True and Meaningful Differentiators

Clients struggle to distinguish between most law firms on the market. They all seem to have strong pedigrees, excellent subject area experience and skilled lawyers delivering quality products in terms of technical features.

However, firms do differ substantially in terms of the quality of their service delivery, i.e., the experience the client has with the firm. For this reason, client service is regarded as a differentiator. In fact, many argue that it is one of the most important differentiators for a law firm (Bilwas, 2016).

When law firms ask for our help, they frequently request assistance with client development. As client development is a pretty broad topic, we need to drill down into their existing client development activities in order to fully understand their needs and opportunities. All too often the greatest missed opportunity is the lack of any standardized process for developing business from either (i) new clients or (ii) existing clients. The latter omission is particularly surprising as research (Strong, 2013) shows that “the chances of selling to a new customer are between 5 and 20 percent, while the probability of selling to an existing customer is between 60 and 70 percent”. To put it simply, existing clients represent the most probable source of new business for law firms.

In this blog, we will examine briefly (i) why existing clients are the best prospects for client development and (ii) what are the essential building blocks for turning existing clients into repeat customers of your firm’s services.

For law firms, training is vital. Training is used to improve the firm’s performance, help execute its business strategy, and meet its strategic goals (Becker and Huselid, 1998). In addition, training contributes to creating a sustainable competitive advantage by developing firm specific resources and capabilities that competitors find difficult to imitate (Barney, 1991).