TOP 20 IDEAS TO IMPROVE CLIENT SERVICE
1. Learn about the client's company, business and industry at
your expense.
2. Identify clients' needs that have the greatest impact on their business
success and develop a solution to meet those needs.
3. Ask clients to identify their objectives before beginning work and then
develop a plan to achieve those objectives.
4. Deliver value as perceived by the client.
5. Place young lawyers in your clients' offices so they can truly "know” the
clients' needs, wants and desires and develop relationships with the
clients' representatives. (They will also likely bring billable work
back to the office.).
6. Conduct in-house seminars and workshops for clients. If the workshop is
for the clients' legal department, obtain CLE credit for the clients' lawyers.
7. Seek to use technology like an extranet to improve efficiency and provide
more cost effective services.
8. Make sure the technology is user friendly.
9. Establish scope of work, provide an estimate of time, identify law firm
staffing and prepare a budget at the outset of any project.
10. Advise clients when scope of work has changed, the time required to perform
work has increased, law firm staffing needs to be changed, or fees may exceed
the budget.
11. Prepare an agenda for each meeting with specific stated objectives and
be prepared for the meeting. Prepare action items at the conclusion of the
meeting.
12. Keep clients informed of progress.
13. Exceed clients' expectations - to take a thought from the book
Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles: Deliver what the client wants-plus
one.
14. When something goes wrong, take responsibility and apologize.
15. Let clients know when they, or others, can do the work better, or at a
lower cost.
16. Make sure bills are accurate, reflect value of the work performed, do not
have names of billers unfamiliar to the client, and are prepared in accordance
with the clients needs.
17. Offer to attend client business meetings at no charge.
18. Become a good listener.
19. Never waste the client representative's time.
20. Ask good questions.
