Customer Service in the Age of Technology
Technology has changed a lot about the way we practice law, and it's going to change a lot more in the coming years. But some things haven't changed, and it's important to remember that when implementing new technologies and introducing new efficiencies into our businesses. While the specific means we use to serve clients may differ as delivery mechanisms advance, certain client expectations will remain the same. Those who retain our legal services expect us to be understanding of their problems, responsive to their concerns and accessible, regardless of how we technically fulfill those requirements.
To pull an example from the not-so-distant past, the proliferation of voice mail solved some problems for small law firms, especially those with minimal staff. No longer did the solo attorney with just one staff member have to pick up the telephone while the secretary/receptionist was at lunch, or frown at the ringing phone after hours trying to guess whether or not the call coming in was more important than what he was working on. Clients, opposing counsel and prospective clients could leave a message, which meant that manning the phone every minute of every day was no longer critical.
And that was true—to a degree. But fairly quickly we learned that while clients and prospects could leave a message on our voicemail and provide us with pertinent information or ask for a return call, but that didn't mean we could just note the information and go on with our lives or even return the calls at our leisure. Clients still had expectations, and if they didn't hear from us (or at least from our staffs) in pretty short order, they'd call again…and in those messages, we'd detect an increasing sense of urgency even if there was no actual urgency involved. Prospects simply moved on; sure, they'd leave a message detailing the ins and outs of their current situations and their need for legal assistance, but then they'd hang up the phone, skip down to the next entry in the Yellow Pages and dial again.
It soon became clear that while voice mail relieved us of having to staff the phones during every minute of business hours and allowed us to schedule our phone conversations to a degree, the machinery couldn't replace human attention. So it is with today's technology.
Some attorneys operate entirely virtually, never coming face to face with a client, but the most successful among those lawyers aren't short-cutting client interaction and customer service: they're just delivering it in a different format. The technology does make it easier and more efficient to fill some client needs. For example, the client who can view her case file online at any hour of the day or night is far less likely to be calling your office to find out "what's going on with the case". But timely response to messages is just as important through an online portal as it is when you're picking up the phone to return a call. And while many lawyers report cutting down on telephone time dramatically when they interact with clients through a secure online platform, those who offer up a phone number for current and prospective clients still have to think about who answers their phones and when and how.
The bottom line is that technology is a mechanism through which we serve clients. While the effort required to effectively deliver those services is reduced and attorneys and clients alike have more options, it's still up to attorneys and law firm staff to deliver quality service in a way that helps the client feel secure, attended to and like her legal matters are in good hands. That means returning messages promptly no matter what format they're delivered in; it means keeping your clients up to date on case progress whether you're doing that by telephone, through an old fashioned letter or via as secure online platform and it means making sure that someone friendly, well-trained and intelligent picks up your telephone when it rings or returns missed calls quickly. In short, it means ensuring that we're extending the same consideration to clients and prospective clients in the new world of legal technology that we did when they sat in our reception areas.