InsideCounsel » August 2007
Top 10 Client Service Best Practices
We asked readers to tell us about their best practices for keeping their clients happy. They provided dozens of ideas, topped by the following 10.
Be Accessible
Client service isn’t brain surgery. Our readers’ top client service best practice is very simple — answer your phone.
Just making yourself available when your client calls or stops by your office goes a long way toward building a strong partnership with business units.
“Be there. Accessibility and availability are the key ingredients to this relationship,” says Elizabeth Robertson, manager of the legal unit at Canal Insurance Co.
Answering the phone is important because it’s an outward sign that helping clients is your priority.
“Client service is in-house counsel’s reason for existing,” Robertson says. “Our purpose and our mission is to service the client.”
Respond Promptly
When you have a thousand matters to worry about, it’s easy to let non-crisis requests languish at the bottom of your inbox.
But clients expect a prompt response, whether it’s a quick return phone call to answer a question or a lengthy opinion on a complex legal issue.
Triaging requests appropriately means identifying the client’s deadline expectations and then meeting that turnaround timeframe.
“Lawyers need to be able to move at the pace of business, not the other way around,” says Mark
Weintrub, senior vice president and chief legal officer of General Nutrition Centers.
Learn The Business
Knowing the law is one thing. Understanding the business is quite another. And effective client service requires both.
