Why an Unhappy Client Should Make You Happy

I want happy clients. I want to feel that we did a good job for them and met their needs. I need them to tell their friends and family about us to help us build our practices. I love  the warm feeling I get when I hear about the positive comments they made about us in the community.

Things happen during the course of every engagement that cause the client concern. Left unaddressed those concerns fester. Several minor incidents can result in a client growing unhappy, feeling dissatisfied and, possibly, finding other counsel.

Many clients simply won’t tell us when they’re distressed with our work. They’ll suffer in silence and some will simply notify us that they’ve found other counsel without ever complaining.

Obviously, we can’t address the growing concern of a client if we don’t know they’re getting unhappy.

And that’s why you should be happy about knowing a client is unhappy. If you don’t know you can’t fix it. Obviously, it would be nice to never have an unhappy client, but, realistically, there are going to be some unhappy folks.

Your mission – to find out who’s unhappy and fix it.

How can we find out? Well, we can ask. A simple question – like “how are you feeling about things?” can do the trick. It opens the door for them to communicate their issues. In our firm we have someone call every client, every thirty days, to check and make sure they’re feeling good about things.

Another avenue for finding unhappy, but uncomplaining clients, is to encourage everyone to report complaints. By everyone, I mean, everyone. Encourage clients to report their issues. Mention it at the initial consultation, put it in the client agreement and send email reminders periodically.

Go further with your staff. Ask “everyone” to report unhappiness to a central reporter. Our receptionists are our best source of unhappiness detection. Unhappy clients are usually willing to tell the receptionist when they’re frustrated about not getting their attorney on the phone or upset about something that’s going on in their case.

We ask the receptionists to send an email to our person that collects the data. He keeps a list, circulated weekly, of all clients that are expressing concern. He alerts everyone involved, immediately, and we go to work to turn the client around.

When we first launched our program for finding the unhappiness our lawyers felt like they were being checked up on. They didn’t like it.

We worked hard to help them understand that they couldn’t fix a problem they didn’t know they had. We explained that we gather the information so they can correct the situation. We evaluate our effectiveness after the case is closed, not during the representation. We use the data gathered during the representation only to help the attorney know they need to address the problem.

So next time you get a message from an unhappy client – Rejoice. Be excited by the challenge and appreciate that the client is giving you a chance to repair the damage before they move on to trashing you to others. Their unhappiness really is your opportunity to protect your reputation and grow your practice.

Related articles:

1. How Much Does a Lost Client Cost You?
2. 3 Steps to Very Happy Clients
3. How To Find The Opposing Party on Facebook
4. How Did You Get Your First Client?
5. Why Do Some Crappy Lawyers Have Happy Clients?

Post written by Lee Rosen on September 29, 2009 in Management, Marketing