- Today's customers are increasingly demanding and require a quality experience.
- The range of legal services on offer is ever increasing!
Taking care of your customer relationship is no longer a choice but an obligation.
In fact, according to a study conducted by Justifit France (1) on a panel of 16,000 people, 44% of those surveyed said that their collaboration with their lawyer did not go well. However, a study by Bain & Company (2) shows that in the financial services sector, which, like the legal profession, is a very intuitu personae sector, a 5% increase in client loyalty can generate 25% additional profits.
While there is no magic formula for improving customer relationships, applying simple principles can quickly turn out to be a winning strategy.
1- Get to know and follow your client
This may seem obvious, but the reality is quite different. How can you follow your client's life without becoming intrusive? By "life" we mean the professional AND personal information of your contacts. Thanks to these two elements that will allow you to have a personalised approach to the relationship.
On the personal side, who wouldn't feel embarrassed to take a vegan client to a steak house or ask about their spouse after they've just divorced?
On the professional side, how do you avoid calling a client when they are no longer with the company or missing a contract because you were not informed of a key piece of information that could have triggered a phone call from you?
To avoid all these difficulties, the use of a CRM is an excellent way of getting to know your customers and following them over time. But be careful, a CRM is not a simple contact database.
Your CRM must be able to guide your actions and for that it must be alive. It must, for example, offer the possibility of capturing and delivering external information from social networks or the Internet that will be useful for your development actions. The CRM must also allow you to store in a single point all information from your contacts and find easily the important parts of your exchanges.
In short, for your relationship to live, your CRM must live too!
2- Carry out tailor-made actions
We have just seen that improving customer relations means knowing your clients better. Now that this step has been taken, you will be able to carry out targeted marketing actions and be certain of reaching the right contacts.
In a world where we are all flooded with information, it has become essential to offer your clients a tailor-made communication that meets their expectations, otherwise you will a have a client who no longer reads you and who forgets about you.
Again, your CRM is your best ally because it allows you to target your contacts extremely precisely according to the message you wish to convey.
In short, show your customer that you know him!
3- Make your client's life easier!
With increasingly demanding clients, you need to be able to respond more quickly to their requests and offer them a tailored service. So yes, it is obvious that as a lawyer, you already offer personalised support, but do you offer a personalised experience? These two concepts, although quite similar, should not be confused.
A personalised experience can take the form of a client portal in which your clients can exchange with you via a chat or video conference securely or make an appointment directly via an intelligent diary which automatically proposes free slots. This type of system is very reassuring for the customer, as the security of information is an absolute priority for them. The calendar reinforces the idea that you are available at all times.
In short, show your client that you care!
