ROBIN’S BLOG
Robin has 30 years of professional and financial services marketing experience. Here he provides commentary about some of the key evolving issues within professional services strategy and marketing. The aim is to provoke thinking and provide useful information that marketers can use within their firms as they continue to improve performance.
thriving… Improving marketing, business development, client satisfaction, and financial performance.
0 out of 10 for client satisfaction….
Managing Client Relationships – headlines from the 2013 “Truth in professional services” study
It’s been a while coming, but we’ve completed the exec summary of the 2013 benchmark study, done in conjunction with Managing Partner Forum and PM Forum.
Some of the headlines are:
- the necessity of an effective vision, strategy and metrics is becoming even clearer
- the rankings of performance of consultants and systems have changed since 2011
- “early adopters” are looking at how they integrate “CRM” with other evolving marketing techniques.
If you took part in the study, you’ll receive your copy of the exec summary very soon.
Innovation in Performance Management
Fee earners, networking, and the impressions you give
At a networking breakfast recently, I was struck by the different approaches taken by the accountants and lawyers attending.
A “board-table” discussion was generated about the prospects for the economy in 2013, how banks and others could help generate growth, and how companies can plan and forecast to put themselves in a better position.
During the informal networking the lawyers and accountants behaved similarly. But in the discussion they were very different. The accountants were fully engaged, talking about the economy and appearing at ease discussing prospects and commercial issues.
The lawyers – who all worked with commercial and corporate clients – made no contribution. Indeed they looked actively disinterested.
I understand the potential lack of comfort, as a lawyer, with a conversation where you don’t necessarily know the “right answer”. But I’ll bet that none of the MDs and other managers of companies there came away with a positive view of their commercialism, ability to be proactive, or generate ideas. In other words some of the key things that businesses are currently looking for.
And isn’t a key point of networking to generate positive perception and contacts with prospective clients and introducers?
Sometimes, senior fee earners need to up their game.
Ten outputs from client feedback
2. Better knowledge of demand for individual specialisms and areas
3. Identification of specific opportunities and risks
4. Clarification of best positioning (and killing potentially risky “wrong” positioning)
5. Sales and cross sell opportunities
6. Better pitches and proposals
7. Input into training (to improve marketplace impact of that training)
8. Input into recruitment, job descriptions and personnel specifications
9. Creating the right Key Performance Indicators
10. Gaining testimonials to provide 3rd party evidence of your capability
Improving the return from client knowledge
Client and market knowledge can be gained in many traditional, and non-traditional ways. CRM software, traditional market research methods, social media, account management activities as well as other methods all have value.
Is your firm positioned for future profit growth?
The time to think strategically about future profitability is now.
Phil Gott (a colleague in the Winning Firm Alliance) and I spoke during LawNet’s Practice Finance Management day on 16th October – if you’d like to access the slides and some of the topics we covered around future profitability, click to access it here via the Thriving website.
Our underlying benchmark data is growing all the date. During October so far, 25 firms took advantage of the “key levers of profitability” self review and gained their free analysis.
If you’d like to review the top level areas that would improve your firm’s ability to generate revenue, you can undertake a self-review through this link
The latent legal market and dropping new client leads
Rocket Lawyer, the “Google-backed legal services platform” recently announced that it is on track to sign up 25 firms to its panel in the UK by the end of 2012.
Amongst the media coverage there were some thought provoking observations about the standards of client care, responsiveness and new client welcome within firms.
For example: firms are assessed for their suitability to become panel members in terms of their responsiveness to client enquiries, the quality of their customer service and their complaints procedure, and whether they have online products.
How firms handled leads was especially relevant. “So many firms just drop them when they spend so much time acquiring them,” according to Rocket Lawyer’s UK vice-president, Mark Edwards.
He also estimated that the “untapped” market for legal services in the UK is around £12.5bn.
This seems a pretty aggressive estimate to me. However the variability in responding to potential new clients is absolutely the case. It reduces the ability of some firms to grow, or even maintain, revenue. Resolving it is not intrinsically difficult, but takes thinking about processes, internal communication, motivation and measurement. If you’d like to access further thinking about this, contact me at