Client Service Perception Gap

When I ask a law firm leader what makes their firm distinctive from others, most say, "We're really good at client service.  We are known by the high level of personal service we provide." 

Clients, however, disagree.  According to a new BTI survey, only 25% of clients give top grades to their outside counsel for client service.

Feedback is a gift.  Read the article here. 

Here's the BTI press release on the survey:

Client Satisfaction with Law Firms Plummets
Just 30.7% of clients recommend their primary law firm
Drives client spending to new law firms
53.7% of clients oust their primary law firm

Boston, March 3, 2006: The BTI Consulting Group’s fifth annual survey of corporate counsel reveals an unprecedented drop in client satisfaction with law firms. Just 30.7% of large and Fortune 1000 companies recommend their primary law firms. These deep dips in client satisfaction, reports BTI, promise to drive dollars into the hands a new set of law firms, unsettling the status quo.

“Large clients are making broad-sweeping changes in how they hire and work with their law firms,” comments Michael B. Rynowecer, BTI’s President, “These changes will translate into opportunity for a select group of well-positioned law firms.”

BTI’s study analyzes how law firms can position themselves to benefit from these critical changes in a brand new report, How Clients Hire, Fire and Spend: Landing the World’s Best Clients. BTI found an astonishing 53.7% of clients ousted their primary law firms in the past 18 months. More than 50% of clients also reported they plan to try at least one new law firm for substantive matters in 2006.

BTI conducted more than 200 independent, individual interviews with corporate counsel at Fortune 1000 companies and large organizations each year for the past five years."

It would be interesting to see how many lawyers ranked their firms as having excellent client service.

Comments

[Jack Payne]

Until the legal profession weans itself off the "billable hours" model for client services, I think their clients' rankings will continue to drop. Padding is widely suspected.

The movement toward adaptation to a purely business structure is long overdo and should be carefully studied. And, considered.