Continuing this week’s theme on Attention Pollution…
Yesterday I challenged the conventional wisdom that lawyers should always be responsive to their clients.
So how can a lawyer create a good customer experience without being responsive? Easy: Be proactive instead.
You’ve probably heard that lack of lawyer communication is one of the most common sources of client dissatisfaction—and bar complaints!
So put your communication on a schedule. Depending on your practice type, every single one of your clients should be getting an update on their case anywhere from weekly to monthly. Even if what you send is a “No update update,” clients will appreciate hearing from you and seeing what is happening (or not) with their case.
Monthly updates aren’t that daunting if you stagger them: Put each client in a bucket from weeks 1 through 4, that way you wind up sending an update to 25% of them each week.
Here’s the other benefit. If you know you’re going to have to send a client an update, you (and your team) will be a lot more likely to do the things necessary to show them some progress. That makes it a win-win.
I’m posting this on the Friday before the United States’ first celebration of Juneteenth as a full-fledged national holiday. As a white dude, I found this article to be helpful for me to better understand why Juneteenth is important and how to celebrate it (h/t to Oregon State Bar President Kamron Graham).