How Legal Service Providers Can Create Stronger Customer Relationships

When I was a kid, every now and then my dad would pick me up at school and take me out to lunch. Sometimes it was a reward, but other times—the best times—it was just because. We lived in a small town and there were only a few restaurants. My favorite was a Mexican food place about half a block from the town’s only traffic light. They served amazing enchiladas with made-from-scratch tortillas, double chocolate shakes made with chocolate ice cream and Hershey’s syrup, and old-fashioned lemon meringue pie. The owner was a friend of my dad’s, and a friend of mine, even though I was just a kid. Like many people, he was a friend to just about everybody. I hated, and still hate, the squishiness of meringue, so he’d scrape it off my pie before he brought it to our table.

Back then, “customer relationships” weren’t really a thing. Or rather, they were so thoroughly interwoven into the fabric of life in our town that no one really thought of them as such. People shopped in each other’s stores and used each other’s services as a matter of course. By and large, they treated each other fairly, lived up to their promises, and went out of their way to help one another. There was no such thing as a customer loyalty program, because there was little chance that customers would go elsewhere. Unless you wanted to drive 50 miles, there was nowhere else to go.

Now, of course, all that has changed. Modern life offers us a million options—sometimes it feels like too many options—and as a result, building relationships is most definitely “a thing.” Both online and brick-and-mortar vendors routinely track who you are and what you buy so that they can offer you similar or companion products, get you to buy again, or encourage you to refer a friend. They don’t really know whether you like meringue or not, because they don’t really know you, but they can offer you any number of things their algorithm thinks you might like.

The same is true for services. My doctor’s office sends out a survey every time I have a check up: Was my visit a pleasant experience? Did I get my questions answered? My bank sends me email to tell me they value my business. The dealership where I bought my car calls me when it’s time for an oil change.

At the root of it all is the drive to build that crucial relationship. No matter what business you’re in, if you’re not devoting ongoing, consistent effort to relationship nurturing, you’re almost certainly losing customers, missing out on opportunities, sacrificing future growth and success, or all of the above. The challenge is in keeping it real; on one hand, relationships based on an algorithm can only mean so much, but on the other, building connections at scale is, in many contexts, impossible.

If you sell widgets, you probably have 10,000 customers, and you can’t possibly know how each one likes their pie. But if you’re in the legal industry, keeping it real is critical. High-stakes litigation means trust, integrity, and dependability are absolute requirements. You know full well how important it is to follow through on your promises and meet your deadlines. You either instill a sense of trust and confidence in those you represent, or they’ll find someone who can.

That said, simply living up to commitments and expectations is the passive approach. Building strong relationships is about more than just being satisfactory, and to be truly effective, valued, and valuable, you should proactively and mindfully develop attitudes, behaviors, and habits that can help you inspire trust and make connections.

Real 101

First and foremost, you need to be comfortable with vulnerability. Ask for feedback, especially when you suspect it isn’t going to be positive. These moments are your best opportunity to learn from mistakes, improve your service, and prove that you’re genuinely trying to do the best you possibly can.

More than that, ask for feedback from different sources. The paralegal or associate you rarely deal with might be able to offer you a new and valuable perspective. The project manager at your e-discovery services provider might be able to give you some useful tips to improve your process workflows. Great ideas can come from anywhere, but you need to be looking if you hope to find them.

Going the extra mile matters too, since the legal world almost always runs on a tight deadline. Look for ways to innovate, and offer ideas and solutions before your team asks for them. Anticipating their needs and thinking outside the box shows them that their trust in you is well placed.

Finally, look for ways to show the world what you’re made of. Speaking opportunities and conference sponsorships are great, but “establishing thought leadership” should always take a back seat to connecting one-on-one, and real-world examples of success and expertise are worth their weight in gold. So make it a point to create those connections with others. Give testimonials when a job is done well. When people are struggling, offer support—or even better, offer a strategy to help them improve. Appreciate your co-workers, look for opportunities to recognize those who are in the trenches, and make time to find out how they like their pie. Sure, it takes a bit more time, but these are the foundations upon which strong relationships are built, and in the end, you’ll be glad you did.

This guest post was written by Susan Ethridge of OnCall Discovery. Susan is a writer and editor with more than fifteen years’ experience in marketing and business development for industry-leading eDiscovery service providers. She enjoys cooking, literary fiction, and cool technologies, and tends to get OCD about music and bourbon. She is a die-hard fan of the Oxford comma.