The Smokeball Firms of the Future Virtual Summit in October was the perfect event to learn how to power new levels of success for your legal practice in 2021 and beyond.
Smokeball’s General Manager Bianca Bowron-Cuthill spoke about how small law firms can leverage technology to transform the customer experience and actively implement change to boost customer loyalty and retention.
What you’ll get to know:
- The framework for building a delightful client experience.
- How creating an outstanding client experience will reduce churn, boost loyalty, and increase profits.
- Practical and pocket-friendly ways to delight your law firm clients.
- Obtaining glowing client referrals.
Delivering a delightful client experience: What does it mean? And why does it matter?
Understanding the client journey is about learning what the client experiences from the moment they begin considering a purchase. It then incorporates working to make the journey towards buying the product or service as simple, clear, and efficient as possible.
“It’s how I feel when interacting with a service provider or company and all those different touchpoints that ultimately culminate to delivering a delightful client experience or a not so delightful client experience.” Bianca Bowron-Cuthill.
The reason why it matters, is that businesses that excel in designing great customer experiences can increase their revenue between 4%-8% above their market, a study conducted by Bain and Company reports.
Know your customer journey
Before your prospects become clients, they go through a series of steps: awareness, interest, intent, evaluation, purchase and repurchase (retention). These steps make up the customers journey.
When re-evaluating your client journey, ask yourself the following:
- How do prospective clients find you online?
- Do you have general articles or advice articles to share?
- Do you have a social media presence?
- What do your reviews say?
- Do you share any testimonials?
Make it easy for clients to contact you
How often have you had the experience where brands and vendors (particularly banks) make it deliberately difficult to locate the contact information? It’s important for your clients to have as many ways as possible to reach you. This gives you credibility and builds trust.
Create a visual representation of the client's journey and implement key touchpoints:
- Website and Google Business – is it clear on your website where and how prospectors can contact you?
- Online request form - to capture the prospective clients' information, this should include details regarding the initial question and a convenient time to connect with them.
- Online booking schedule – Calendly is an online booking tool to schedule appointments, eliminating the back-and-forth of emails, missed calls and voicemails.
Know your clients
How well do you know your existing clients? And how much effort do you put into getting to know new clients?
Business can sometimes be transactional. But, law firms that thrive are those that choose to build strong long term relationships with their clients. You must invest time to understand your client's needs and what they are looking for.
It's important that you:
- Display empathy - show your clients that you genuinely care when helping them through the event.
- Personalise and humanise the experience.
- Surprise and delight – it is important to celebrate milestones and extend kind gestures. Connect with your clients in a way that they may not necessarily expect their lawyer to engage with them. This will create a point of difference they will remember.
Technology is your friend
Don’t be afraid of technology, you must embrace it. Living in a fast-paced and tech-savvy world, we tend to assume it’s difficult to keep up. Unlock all the advantages that technology has to offer and put it to work for you. This will enable to you be more productive, save time and reduce errors.
Practical technology tips include:
- Implement powerful practice management software to manage client information.
- Ensure your legal team consistently captures all client interactions including, emails, messages, document updates.
- Be proactive – stay on top of important law firm milestones and dates.
- Be one step ahead – from matter management, workflows & tasks, and legal document creation.
Feedback is a gift
It is important to continually ask clients for feedback, provide regular touchpoints through the engagement. This will have a direct impact on your motivation, helping you become more self-aware or understand what you may need to change to become successful.
“How happy are you with the experience with our law firm?”
The benefit of asking for feedback early, is that you are then able to pivot the customer journey. As it could be potentially too late, later down the track.
NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a customer satisfaction benchmark that measures how likely your clients are to recommend your law firm. Strive for an NPS score of 10 (promoter), these are customers who are loyal and will bring in new customers. On the other end of the scale, NPS scores from 0-6 (detractors) are unhappy customers, and the risk of losing them is not only the customer but your firm’s reputation. There is where you want to know what went wrong and what you can do differently.
Implementing these steps will empower you to deliver a delightful customer experience for your future law firm clients; that will boost customer satisfaction, reduce churn, and increase revenue.
About Bianca Bowron-Cuthill
Bianca is an award-winning global executive where she has more than 20 years of experience in the tech industry. Bianca is the General Manager of the Australian Smokeball business. She has led teams both globally and locally in Australia with a passion for delivering world-class customer experiences where teams under her leadership have won awards in both service and innovation. She has significant experience in practice management technology where she has worked across various functions including Customer Success, Operations, Product Management & Development.
