Client Service

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In order to keep them happy, we’ve all been told at one time or another to “think like a client.”

The idea of thinking like your client can be a bit overwhelming when you add it to your existing workload – while we all endeavor to understand our clients’ challenges, concerns, and pain points no matter what field we’re in, unless we’ve spent time there ourselves, we’re only privy to second-hand knowledge (for the most part).

But whether we’ve been on the client side in our own industries or not, we’ve all been and are clients – as lawyers, you are purchasers of various services, from consultants to building services to office products and more. In our personal lives, we are consumers of goods and services, including everything from groceries and electronics to personal care, travel, etc. At some point, we’ve likely all considered what it is we want from those interactions – things such as understanding of what you’re really asking, common courtesy, on-time delivery, exceeding expectations, etc. 
Continue Reading Lawyers: To Keep Your Clients, You’ve Gotta Think Like Them

ming-jun-tan-122694Today, I’d like to use a recent bad customer service experience to illustrate a couple of key points about client service:

  • Listening to your clients may enable you to get at the root of the issue, and find a way to resolve it.
  • Sometimes you can resolve an issue in a way that will strengthen and secure the client relationship, even if the client doesn’t get what they want.
  • Making every effort to solve an issue, even if you can’t achieve the desired result, is sometimes sufficient to please the client.

Last year, I had the opportunity to use a dress rental company for a gala event. Everything about the rental and the return process went flawlessly, and I was so happy with the results, that I shared the experience with a number of people, especially anyone who complimented me on the dress that evening, and when they saw photos. I was sure I would rent from them again and many years into the future. 
Continue Reading Turning Bad Experiences Into Good Client Service

zachary-nelson-192289The final session that I’d like to share from the Legal Marketing Association’s Annual Conference this year focused on learning lessons from businesses outside of the legal industry – while there’s something to be said for understanding what your peers are doing within the industry, there’s a lot to be learned from other professionals as well. LMA brought Maggie Watkins, Chief Marketing Officer of Sedgwick LLP to moderate Lynn Skoczelas, Chief Experience Officer of Sharp HealthCare, Lilian Tomovich, Chief Experience Officer at MGM Resorts International, and Susan Letterman White, Founder and Managing Partner of Letterman White Consulting to offer their perspective on how businesses are using the client experience to up their game.

The panelists shared with us some key learning outcomes that we can adopt in our own pursuit of the excellent client experience. 
Continue Reading Using the Client Experience to Up Your Game

photo-1429277158984-614d155e0017“What if we showed up and said ‘We’re human too’?” asked Deloitte CMO, Diana O’Brien during last week’s Legal Marketing Association‘s keynote presentation.

It may seem like a strange message from a CMO when talking about marketing your brand, but like many of us, O’Brien has been emphasizing that the client experience is essential for marketing success – and the way to connect with your clients is by “creating moments that matter” and then acting on them.

She focused on a few key themes that supported this idea throughout her presentation: 
Continue Reading Marketing: Creating Moments that Matter

Redhead girl with green phone on yellow background.If you ask any of my lawyers, they’ll tell you that I have a “mad face.” I reserve it for times when I need to get them moving from one thing to the next at conferences (and they’re not hustling), or when I am actually frustrated about something that’s not running as smoothly for them as I would like.

But truth be told, it actually takes quite a lot to get me legitimately mad. It happens so seldomly that I can remember each incident quite clearly – and that means they leave an impression.

I had one such issue in advance of our recent Annual Meeting, having nothing to do with the actual conference, and it was such a frustrating example of how NOT to treat a customer that I wanted to share it here as a cautionary tale for all of us to remember how easy it is to make or break a client relationship in a single interaction.

My customer service story involves clothes – the short version of the story is: I needed a few new things in advance of the conference, and decided to order from Boden, a British company (this is important). I’d never ordered from them before, but have gotten their catalog for years and always liked the look of their styles. I placed the order late on the 16th of May, knowing I was leaving on the 25th, and paid for premium shipping (3-5 business days). 
Continue Reading How to Lose a Client in One Easy Step

I’m just back after being away for our 2015 Asia Pacific Regional Meeting in Shanghai, where we had one of the best examples of excellent client service that I’ve seen in a long time – which provides a superb learning opportunity for all of us in professional services. Our Asia Pacific conference is typically our smallest meeting, with around 20 attendees, and as such, we don’t make up a significant part of a hotel’s business in the same way that we do for our other conferences.

That generally means that while hotels will offer us good service, they don’t go out of their way to wow us – they just don’t consider it to be worth their time. But I was pleasantly surprised to see otherwise in Shanghai.

I’ve had quite a lot of experience working with hotel contacts all over the world in the last ten-plus years, and had been telling our Executive Director on the plane how pleased I was with the service that we’d gotten from our contact, Jecy, at the Grand Hyatt Pudong in Shanghai. She was efficient and responsive, whether on weekends or Chinese New Year – even at times I wasn’t expecting an immediate response from her.Continue Reading Client Service Excellence: Make Everyone Feel Like a VIP

You may recall that at the beginning of 2014, I put together five posts on my wishes for you for the coming year: 

More than wishes, these posts were full of challenges to you on how to make 2014 a better year professionally. So how did you do? Let’s see if I took my own advice in 2014…

Plan & Be Open

I am, by nature, a huge planner. I LOVE lists and keep them everywhere, and I enjoy the challenge of putting together a marketing and business development plan for the coming year. So this was a no brainer for me. 

Continue Reading 10 Wishes for 2014 – How did we do?

It’s hard to believe that only three days ago at this time, I was snorkeling with my clients in Costa Rica and seeing my first sting ray! Spending a few days with my clients always gets me thinking about networking, as you know, but it also gets me thinking about client service. So for today’s Two for Tuesdays, I have two tips for improving client service!

Tip One: Say Thank You

In the US, this week is Thanksgiving, so people are talking a lot about gratitude and what they are thankful for. After a tumultuous few years in the world economy, I think we can all agree that along with family and friends, we’re also pretty grateful for our clients. What better time to tell them?

While I advocate active gratitude on a yearly basis, Thanksgiving can be a good reminder for this. Reach out to your top five clients this week and thank them. Even if you’re not in the US, use it as a reminder to offer your clients your gratitude. Try: 

  • Thank you for trusting me with your business. 
  • I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with you. 
  • Thank you for being a client. 
  • I appreciate being your business adviser. 

Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Client Service

You are in for a treat today, while I’m away at the ILN’s Regional Meeting of the Americas – we have a very special guest post! We’re welcoming Joanne Thorud, the Director of Marketing for the ILN’s Boston member, Davis, Malm & D’Agostine. She’s talking about one of my favorite subjects – client service – and shares with us an excellent post on why communication is so important in keeping clients happy. 

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Last week, I attended the Legal Marketing Association New England’s annual regional conference in Boston. The theme of this year’s conference was Simplify to Maximize. There were a dozen programs and over 30 speakers who presented topics focused on cutting through clutter and static and delivering clear and concise messages. One message that resounded in almost every program I attended was communication is key to maximizing client relationships. It is not a new or revolutionary concept, but it is extremely relevant, especially in today’s legal climate.Continue Reading Silence Isn’t Golden When it Comes to Managing Client Relationships

One of the things I think a lot about is client service – I’m regularly trying to figure out how I can bring more value to my own clients, but also looking critically at how others meet their clients’ needs and wants. 

For all of us, no matter what work we do, we are all acting as providers and receivers of client service. As a receiver of service, I can be quite demanding – I’m very detail-oriented, I know the level of service I deliver to my clients, and I expect the same attention to detail and passion in those I’m working with. 

Unfortunately, it’s fairly rare that I’m impressed by someone’s level of client service. Which got me thinking this afternoon about two ways we can "up our client service game." Although these are two separate tips, they generally have to be undertaken together in order to really wow someone. 

Tip One: Responsiveness

I almost can’t believe that I have to include "responsiveness" as a tip for great client service – we’ve talked about it SO much, and I’ve heard it mentioned time and time again, so it should be the norm today instead of the exception. Continue Reading Two for Tuesdays: Up Your Game