What clients want from their lawyer. With over my 8 years in law marketing practice, the best way to generate new clients and still the cheapest way is to do fabulous job for your existing clients.
This has a double benefit to your law firm:
If you concentrate on client service and use some of the proven marketing strategies on this blog or explained in detail through a consultation, then you are very likely to soon find yourself winning more new business than you ever thought possible.
Keep in mind that it is FIVE TIMES CHEAPER to sell to an existing customer than it is to find a new customer. This directly applies to clients of law firms.
When your clients remember you, trust you, believe in your skills and have had a good experience with you before, they are many times more likely to buy other services from you.
Your mission, should be to dazzle your existing clients with top notch service, and then tell them what else you could do for them, AND that you welcome referrals. Always ask for referrals!!!
Ensure that your team members, or staff, truly believe in the law firm’s excellent service and it’s approach to quality client service, then they are more likely to refer family and friends to the law firm as clients, and even step up their own practice development efforts.
So how can you dazzle your clients? How much time do you have?
Let’s start with a few simple, easy to do, and free ideas.
Return phone calls promptly. People hate waiting. It makes them feel unimportant. They LOVE getting calls returned quickly, it makes them feel important.
Don’t keep people waiting beyond their appointment time. I know we all run late from time to time, but as a general rule, always try to start client meetings on time.
Give clients regular updates on the progress of their matter. Too many clients deliver their legal document, and wait…and wait…and wait. It gets them frustrated. Make sure that you deal with clients documents as soon as they come into your office. Call them every week to tell them what progress has been made. Keep them in the loop and give them a reasonable estimate as to when they will have documents to review. They will feel very loyal to you, for doing so, I promise.
Always under promise and over deliver. If a client has a project that HAS to be done by a week on Friday, if you tell them that you’ll do your best to have it by noon on that Friday, but call them on Wednesday morning to tell them it’s ready, then you appear to have pulled out all the stops and performed like a superstar.
James
