How does your firm stack up against these client service performance benchmarks?

Background

Most lawyers have an intuitive sense of whether their clients are happy or not. But without measurement, they don't know.

Many factors bias firms 'understanding of their clients' satisfaction. For example, most clients are conflict averse; preferring not to complain directly with their lawyers. This means many complaints go unsaid. Further, where firms do use survey technology, they often don't allow for anonymous reviews, which skews the data.

The result is that firms get useful feedback at the level of individual clients, where they can spot who is happy and who isn't. However, the feedback they collect across their whole client base has limited use, because it lacks context. Are our average scores good or bad? Which areas of service should we focus on to improve our overall ratings?

Knowing the answer to these questions matters because the market is super-competitive. If you leave this analysis to your competitors, they'll outperform your firm over time.

When assessing your client feedback processes, you should ask yourself:

1. How do I know if my clients are satisfied?

2. Am I systematically checking?

3. Am I tracking the right metrics?

4. Do I have enough context for these metrics to be meaningful?

Benchmarks in clients service across legal practice areas

In partnership with LEAP, client reviews & feedback platform FirmChecker has released its 2022 Benchmarks in client service across a range of practice areas.

The data reflects a weighted average of three key satisfaction outcomes measured on FirmChecker’s platform across hundreds of law firms:

• Overall experience rating

• Likelihood of recommendation to a friend/colleague

• Perceived value for money

Average ratings can be viewed below. The strength of the scores reflects the competitiveness of the legal market:

*Small sample size.

In interpreting these results, one shouldn't conclude that some practice areas do a worse job. While service quality in an area of specialty is one factor, there are other factors at play. For example, different client types have different expectations, experience different processes based on the area of law they are dealing with, and have differing levels of sophistication.

This makes it even more important to (1) measure your client satisfaction and (2) put it into context against the market so that it is meaningful.

Follow the Client Choice Awards in March

To see which law firms performed best across Australia this year, be sure to check out the Client Choice Awards Finalists when they are announced on 15 March 2022.

See how your firm measures up

LEAP is proud to support the Awards and counts its clients among the winners of previous years. If you'd like to find out how your firm is tracking against these benchmarks, be sure to get started at www.firmchecker.com.au/for-firms.