To create a great experience, you have to know…
What Your Customers Know

Your customers have all the answers

One of the biggest mistakes I see firms make is the failure to involve customers in verifying the experience. They assume they know what their customers think. But it’s important to consider how easy it is for experts in any field to forget that clients may not understand or even care about their processes and procedures. But as one General Counsel said, “If what keeps you awake at night isn’t what keeps your clients awake, then you’re worrying about the wrong thing.”

To create a great experience, you have to know what your customers consider great – and not so great. You need to put yourself in their shoes and take the “empathy walk,” to see how they perceive interactions with your firm. To better understand their customer experience, one airline measured heart rates during the ticket purchasing process. Increased heart rates were clear indicators of their customers’ rising stress and frustration levels. By understanding the actual pain points, this airline was able to focus on improving the experience in those specific areas.

Some common client experiences

I meet with dozens of General Counsels and your clients each year. Here are just a few of the most common pain points.

· It takes forever to get a response.

· They get generic alerts from a dozen firms instead of information they can actually use.

· They receive pages of inefficient history instead of actionable views on the future.

· Instead of cohesive project management, they get fractured information from siloed internal teams that apparently know nothing about each other.

· They want efficient billing and get the run around instead.

I could write a whole article on this but you get the idea. If you’re keeping your client’s evolving needs at the forefront, no matter which direction they go, you’ll remain solidly on track in meeting their needs and establishing your firm as an invaluable resource.