Bedside Manner: The Key to Landing and Retaining Clients

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Practicing law is very much a client-centric business and providing exceptional service is pivotal to a successful practice. Are you providing the service that your clients expect?

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Survey after survey will tell you that the #1 reason why clients fire attorneys is “lack of responsiveness” or in general an overall lack of customer service. Correspondingly, the top reason clients hire lawyers is empathy and responsiveness. Keeping clients and potential clients happy is the key to not only maintaining, but growing your practice. The following are a few tips for ensuring that your bedside manner doesn’t impede your ability to attract and retain new clients.

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Return Calls Promptly

The legal industry and in particular personal injury law is highly competitive. Speedy response time to new leads is the key to higher conversions (See our recent article about response time:http://www.rwlynchblog.com/the-key-to-converting-more-leads/). But your bedside manner doesn’t end there: lack of responsiveness is the most cited reason for firing a lawyer. Return client calls as soon as possible, even if it’s an email (or a call from a secretary or paralegal) that lets them know that their call is important to you and that you will respond as soon as possible.

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Listen

Our most successful attorneys can attest to this advice: listen to everything a potential client has to say about his/her potential case. Yes, some potential clients can run off on tangents that are seemingly unrelated to a case. However, some of the best cases our clients say they’ve landed are cases that other attorneys turned away; simply because they didn’t take the time to listen and ask the right questions. Don’t lose potential clients because “you don’t have the time” to sort through all of the “riff-raff”. Giving your full attention and asking questions will allow you to uncover the important nuggets of information you may miss otherwise.

Don’t Use Legalese

Take the time to explain legal issues in a way your clients can easily understand them. These are complicated issues and clients are often scared and confused. Explaining issues in a clear and concise manner devoid of legal jargon will put your clients at ease.

Above All Empathize

Taking the time to care, explain the process and reassure clients will not only help you retain clients but will create a lasting impression that will ensure those clients will continue to refer new business your way.

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Article by:

Brian Lynch

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Of:

RW Lynch Company, Inc.

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Published by

National Law Forum

A group of in-house attorneys developed the National Law Review on-line edition to create an easy to use resource to capture legal trends and news as they first start to emerge. We were looking for a better way to organize, vet and easily retrieve all the updates that were being sent to us on a daily basis.In the process, we’ve become one of the highest volume business law websites in the U.S. Today, the National Law Review’s seasoned editors screen and classify breaking news and analysis authored by recognized legal professionals and our own journalists. There is no log in to access the database and new articles are added hourly. The National Law Review revolutionized legal publication in 1888 and this cutting-edge tradition continues today.