If you don’t know you’re not paying attention. Further, you probably are not communicating with them often enough.
Since communications is the biggest problem in all phases of life, it can result in disaster in business. Corporate America is constantly talking to consumers in one form or another, and always assessing their markets. It should be no different for lawyers.
As I have discussed on this blog before, 80% of grievances filed against lawyers, with two state bars I am personally aware of, are due to the lack of communication with clients, and/or inattention to the clients’ matters. The headaches those complaints themselves present for a lawyer should be reason enough to improve your communications with clients. Unfortunately, that is not the case all too often.
Today’s meditation from 365 Marketing Meditations: Daily Lessons For Marketing & Communications Professionals by Larry Smith and Richard Levick of Levick Communications is succinct and to the point:
“What’s happened in the last two weeks that’s most important to your client?”
And, the point is very clear. You need to be so close to your key clients, that you know what is keeping them up at night – whether it is business or legally related, or personal. Again, if you do not know, you are not working hard enough at relationship building.
Working on a client’s matter is critically important, of course, but so is communicating with clients in a way that they welcome and prefer. Not just about the case or transaction, but what’s going on in their life. What is the most important thing to them over the past two weeks — or more recently.