Perhaps the best indicator of positive progress in the pages of Briefing Business development and marketing leaders 2023 is twice as many of them suggesting their firms now have a framework or ‘map’ for following or managing an individual client experience around the firm’s different practices and processes. Only a fifth said yes to this in 2022. Most, however. admit ‘it’s still a work in progress’ at theirs (38%, down from 43% saying so in 2022).
Ed FitzGerald at RPC says it heartens him to see this movement. “It suggests that the idea of brand is now tied more closely to client experience – and I think probably reflects the fact that people across business services teams are increasingly collaborating with an understanding of the parts they play in that experience.” He also points out that a firm’s “approach to people” can influence client experience, returning us to the idea, opportunities and work of embedding a sense of wider organisational purpose.
But John Parkinson at Blake Morgan, agrees with the ‘work in progress’ assessment. “It can be challenging to find the bandwidth in this space among other priorities, then to sell the change internally and find the right type of tech to deliver it,” he says.
“Success can also depend on where different leads are coming from. We’re good at tracking, assigning and following up on website enquiries – and that helps when reporting back to the board on return on investment. Tracking phone enquiries can be a different journey – but I do believe that you ultimately build relationships by talking to people.”
In 2022’s version of this report, Deborah Fleming, marketing and business development director at Walker Morris, said: “Thinking about absolutely every place a client touches the firm is probably quite daunting. They could be more inclined to pick a quicker win within client experience to get started, such as where work originates or billing.”
So in 2023, we decided to ask exactly this – which specific areas of client experience would you prioritise for improvement to get closer to a consistent client experience? In keeping with earlier strong backing for client feedback skills and supporting data, it’s the process surrounding this that most would presumably tackle first today (48%). Another challenge appears to be the provision of consistent client service/experience across a spread of offices (43%), and over one-third would focus on improving client intake. Perhaps surprisingly, just 9% would pick the mechanics of client billing or reporting for change – although friction within these may already have been addressed as a priority process.
Stephanie Fisher says Weightmans has had a robust client listening and feedback programme in place for some time, but has recently “expanded the cohort” – with interview training for more equity partners alongside an externally-run programme, for example. “Coupled with simple but regular matter feedback this provides a really good picture and balance we all need to find between internal and external experience.”
The idea of a common purpose/vision helps, adds David Ward at Irwin Mitchell: “We’ve also centralised a lot of our activity, and then it’s about continuous monitoring for consistency with an operational excellence mindset.”
David Tomley at Osborne Clarke says: “Firms have traditionally seen clients as owned by a client relationship partner, but forward-looking firms do now see it as a firm-wide relationship. Of course, individual partners might still want to keep their relationships potentially portable, and you need networks of internal relationships surrounding a client – building trust, common objectives and sharing information.
“In addition, we’re now looking at more automated data capture to pull from different internal sources to map relationships more accurately and understand their overall strength.”
He would also prioritise the feedback system: “However, listening and feedback need to be processes the client actually values. It can’t be an annual exercise – or ticking a box – and it needs to have focus and open conversations around things that could really be done differently.”
And Parkinson sees an opportunity for firms to differentiate with a slicker client experience in the space between compliance checks and the work beginning. “Using the latest client portals you can create welcome packs and carefully signpost services, relevant content and events – referrals, in particular, need close attention when feeding details into our systems,” he says.
Finally, the likelihood that a Briefing law firm measures any of a range of ‘client relationship health’ indicators is another area where the picture is broadly consistent with the results in summer 2022. Lagging indicators like average matter profitability and satisfaction scores lead the way – although there is an increase in the number saying they measure strength in client referrals and, most strikingly, looking externally at competitor analysis/share of wallet (up from 17% to 33%). New enquiries and a given client’s position in its sector continue to be among the least-assessed metrics – with the impact/cost of key client account activity still among the least likely key performance indicators to be reported on.
Lucy Rao at Boodle Hatfield returns to the likely challenge of harnessing the right data here: “Firms may have the technology, but without having the data analysts or other resource to ensure data quality it’s less likely to be trusted for decision-making – people perhaps stop engaging with it as much and stop entering the data and then the quality drops again. It can become a vicious circle.”
Julie Mortimer at Mills & Reeve concludes: “It’s relatively easy for law firms to measure outcomes like fees with the right systems, but understanding return on investment requires more surfacing up and recording of some softer interactions to measure the true level of engagement. Firm ties to the billable hour are still a challenge to driving change here, but a big step forward will be more effective assessment of certain qualitative factors, and the industry is now starting to wake up to that.”