Recently, I posted about obtaining client feedback in Do Something! Obtaining Actionable and Effective Client Feedback. But once you've asked for and received that client feedback, what do you do with it?
Bankruptcy lawyer Jay Fleishman, author of Legal Practice Pro writes a post entitled Getting Your Bankruptcy Practice to GREAT and Leaving GOOD Behind in which he talks about his first experience with client feedback. It can be brutal. But as Jay points out, "The bad reviews are the ones you want, not the good ones."
Negative feedback, the kind that stings a little, is the best way to improve your services and increase client loyalty - which is also why it's a good idea to seek that feedback before your work for the client has been completed. Receiving that feedback while the engagement is ongoing will help you identify where you may be falling short of the client's expectations so that you can make changes and improvements.
As Jay also says, "YOU are not the arbiter of whether you are a great lawyer - your clients are." You may think you're the best lawyer in town, but if your clients don't think so, you won't get very far.
A good example of this from the client's point of view came to me recently when a friend and fellow lawyer related a story about his experience with a well-known, national company. After having a miserable experience with this particular company, he received a feedback survey in the mail - and he let the company have it, complaining about the salesperson: he was passive-aggressive, condescending, and spoke down to my friend.
About three months later, my friend returned and encountered the same salesperson. The salesperson remembered my friend and advised him that he had been counseled by the company about the complaint. This time, the salesperson did a good job of making sure my friend was happy.
My friend's take-away: Don't be afraid to speak up on your own behalf, and don't be afraid to ask for feedback to get better. I'm sure his take-away would have been much different had his second experience mirrored his first - he would have been even more unhappy had his feedback been ignored, and it's likely that he would be speaking negatively about the company, rather than relating his positive experience and the ways the company improved its service.
If you're going to ask your clients for feedback, you need to be ready to listen to that feedback and act on it.
Our client's perception of the experience they had with us is what matters most. If we think we provided them with a good experience and did a good job, that's one thing. However, since we want them to refer us, it's important that THEY think we did a good job and had a good experience.
We need to start looking at a complaint from a client as a gift and be thankful that the client is taking the time to let us know about something that they are not happy about. For if they don't complain, they leave, and they take their referrals with them!
Posted by: Randi Busse | August 07, 2009 at 06:53 AM
I agree, sharing results with clients to get confirmation of the survey results is key. Based on my experience with strategic execution, it is critical to dig deep into what was said in order to get to the root cause. This often requires a follow up call with the participants asking "why" several times until you get to a point that is actionable.
Posted by: Loretta Ruppert | August 06, 2009 at 04:26 PM
If feedback is being obtained via a survey, it is also important to share the survey results with your clients. Even if the feedback is obtained in a less formal manner it would be useful to share it with clients. Most important, let your clients know how you will be improving service to become more client-centric.
Posted by: Michael Zolno | August 06, 2009 at 10:34 AM