If I had a penny for every time lawyers have said “my clients love me,” I’d be….well you know.
The problem is that often lawyers do not understand. They assume, based on their continuing to receive work and not having heard about serious concerns, that everything is hunky-dory.
Richard Levick at Levick communications in a post on LinkedIn warns against such complacency. He hates to hear those words from his folks and cautions that the comment “’the client loves us’ is a favorite phrase of either the easily pleased or easily fooled.” Rather what he asks his people is how can clients “love us more?” Law firm leaders should ask the same question.
Some questions that might detect the love:
- Is the love experienced at all levels of the organization? Not just the daily contacts but all the way up the decision-makers who hire and fire law firms?
- Is your contact in a position to speak for the feelings of the entire organization? Bad vibes anywhere in the organization, including those who don’t do the actual hiring, can help poison the well;
- Is the firm offering better and deeper services to countermand the offerings made by other competitive suitors?; and
- What can we do to retain and grow client love? Saying that “the client loves us” is really saying “we don’t need to change a thing.” Therein lies the real danger for any firm.
Levick put it best when he summed up with “True love demands that we change and evolve every day.” I fear it is an easier feat for a communication firm than for many law firms, unfortunately.