“The new law firm like Grow Law Firm paradigms – Lawyers, how to meet your clients and find added value?” was the title of the conference organized by the Bar Association and the Village de la Justice in September 2015. An enigmatic title, but one that reveals the urgency of understanding a legal and judicial environment that is changing profoundly. Here are the main lessons on the subject of meeting the customer.
The Basics Of The Problem
Faced with the increase in the demand for law, lawyers are no longer necessarily the ones who will provide solutions and allow access to the law. The bases of the problem are as follows:
– the lawyer has had and sometimes still has trouble accepting the notion of the legal market,
– the lawyer’s consulting activity is highly competitive. The lawyer is much more vulnerable on the advice front than on the representation of the parties before the courts. However, this advice represents 70% of the turnover of the profession, and it is on this point that we must fight”.
The Reasons For The Problem
Therefore, the lawyer is in difficulty on two fronts: SMEs and individuals. And this is for several reasons:
– technology and the fact that everyone has become an information seeker,
– the creativity of people who are not lawyers with an increasingly important presence of law start-ups or legal start-ups,
– the lawyer himself, which is why ” there are changes within reach of the profession as a whole and each individual according to Dominic Jensen. Indeed, there is the fear that the lawyer inspires through the complexity of his language and his lack of pedagogy, but also the fear of the price linked to a lack of transparency and understanding. However, when there is an explanation of the price, it becomes much more acceptable.
Its Economic Model And Its Customer Relationship
The firm’s economic model is very often file-oriented. He enters a file, processes it, invoices it, and takes it out. He does not realize the distance he can take with the client behind this file. This difference in orientation may seem very slight, but it can change everything in a lawyer’s daily life.
It is a question of turning its economic model around the clients, thinking around the client, and asking the question of the journey and client experience within the firm. This change could modify the client’s approach to his relationship with the lawyer and, therefore, the lawyer’s approach to his relationship with the client. The start-ups which work great on this notion of customer experience and how the Internet user will meet the legal demand are meeting with great success.
Today, the customer is no longer captive. When the law firm has recurring clients, it is imperative to have a loyalty strategy. You have to have what we call the “plus product” that makes them want to come back to you every time because the offer is everywhere, they are constantly solicited, and they are likely to be captured. We no longer have this relationship inscribed in time; everything is going very quickly. You have to create a link and be on your customers’ radar”.
” Before the customer relationship even exists, it must be created. And to create it, you must adapt your language to your target. It is an essential element that concerns everyone at all levels. The lawyer must translate the legal vocabulary that he knows and masters perfectly, which is sometimes extremely complicated and obscure. For example, a lawyer who says he does enforcement and economic law will have a hard time meeting the public he is interested in because no one knows what enforcement and economic law are. On the other hand, if the lawyer says, “I help the craftsmen to recover the money owed to them by their clients,” this is indeed enforcement proceedings, but the message is conveyed in a completely different way. Learn how to get estate planning clients here.