Attorney KPI's: Client Satisfaction Score

Hi there, Linda Artesani, Artesani Accounting. This week we're going to dive into some of the metrics. So we've been building up to this with the attorney compensation, and something that we do at our firm is we actually dive into a lot of the finances and create a financial strategy for the law firms that we work with. And one of the things we do is we take specific KPIs, or key performance indicators, and we look at what the law firm's needs are. And it varies by practice area, it varies by the partnership, it varies by their goals. We get into the client satisfaction score. One of the things we look at, it is for sure you want to look at this because this is very customer-centric. This is a, is a metric that you're looking at, probably the number one metric you should be looking at is how satisfied are your clients. A lot of times we'll ask the law firm, we'll ask the person in charge, how do you get your, how do you get your customers? Where do they come from? How are you, how advertising for them? And they'll say, well, we are referral-based, we get all our customers basically referral-based. So remember, unsatisfied customers are not going to lead to extra business, happy customers will equal more revenue. And even if that is not your typical way of getting clients, it's not referral-based, it's always good to have happy customers. You want them because you want them to not be writing bad, bad reviews on Google. Google reviews are really important for showing your expertise in your area. And we all rely on Google Reviews for a lot of things. So, one of the things we do look at that's critical about examining this key KPI is just setting up a way to ask for a rating. So, asking for a rating, and I recommend not just asking at the end. That's kind of the old-fashioned way, asking when the job is over, how did we do? Or sending out that notification, you know, survey, SurveyMonkey, how did we do? Ask them in the beginning. You want to know how your team is performing from the beginning to the end of the work. You don't really want to only know about the ending, if the client's happy, because you might actually get a bad result if the client didn't get the— you know, the case didn't go their way. So you really want to start at the very beginning. How were you happy with the first initial contact with the firm? How were you happy with the reception desk, the quickness of getting an appointment with the firm? That's something you want to look at because those are the things How happy were you with the attorney in returning a phone call? That's kind of mid, mid, mid-project. How, how responsive was the attorney? You want to know how your staff is doing. These are things that are going to set you up for success in the long run. If you create a short form, no one wants to fill out a survey that lasts 10 pages. I get some of them sometimes. I'm like, you know, says fill out this quick survey and you start to get into the survey and it's like Click, click, click, and it never, it never seems to end. And then sometimes you just go, ah, the heck with it, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna finish it. You wanna get the results. I forgot the percentage, but it's pretty low on who's actually gonna take the time to fill this out. But it's gonna help you as a firm grow in the way you wanna grow. You wanna know if there's a problem in the workflow, if there's a stopgap in the workflow, if things are not going that way and the way you wanna see, you want your firm reflected. And the survey should have less than 5 questions. It should be a really short and to-the-point kind of survey. And when you get into questions, you want to ask them questions that— you maybe ask them questions of, how did you find us? Just asking that is not really client satisfaction, but it's important for you to get the answer to that for your marketing. How did you find us? It can be right on that initial one. And maybe you send out— some clients get the initial one, some clients get the mid-project one, some get the the completed project. It's really about workflow here, how your team works as a cohesive unit. And truly, it's the timing of when this happens. You wanna know also along the way, how's the billing? Do they understand the billing? Is it clear? Is there a lot of clarity around the billing? Or is the billing look like, you know, how does the client feel about the billing? I know sometimes you can get those invoices and I look at some of the ones that we produce for firms and I think, oh my goodness, this is such a long invoice. Are they people really looking at it and reading the entire thing? So you want to have that set up so that they're looking at it, they're reading it, and they understand it, and they don't feel like you're nickel and diming them for everything. And sometimes that gets into the point when you do soft costs. Is your firm doing soft costs? Are they just adding an administrative fee? We sometimes will recommend that because it does feel like when you get those long invoices, like, God, they're charging me for licking a stamp, and that's a little ridiculous. Maybe just add a little bit in the hourly rate and just drop all of that so it keeps the customer happy. And that's really it. So remember, an unhappy client can be detrimental to your firm. It can actually cause the opposite effect that you want. A happy client is where you're at, you want to go with. Happy clients tend to pay their bills on time. They tend to be satisfied. They'll tell their friends. That will include having some more referrals. Somebody needs a— most of the time when you want an attorney, you might ask a friend or a neighbor, and having that happiness around the whole situation. And it's difficult to do, especially when you're looking at family law or some of the other types of law practices. That can be hard because they're in a sensitive time with their particular matter. But if you can ease and hold their hand through the whole process and make at least that part of the fact that they have a case in court go well, you'll be setting yourself above and beyond a lot of the firms out there. And that's the whole thing for revenue growth. As far as we look at it, having a good, happy client is always setting yourself up for success. I hope this was helpful to you. If you want to learn more, if you want to hire a firm like ours that will help you grow your firm in a smart way and look into these KPIs, definitely reach out. We're just a phone call or an email or sign up on our contact list away. And on that note, I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful week.