find out and understand that particular client and the interactions made. For example, if the client was regularly phoning three times a day and regularly receiving speedy return calls, that may indicate that a different approach is required.

Changing firm culture

In trying to place client service at the centre of our business, our biggest challenge has been change management, as it means changing the way we as lawyers think - getting our people to ?think about the dangers of standing still. We've tackled that through the cross-firm group we brought together to develop our own internal charter; the team have also acted within the firm as champions of customer service.

We also hold business plan roadshows annually across all of our branches, where we talk about why we need to change, what we need to change and how we see it as being about great people and fantastic customer service. We also celebrate what we have achieved, which is extremely important. The roadshows give everyone the opportunity to directly influence the firm's direction.

As a profession, we are not generally very open to hearing what our employees think, and there's more commonly a notional nod to staff involvement, but I believe that giving real opportunity to have input is what makes a difference.

For the second year running, we are seeking a place in the national Sunday Times' '100 Best Companies to Work For' rankings. Last year, we were rewarded with a 'one to watch' listing and we have found participation to be an important tool in getting employees involved and engaged. We used the feedback from last year's entry to develop this year's business plan roadshows and to help us to build other processes going forward.

I think we are a long way down the road to changing our firm's culture to being a customer service-focused business and our people see that is how we must perform. The competition from ABSs is going to be slick. For example, the Co-op may have had recent problems on its banking side, but it is skilled at marketing and at customer service generally; we would be fooling ourselves not to think of it as the competition.

Having set the foundations, we recently made a decision that, for the next three years, we will raise it up a level. Now our aspiration is that we deliver stellar service. We must be much more holistic in the way that we deliver services to clients and move away from the transactional process of simply dealing with the file in front of us, like a doctor who sees a disease but not the patient. We need to listen to our clients and seek to understand them and their objectives, whether personal or commercial, working with them to identify legal solutions that help them to achieve their goals.

We need to think more smartly about what else we can do following completion of a matter. It may result in more work for us, or it may be an opportunity to introduce the client to someone else, or it may just be suggesting an idea for the client to take away - whatever we do, we need to focus on adding value to every customer experience and exceeding ?their expectations.

Getting everyone working together, understanding why we have to evolve, looking at how we will evolve and then setting off in the same direction is how I believe we can achieve our ambitions and what will differentiate us.

Kim Carr is managing partner of FBC Manby Bowdler (www.fbcmb.co.uk)