Customer focus – the basics of customer care in law firms

Customer care merits being tackled in a structured sort of way. An approach that was developed at the HSG has turned out to be particularly helpful, both in the classroom and in practical consultation.

Integrated approach to client focus

Before we deal with this six-step approach, I would like to say a few words about the term “client”. The term, which derives from the Latin cliens – a plebeian under the protection of a patrician – is attested as meaning “a lawyer’s customer” from about 1400 onwards. Its use is thus a convention, no more; when all is said and done, lawyers have customers just like building contractors or retailers.

Significantly, though, it is the free professions such as doctors or, well, lawyers which emphasise an expertise gap between themselves and their customers with terms such as “patients” or “clients”. If we think about how we want to strengthen our relationship with the purchasers of our services and to align our law firms with demand requirements, this isn’t particularly helpful. The term “customer” puts us on a substantially more equal footing! Therefore I’d like to suggest: let’s talk about “customers” rather than “clients” in this small series of blog posts on customer focus!

In my next blog post, I would like to deal with the first step of the approach presented in the above graph: on the identification of customer requirements.