ROI 2010 Keynote – The Client Experience

At the first annual Radius of Influence Conference we were lucky enough to have noted business author, Ben McConnell, deliver the keynote address.  Ben is a principal at Ant’s Eye View and word of mouth marketing expert.  His talk focused largely on the importance of understanding and improving the Client Experience in order to positively affect the outcome of a firm’s word of mouth marketing efforts.

I’ve outlined the highlights below, mostly in Ben’s words (which were borrowed from his Power Point notes).

Influence

The age of the traditional media of newspapers, television, radio and advertising is being wrecked by social media and reshaped into something new and different.  Connections are being made online and off, and through these connections many are circumventing traditional advertising by simply asking trusted sources for advice.  What the Radius of Influence means is that influence emanates directly out from you and back toward you. When you create community, you create concentric circles that tie people inside the circle (clients) to people outside of it (potential clients).

Communication

Law firms tend to share some similarities with the Age of the Master Builders.  Large buildings often took hundreds of years to complete.  This is primarily  because when the architect died, so did all the knowledge of how to build the building.  Law firms often operate like this as the partners and their assistants are siloed.   Where attorneys have their own responsibilities, sometimes their own staff and processes and the result is a cathedral of great knowledge, but that knowledge isn’t shared often outside of its doors, much less within its own chambers.  Communication is the key to breaking down the silos.

Client Experience

• Five ways you can go about communicating with your clients, both current and past.
• Know your moments of truth. Moments of truth are those times when a client subconsciously decides if you are worthy of a recommendation to friends, family or colleagues.
• Establish standards of service. The standards define how every person inside your firm, regardless of title or position, is to act or behave when working with a client.
• Asking clients to grade you is a very, very big part of delivering an outstanding and remarkable client experience.
• Define and communicate your firm’s purpose and values.
• Build a culture for your firm.

You can download Ben’s deck from SlideShare.  I’ve embedded the video of the presentation below.

How important is word of mouth to your firm?  What steps do you take to ensure a great client experience?