Getting it . . . or not

I remain puzzled as to why some people who should know better don't seem to get how client relationship works.

I was recently told about a senior partner in a law firm, who was asked if he was free to meet a new client - a client whom the firm in question had been assiduously courting over a long period. The client had eventually been landed, and work was starting to flow. The partner had not been involved in the process but his department had been.

The partner's response was, "Do I have to? Now we've got the client, and the work, is it really necessary?"

You may be thinking that I have made this story up. Sadly not. 

I wonder how long that client will stay.

The hall of mirrors

As a child, one of my favourite fairground attractions was the Hall of Mirrors (for those of you too young to have found yourselves in this distorted reality, Apple's Photo Booth app is similar). Why I so enjoyed the Hall of Mirrors, and why my children like Photo Booth, is that it allows us to play with our image, to make and remake ourselves. The everyday looking glass is subverted but we remain in control. 

In our daily lives, the looking glass is how we see ourselves, and we invariably assume that what we are seeing (albeit with a mirror image) is how others see us. But, and this is sometimes a problem, our perception of who we are and what we look like may not always be the same as other people's.

The same is true of law firms.

All too often how law firms and their partners see (and therefore want to present) themselves, and how their clients, their prospects, their suppliers, their influencers, and their employees see them, are different. This disconnect in perception is a real challenge for law firms - for how can you properly engage without an understanding of those perceptions.

So where should law firms start to gain that understanding? The answer is surprisingly simple: ask the question.

My experience is that lawyers are often professionally reluctant to ask questions to which they don't know the answer (at least in part). They need to put that reluctance aside. They also, like many of us, believe they know the answer without first asking the question. They need to be open to the possibility of being wrong. As part of a rebranding, I approached an influencer to invite him to take part in a survey on perceptions. "You are very brave, " he remarked. "I don't know many law firms who are prepared to do this. What if you get the wrong answers?" My reply was that there are no wrong answers. The problem is simply failing to listen to or act on those answers, however unwelcome they may be.

So if you want to ask the question, call me to discuss the how, the what, and the where.

"So what made you switch?"

When was the last time you asked a new client why they had decided to instruct you, rather than their previous firm, or another law firm?

And if you didn't ask them, why not?

There are plenty of reasons why clients switch firms: changes in personnel; perceptions (fair or otherwise) about experience, expertise, or value; service failure (a.k.a. cocking it up); occasionally even cost. And just like there are, or may be, any number of reasons for a client to switch, there are, or may be, any number of law firms that could have done the work / wanted to do the work / are disappointed they aren't doing the work. But they aren't. 

So why are you? Weren't you curious? 

You should be, because understanding why your client switched to your firm is the starting point for keeping that client. 

So ask the question.