By Nancy Roberts Linder of Nancy Roberts Linder Consulting
Consultants play an important role in facilitating the development of law firm business as well as the maintenance of important client relationships - but they cannot do it alone. Practicing lawyers themselves must make a personal investment too. As I like to remind attorneys, "you are in the relationship business." Care and feeding of client relationships is critical to ensuring that you have sustaining business throughout your legal career.
Last month’s article reviewed the key behaviors that have a significant impact on establishing and maintaining client relationships. This month, we will look at ways a lawyer can keep a finger on the pulse of client expectations and ensure the preservation of those relationships.
What Happens When You Take Your Eye Off The Ball
Market research has shown that clients typically will not tell a law firm how annoyed they are with service or performance problems - they just stop using the firm and quietly go away. In turn, attorneys make the mistake of never learning why the business was lost, which means that the firm runs the risk of repeating the behavior(s) that cause clients to leave. A word of advice - it is better to lose a client and know why, rather then never know the reason.
Clients leave because their expectations have not been met with respect to results, ...
