LM Feature: Client Savvy

Lawyers Mutual is dedicated to improving our client service experience. We pride ourselves on the relationships we’ve been able to build and maintain over the years. The needs of our insureds are always at the front of our minds when developing our programs, resources and service offerings. In the coming months, we will call upon our insureds to complete a survey which will allow us to make changes to improve upon our client service experience. We have teamed up with Client Savvy to help us complete this project. We had a chance to talk Client Savvy Chief Experience Officer Ryan Suydam and Client Success Manager James Howard about the importance of client interviews in the client satisfaction process.

Q: Can you tell us what Client Savvy does for those who may not be familiar with the company?

A: Client Savvy works with professional services organizations whose success depends on strong client relationships. Our commitment to our clients is to help them align their client experience (CX) strategy, implementation, and measurement initiatives with their top strategic priorities. 

Q: What are some of the benefits of collecting client feedback?

A: Client feedback is active research and requires engaging the client in conversations specifically to listen to their wants, needs, and concerns. Active research is done many ways, and electronic surveys provide one of the most direct (and quick) modes of listening. Implemented well, surveys have the potential to discover leading indicators enabling an organization to improve before problems arise.

The primary difference between the generic surveys many encounter with consumer brands and a high-touch client survey is the asking firm’s resolve to respond back to the individual clients addressing what they said. Closing the loop turns a useless survey into active feedback.

Q: How does client experience (CX) affect a firm’s bottom line?

A: We are living in an experience economy. You are not being compared to your biggest competitor. Experiences are emotional and personal – and from an experience perspective, you’re being compared to each client’s last great experience. That could be Airbnb, Uber, Ritz Carlton, or any other of the leading-edge innovators in the experience economy.

Firms that have implemented CX strategies are 300% more likely to realize substantial growth in revenue and profit. These firms are more likely to attract and retain both the best clients and the best employees. Employee engagement goes up. Emergencies that interrupt weekends and family vacations go down. Nearly everything in the business improves when everyone knows how to make the client experience a priority.

Q: How does a firm’s view of success affect the client experience?

A: A CX-oriented firm focuses on the success that was created by the client and recognizes their role as an enabler that helped them realize that success. Your team may find it hard at first to distinguish between a client success and something cool your own firm did. By asking your staff to tell “client success” stories from the client’s perspective will help frame their role in enabling success. Keep pushing for the right kind of stories. The discipline of making everyone in the room think about success from the client’s perspective will drive empathetic thinking, and shift behaviors to be more focused on what the client actually is trying to accomplish. Recognizing a client’s success is a nuanced and subtle step. Once implemented, these stories create energy towards client service and client success.

Q: Where do most firms “miss the mark” when it comes to client service?

A: Most professional services firms are steeped in tradition, in conservative methods, and focused so much on the professional part of “professional services” they haven’t stopped to really, truly, focus on the services part. Even the “innovative” firms focus most innovation on technical practices, not on the client’s experience.

Q: What motivates a client to complete a client survey?

A: All clients have perceptions, sentiments, feelings, wants, and needs that you don’t know about. If you don’t know, you will struggle to deliver exceptional experiences. Most experiences are built on rational transactions that are experienced emotionally. Without an understanding of the underlying emotions driving clients’ behavior, you risk investing time and energy changing the transactions without actually creating the positive impact you’re after. Clients know this, and if asked the right questions and the right time in the right way, they are motivated to respond. By aligning the “ask” with their desire to tell you gain insight about clients’ potential sentiments and discover their actual sentiments by asking them directly.

Q: This sounds smart! How could I do something like this in my law practice?

A: Client Savvy hosts a national event every May that brings together lawyers, engineers, contractors, accountants, and other professional services practitioners to share stories with each other of what’s working in their firms. Fortunately for our insured, the event is hosted in Durham, NC this May 20-22. Learn more at www.clientexperience.org. Lawyers Mutual insured can use the code MUTUAL200 to receive $200 off the registration price.

Q:What’s Next?

A: Lawyers Mutual’s upcoming client survey will provide us with an in depth look at what matters the most to our insureds. We will take the data collected from our surveys to improve our services, content and overall client experience. Thank you in advance to our insureds for continuing to let us serve you and your firm.