Law Firm Client Service

Subscribe to Law Firm Client Service via RSS

It can seem like the reason that Disney is so successful is truly a dose of magic.

But when you break it down, they have a real formula for excellence – excellence in leadership, creating and sustaining the right culture, and pursuing client satisfaction. All of the pieces of that formula are important, but even after putting them together, what truly makes Disney successful is their ability to bring people back again and again. And to do that, they need connection with their customers, and to empower their customers to tell the stories that make other people want a piece of the Disney experience too.

That isn’t much different to the way business development works for lawyers and law firms.
Continue Reading Connection Brings People Back – Business Development Lessons from Disney

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to attend a keynote session focused around Disney’s approach to business excellence. The recap I shared has been among one of my most popular posts, and the advice provided by Jeff Williford from the Disney Institute proves to be timeless. Despite a changing marketplace, the tenets that underlie their success remain the same – and that’s perhaps why Disney has proven to be so successful in a sustainable way.

I’d like to break down the post into a series to revisit the key points that Jeff raised in his speech, and why they’re still relevant today. Although his presentation was about how Disney creates a truly magical experience, there are a lot of parallels for the legal industry – we’re also a service industry after all!  Any of the particularly important points that relate to law firms will be in bold throughout the post.

He told the audience that Disney employs more than 60,000 people from 65 countries, with 10% of those being interns, and warned us that his presentation on Disney’s approach to business excellence would be like drinking water from a firehose. But he did say that Walt Disney reminded everyone in 1955 that “it all started with a mouse.” (Which inspires me to encourage all of us to think about how and why we got started – where are OUR roots? Who is OUR mouse?)
Continue Reading Success Starts with Leadership Excellence – the Disney Philosophy

For better or for worse, we are living in a hyper-connected world. Which means that whether we are always reachable, the person on the other end of the email or phone believes us to be. None of us is ever really “away.” (And we can debate the necessity and impact of that another time).

When it comes to managing your business relationships, a lack of communication can have a huge detrimental effect. Where you might be assuming that “no news is good news,” your client or other business relationship may be left feeling anxious about the status of your last conversation and wondering whether it’s even still on your radar. I’ve had contrasting incidences of this recently, which have illustrated some important lessons for me about managing expectations in all of my business relationships. 
Continue Reading No News is Not Always Good News for Business Relationships

The first day of Hanukkah is upon us, so if you haven’t gotten your holiday cards out yet (like me), you’re too late. I’m just kidding.

But in all seriousness, while some firms and lawyers are still using paper cards, others have gone the electronic route, and still others (like the ILN, actually) have opted out of holiday cards entirely, you may be wondering what the point is, and how to stand out.

Some firms stand out by sending cards for alternate holidays or birthdays instead of traditional holiday cards, and others use the opportunity to pen a personalized note, thanking their clients and friends for their success and support throughout the year. But I’d like to share with you what one firm did, which was SO different, that it’s stuck with me for an entire year.

At the end of 2016, I had the pleasure of serving with some fellow Legal Marketing Association members as a judge for the Your Honor Awards, considered to be the Oscars of Legal Marketing. YHA is a competitive process, with a lot of smart, talented people and firms entering, so to stand out, you must have a compelling project. To stand out in a category with a holiday card, you must REALLY have something special. 
Continue Reading 5 Ways to Make Your Holiday Cards Stand Out

Artificial Intelligence: the number one topic for discussion among my lawyers when we ask them about future and current trends in the legal industry. Or as they like to refer to it, “technology.”

While a few people are still talking about it like it’s something that’s going to happen or will affect us in the future, the majority have accepted that AI is already here. Whether they’ve adopted certain pieces of it (see this discussion we had earlier in 2017 on AI), or they’re still trying to figure out what it means for their firm, there are some standard questions and ideas that law firms, lawyers, and other legal professionals should become comfortable with, if you’re not already.

To aid in this process, the Legal Marketing Association has been providing some additional resources on AI, and brought together some of the top minds in LMA to host a Twitter chat last week on the “Next Big Thing: Artificial Intelligence.” While I’d argue that it’s more just “The Big Thing” since it’s already here and being adopted by firms, and more importantly, their clients, the discussion was a robust one, with some excellent food for thought. The following is my summary of the discussion. 
Continue Reading Artificial Intelligence: What Law Firms Need to Know

Today, I’m excited to bring you a guest post from my friend, Jennifer Simpson Carr. Jenn joined Lowenstein Sandler as a Business Development Manager in 2013. With 10 years of experience working in law firms across the US, she has worked extensively to help firms and attorneys engage target audiences and win new business in competitive markets. She recently attended and presented at the Legal Marketing Association’s Southeast Conference, where she gained some excellent, actionable advice that firms can implement immediately. Below, you’ll see her five takeaways from the conference, which range from client service to analytics to succession, and her advice for what action firms can take to implement them.

***

Last week, I had the pleasure of participating in the LMA Southeast Conference (LMASE17), which I found to be one of the most inspiring and thought-provoking conferences in my 10+ years in the legal marketing profession.

I find conferences energizing. They offer the opportunity to connect with the legal marketing community, share ideas and strategies, and gain new perspectives. This conference was no different and set new standards of excellence.

LMASE17 offered three days packed with educational programming, many sessions addressing the topics that are top of mind for in-house business development and marketing professionals as well as the agencies that support them.

As I reviewed pages of notes and contemplated how to use some of this newly-acquired wisdom to make an impact, five themes stood out to me as strategic and actionable, and yet easy opportunities for any professional to affect change.
Continue Reading 5 Actionable Takeaways from LMASE17 to Make an Immediate Impact at Your Firm

Raise your hand if you’ve received an overly friendly email from a stranger, asking you for a favor.

Everyone? I thought so.

Why do these bug us so much? Aside from the fact that we’re busy enough trying to do our own work, balanced with some personal time, and fitting in helping out people we actually know, the reason is that when a stranger asks us for a favor they’re doing so without having any relationship equity. 
Continue Reading Build Relationship Equity First

How can we network better?

Many posts offer the same tips, spun in a different way – and that’s important, because I can always get something out of implementing the tried and true.  But when I find something unique, I’m always happy to share it.

Recently, I came across this piece from Branding Magazine, with “5 Tips to Network Like the Pros.” Despite all of the change happening in the legal industry, we still know that relationships are paramount – and maybe even more so than ever.

Bearing that in mind, let’s work on supercharging our networking. Branding Magazine offers 5 tips, but let’s take a look at two of them, and how they relate to the legal industry.
Continue Reading Two Easy Tips to Power Network Like a Pro

“Change or die.”

How many times have you heard that over the last eight years?

A friend of mine in the legal industry pointed that out to me recently, along with commenting that it always sounds so dire. And it does sound dire.

But after the statistics that we covered in a recent post (1/3 of clients are openly dissatisfied with their outside counsel, chief legal officers rank firms at a 3 on a 1 to 10 scale for commitment to change, and clients are moving their legal work to other firms or to non-firm vendors), it would seem that we should be properly incentivized to speed up the pace of change. From the Peer Monitor/Georgetown 2016 Report on the State of the Legal Market, which cautioned BigLaw against a “Kodak moment”
Continue Reading What’s Holding us Back from Real Change in Legal?

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