Results from nearly 2,000 members of the public on their experience with UK law firms via the Law League survey system.
As the season for performance management increases - it is interesting to check just what your clients think of you. This survey is quite heart-warming - but don't get complacent!
YouGov Sixth Sense recently conducted a survey finding that just 20% of law firm customers were asked to complete satisfaction surveys in the last three years. Law League is a specialist survey and benchmarking firm, providing client feedback surveys to UK law firms. Questions cover Performance, Fees, Compliance and Marketing and each firm’s results are anonymously benchmarked against their peers’.
In a similar sized sample to the YouGov survey you covered, Law League took a snap shot of the survey system on 23 April 2013 and analysed data from 1,906 client feedback surveys.
Customers across the UK were asked a range of questions covering how satisfied they were with their legal representative, the clarity of communications, the speed of response to queries, how they were treated, the fees involved, plus marketing related questions such as why they instructed a firm, if they would recommend them and so on.
Key findings were:
• 76% said they were ‘very satisfied’ overall with the service provided by their law firm
• The top three areas of satisfaction were:
1. That the legal representative understood their needs
2. That the firm’s staff were friendly and approachable
3. That they were satisfied with their legal representative
• When asked how satisfied the customer was when it came to the firm providing ‘value for money’ results showed 87% satisfaction rating*
• Customers were least satisfied with their firm’s ‘speed of response’ (83% satisfaction rating*)
• Out of those who answered whether they would recommend their law firm to friends or colleagues, 98% said they would.
• The three top reasons for survey respondents using a firm were:
1. Recommendation by family/friend: 31%
2. Professional recommendation: 20%
3. Previous experience: 19%
• When asked why a customer would not use a law firm again, 20% said it would due to ‘Existing Relationship elsewhere’ suggesting that providing a better than average client experience could help to keep customers rather than see them use an alternative firm.
• Customers were also asked about the best way for firms to stay in touch. It may be of interest to law firms that 29% of customers who responded to this question indicated that Newsletters were a ‘Waste of Time’. The best way to stay in touch with these customers was via email with 50% saying that this was ‘Very Relevant’.
*These are satisfaction percentage ratings calculated by the weighting of the satisfaction scale of Very Satisfied/Fairly Satisfied/Neither/Fairly Dissatisfied/Very Dissatisfied/Not Applicable/Don’t Know. It indicates an overall score. The question ‘How satisfied were you with the speed of our responses to your queries?’ elicited an overall score of 83/100 for satisfaction.
If you would like to know more about Law League, and their clever client survey system, please contact us to speak to Andrew Roberts. 020 7565 7547.
happy days!