Does your firm have a client retention strategy?

Does your law firm have a client retention strategy?

So much time and effort is spent on new client development. The national average on client attrition is between 12-15% from year to year. How does your firm compare to this average?

What is striking are the issues as to why clients leave at all. Has your firm measured the value of retaining each client %? How much would that mean to your bottom line?

According to a recent study by Lexis Nexis:

• Clients that have more than 5 partners working with them, 90% of them stayed with the firm.
• Although clients that had 100% of the work done by partners were only 50% likely to stay with the firm
• Clients that stay with a firm/ lawyer for more than a year were 80% more likely to stay with them for the long term.
• 35% of the clients that used a firm for one area of practice ceased using the firm after the issue was completed.

Bill rates had very little to do with retaining clients. Low price shoppers were more likely to leave anyway.

So when forming your client retention strategy, how do you optimize efforts? Understanding that some clients are best not held on to for a variety of reasons.

Have business conversations with business people. Are your attorneys talking with a single point of contact (General Counsel) about legal matters? Have you considered talking with the C-suite or VP of HR about their business related legal issues? May secure labor an employment work for someone in a referral network, or products liability work, or transactional work.

Establish success metrics- How do you and how does your client want the attorney/ client relationship measured? Can you discover metrics beyond wins and losses to save your client money, time, resources? What is the value of your work to your client? Is this a client that makes sense for you to retain, or is it costing you money?

Build your bench - Associates are your future partners. What is your firm’s succession strategy to get associates involved in partner matters like client development. The clients should be comfortable with the firm’s talent and resources from the receptionist to the managing partner. Free up the time for partners to do more client development. Consider what work your associates can help with and gain greater understanding around to ultimately better serve your clients?

Qualify, Qualify, Qualify… There are 2 winners in the client development game. The firm who gets the client and the firm who got out first without spending time, money, resources that could have been better spent elsewhere. If your bill rate is $650/hr and this is a prospect that won’t pay more than $500/hr, then move on to other prospects. If this is a prospect that understands the value and doesn’t treat legal work as a commodity, they will pay your bill rate.

Do you have a firm retreat coming up? Let’s discuss how to merge your marketing plan with your attorney’s client development and retention efforts through Client Development Process.

Email me at Andrew@Wilcox-legal.com. You may also visit my website http://www.wilcox-legal.com/. 850-893-8984

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