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January 13, 2006
Polling The Real Jury--"So Clients, How Are We Doing?"
Jim Hassett at Law Firm Business Development just finished the third of three excellent posts I've been reading--all on what I think of as client polling. Part 3 goes a little further and discusses the client service team concept, good for larger firms. I hope people pay attention to these. They are here, here and here.
Polling the degree of client satisfaction is a hard area. Methodology is everything here. I'm certainly not an expert--I have dragged my heels for a long time on developing a new way to do this which yields honest and useful answers. Most law firms, in my view, (1) don't have the will or the stomach to poll clients about what they really think, and (2) tragically, even when we do, we often do it the wrong way. From past experience, I don't think written responses work--particularly the multiple choice/check-the-box type. It should be face-to-face, as time-consuming as that is. Nor do I think it's a great idea, in many cases, to have someone in the firm conduct interviews. Using third parties known by the client not to be employees of the firm, while more expensive, is likely to get better (i.e., more honest) results.
Jim has done some great work here. It's comprehensive, well written, practical--and it fits any size firm.
Posted by JD Hull at January 13, 2006 08:10 PM
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