Lawyer's Weekly, the legal magazine, investigates the changes that law firms are making to their client feedback programmes. Their report features discussions with partners of several law firms with client feedback programmes. The article also examines a report commissioned by Martindale-Hubbell from Lighthouse Global which looks at the trends in client relationship programmes and feedback.
The article identifies the key developments in client feedback that will help law firms gain more insight into the service they provide clients.
• Law firms are increasing the frequency of, or changing the timing of feedback, a trend that is evident on an international scale.
• The research by Lighthouse Global has shown that many partners and fee earners are wary of the client feedback process being ‘an excuse to give negative feedback', despite the fact that feedback can prove to be beneficial for improving service.
• Many large corporate clients work with a selection of law firms and assess each law firm - often in greater detail than the law firm assesses itself.
• Different sizes of law firm may use different ways of obtaining feedback- larger firms with more resources will tend to use interviews whereas smaller firms tend to use simple surveys.
• Client research methodologies use several different approaches to obtain information, with both internal and 3rd party independent interviewers. There is agreement to avoid bias by using interviewers who have worked on the client account.
• In order to allow stronger analysis, a structured set of questions for interviews is necessary. But some law firms are still favour a less structured informal approach despite the difficulties that causes when more than a handful of clients' views are to be analysed to draw wider conclusions.
Contact James Edsberg on jedsberg@lighthouseglobal.eu.com or on +44 (0)20 7292 4977 for a copy of Lighthouse Global's report "Latest developments in Client Feedback programmes in the international legal services market".
Download a PDF version of the article that appeared in Lawyer's Weekly here