O Client, Why Art Thou? Maintaining Client Loyalty By Measuring Client Expectations By: Joshua Fruchter, President, eLawMarketing (josh@elawmarketing.com)

Thriving law firms achieve success by meeting or exceeding their clients' service-quality expectations. These expectations are shaped by clients' past experiences, word-of-mouth, and advertising, and create a baseline against which performance is measured when services are delivered. When a firm's performance exceeds the expected level of service, clients remain loyal. Conversely, when performance fails to meet expectations, clients go shopping. It thus behooves law firms to continually explore and experiment with strategies for exceeding their clients' highest hopes.

Service marketing experts have developed models and checklists for ensuring delivery of high quality service (click here for one such checklist from Marketing Services: Competing Through Quality, Berry and Parasuraman, The Free Press, 1991). They have also identified the shortfalls that result in poor service quality.

One of the most common shortfalls is the "gap" between client expectations and management perceptions (the "Perception Gap"). That is, attorneys do not always correctly perceive what qualities clients value most highly when a service is delivered.  Some dimensions of the service experience where a perception gap might exist are:

• Communications ("how quickly do I want my attorney to return my calls?"; "how do I prefer my attorney to contact me concerning day-to-day matters - by fax? phone? email?"; "does my attorney avoid using technical jargon"),
• Access ("how quickly can I locate my attorney?"; "have I been provided with multiple contact information for my lawyer?"),
• Credibility ("do my bills provide adequate detail of the work performed for the fees billed?", "does my attorney provide sound advice even when it goes against his economic self-interest?"),
• Courtesies ("does my law firm offer helpful seminars or email or print newsletters to keep me apprised of potential issues?"),and 
• Tangibles ("are the firm's offices and marketing materials professional in appearance").

To close the Perception Gap along the above and other dimensions, top law firms implement systems to measure client expectations, and monitor firm performance against those expectations. One important tool for accomplishing this is Importance-Performance Analysis. With this type of analysis, the marketer employs various feedback tools such as interviews and surveys that ask clients to rate both the "Importance" of various service criteria (e.g., "returns calls promptly," "supports bills with appropriate detail," "offers seminars on cutting edge legal topics") and the firm's "Performance" against those criteria.

"Importance" can be measured on a four-point scale of "extremely important," "important," "slightly important," and "not important."

"Performance" can be rated on a four-point scale of "excellent," "good," "fair," and "poor."

Taking an example from the professional service arena, if many clients rate the service criteria of "offers seminars on cutting edge legal topics" as "extremely important", that criteria might earn an Importance score of 3.83. If these same clients then rate the firm's performance on this criteria as only "fair" or "poor", the Performance score might only be 2.50. The large gap between 3.83 and 2.50 - 1.83 -- means the firm can start earning some major goodwill - and strengthening client loyalty - by offering seminars.

In other cases, the gap might be a lot smaller (in which case, "keep up the good work"), and even be negative (in which case, the firm is engaging in overkill and can probably save money by cutting back on a particular service criteria because clients don't value it very much).

The above analysis raises an obvious question - how does one go about conducting an Importance-Performance Analysis? "Live" interviews will usually yield the most accurate and comprehensive results since a skillful interviewer can pick up on subtle points and probe more deeply into interesting responses. However, interviews can be very expensive and time-consuming, and interviewees may articulate their responses to match what they think the interviewer wants to hear.

Another face-to-face option that is less formal in nature is the tradeshow. Many law firms don't view tradeshow participation as particular appropriate for attorneys, but the fact is client tradeshows do exist. These shows are an ideal opportunity to "schmooze" with existing and prospective clients and learn -- in a setting that is much less formal than an interview -- what they look for in a professional, and what turns them off. A major downside, though, is that tradeshows are infrequent.

Paper surveys mailed to respondents require effort to answer and return, and thus often end up sitting in a "To Do" pile that never gets done.

In searching for an Importance-Performance Analysis tool that is cost-effective yet yields a high response rate, the email survey is an ideal option. Email surveys can be distributed very inexpensively and at any time of the year, and can be personalized to each recipient to encourage higher response rates. Using HTML, an email survey can also be designed to look attractive - even enticing. Finally, email surveys are very convenient to answer since a respondent need only click some buttons and hit "Submit" - no trip to the mailbox required.

In sum, especially given today's tougher operating and more competitive environment, law firms need to do everything they can to keep existing clients loyal and attract new business. Using email to measure what qualities of the service experience clients value most highly, and determine whether your firm is meeting those expectations, is an important step in that direction.

Joshua Fruchter, Esq., is the president and co-founder of eLawMarketing, which handles email newsletter design and distribution for the Atlanta Chapter of the ALA and over 50 other law firms and legal organizations. The firm also provides website development and search engine marketing services. Joshua can be contacted at 866-833-6245 or by email at josh@elawmarketing.com. The firm's website is at http://www.elawmarketing.com.

Editor: Brian Gedeon (BHGedeon@duanemorris.com) (This publication is the property of the Atlanta Association of Legal Administrators. Reproduction or reprint without prior permission is strictly prohibited. Click here to request reprint permission.)

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