Nine in Ten Law Firms Fail the First Impression Test

The 2018 research by Client Experience specialists CXINLAW has revealed some significant and very expensive service failings amongst Australian law firms.

88% of initial enquiry contact with law firms did not deliver a very positive result for prospective clients or the legal providers involved. 58% of firms left shoppers likely to call competitors and a third of all calls were so poor that an instruction would definitely not take place.

The results of the research First Impressions Convert: Increasing Law Firm Profitability From the First Touch-point, supported by the Australasian Legal Practice Management Association (ALPMA),  is being launched at ALPMA’s law firm practice management seminars from 13 February.

CXINLAW used Mystery Shopping techniques commonly found in the retail industry to establish the quality and impact of prospective client interactions with legal staff. The research sampled a range of 50 small to midsize firms across a range of law practice areas – from family, wills and estates to business and commercial law matters.

Carl White, Director of CXINLAW said, “Time is running short for law firms that overlook the benefits of a focus on Client Experience. In a buyers’ market providers simply cannot afford to underwhelm and those that improve will increasingly outperform the rest. These results indicate that firms are likely to leave prospective clients indifferent to their services, or worse; when there are clear and actionable ways to do much better.”

ALPMA President, Dion Cusack said, “In an increasingly competitive market with clients demanding more, law firms need to find differentiators and above all ensure that service delivery is a core value. This research shows there is still a long way to go in educating firms on the advantages of a continued focus on clients and the overall client experience.”

The report is available free from the ALPMA research page. Firms can measure their own performance against the report benchmarks by contacting Carl White of CXINLAW.

CXINLAW is the legal sector specialist in developing Client Experience Excellence. The company developed the first UK report on Client Experience in Law in 2012 and has been at the leading edge of developments in the field. CXINLAW opened its Australian office in 2015 headed by Director, Carl White, who is one of the co-authors of the report.

2018 ALPMA/CXINLAW Client Experience Benchmarking research report is available now.