Time for solicitors to reinvent their customer services

In a rapidly changing market it can often help to look at other businesses and economies for an indication of how things might develop. A recent article in the Economist magazine on innovation in emerging country economies had some interesting parallels with the challenges facing the current UK legal sector.

The example they started with is a classic business school case study that covers the development of the Japanese car industry. That development eventually humbled its mighty US competition that some thought invincible. The Economist article continues to look at how emergent market countries are now doing the same in many industries and service sectors.

The analysis fits the current legal services sector in many ways that provide some useful clues towards ways to develop solicitors’ firms. To apply the parallels, the majority of solicitors firms supply complex, high-cost solutions from an historic position of a protected industry, where the industry itself was the main focus of the business. Consumers are asked to fit into the legal system and often ‘get what they’re given’. This set-up has satisfied customers requirements over the years because they have little alternative.

As we know the position has changed and that change will continue. What can the UK legal services industry learn from their example? Japanese car suppliers delivered cheap reliable cars. And emerging economies are now producing laptop computers and other consumer electronics at often a third of current prices. This is achieved not just because local labour is cheap but because they continuously redevelop or entirely reinvent the methods of production that deliver the benefits to customers. This focus on customers’ needs and requirements is used to drive development in the business.

Comments on the perceived low quality of the products or services may be a valid criticism. However, customers make the choices and will go with the services that they perceive will conveniently satisfies their needs at the lowest cost.

While this suggests radical change is needed, this is not a concept that solicitors are often comfortable with. I would suggest that in most firms this radical approach is not that far from the current delivery of client service. What is missing is the management or marketing skills needed to achieve change and the willingness of the firm to reinvent and redesign the way they deliver value to their clients. There are an increasing number of tools and techniques available to assist firms to avoid becoming the nearly dead dinosaur that the US car industry became. Changing the way a firm works is always going to be more easily achieved if the firm drives the process forward itself, as opposed to a firm having to react to survive in a changed market. Time is now in short supply especially if your firm is near a Co-op outlet . Start now to think how everyone in your firm could be a fee-earner.