In a recent issue of Legal Magazine, the Association of Legal Administrators (ALA) published this headline: “Outstanding customer experience is essential for client loyalty.”
But what is customer experience (CX), and what do today’s B2B customers expect? B2B firms may be tempted to think that, for them, the answers are complicated. But they aren’t. Your B2B clients are also consumers. They expect the same things from the B2B firms they hire in their professional lives as they do from the B2C companies they purchase from in their private lives. In fact, researchers at Salesforce found that a majority of customers say their experiences with one industry influence their expectations of others.
Yet, B2B firms have been proven to trail B2C companies when it comes to CX. McKinsey & Company published comparison stats as early as 2016 showing that CX ratings for B2B firms were 15–35% lower than B2C companies, with experts predicting that the gap would only widen.
State of Legal CX: Industry leaders are taking notice
When we narrow the focus of our B2B CX lens to the legal field, does the picture get any better? Here’s the short answer: It actually gets worse—but there’s hope in a clear path forward.
The Net Promoter Score® (NPS) offers a well known way to measure the quality of your CX. For overall B2B services, the NPS benchmark is 39%. In the legal services field, that benchmark drops to 37%. That puts Legal behind other B2B services such as Accounting (41%), HR (46%) and IT (42%). Need wider context? In 2023, leading B2C companies like Tesla and Warby Parker earned 97% and 80% NPS scores, respectively.
It isn’t just the ALA that’s begun to urge legal firms to take notice of their CX. UK-based legal magazine, Lawyer Monthly, has also covered the topic, noting “that many law firms don’t really consider their clients as well as they should. [They] aren’t keeping pace with the adoption of technology [and] customer service that other organizations serving their customer base have.”
Why law firms must focus on CX: The risks and the benefits
According to the 2023 ClearlyRated industry benchmark study, legal clients are 9x more likely to be committed to their contact at the firm over the firm itself, proving the importance of strong CX and interpersonal relationships. Firms that continue to neglect their CX risk losing clients while suffering damage to their reputations. And as your reputation degrades, you jeopardize future revenue. Research shows that 74% of B2B buyers will change providers for a better experience. But if you see the light and start improving your CX, your firm can easily stand above the rest.
When you provide a positive CX, you nurture customer trust and loyalty, improving long term client retention which often yields more referrals and higher spend per customer. In fact, 86% of buyers say they will spend more for a great CX; and according to PwC research, nearly nine in 10 clients say that their top criterion for hiring professional services firms is their CX. After a good experience with your firm, many clients will either expand their business relationship with you or come back with return business. Finally, 97% of people say they share positive experiences with others, according to Gartner’s Customer Service Experience report. Enter: More referrals (i.e. the most promising leads). While clients utilize numerous sources to research law firms, our study confirmed that referrals remain the #1 most trusted source when vetting a law firm.
The first step toward building a better CX
If you’re worried that your firm is behind, don’t fret. You’re certainly not alone. Only a small percentage of B2B companies are truly client centric, and the numbers are likely even lower in legal services. Firms that adapt quickly can create a huge advantage.
The other silver lining: There are trailblazers before you—ones that have created clear paths to follow when prioritizing your CX. The first step is putting a process in place to gather both numerical and anecdotal CX feedback data. Doing so will help you pinpoint and prioritize areas to improve. Susan Saltonstall Duncan, an ALA-published writer who has provided consulting services to law firms for more than 35 years, recommends gathering formal and ongoing feedback through external client interviews and surveys. She writes: “CX attributes and actions should be measured and built into employee performance evaluations. Prepare and review metrics, measurement schedules and reports.” After all, you can’t reliably improve something that you don’t measure and track.
A formal NPS-based client satisfaction survey program that’s tailored to law firms is a great way to get both quantitative and qualitative feedback. Then you can use that data to make informed CX improvements, and utilize legal NPS benchmarks to compare your progress to industry peers—not to mention building a useful library of testimonials and translating responses into online star ratings to boost your online reputation. That’s a goal worth chasing.