Sue Bramall's blogs

We all love to moan about budget airlines and their deceptive online pricing strategies for adding taxes, fees and charges.

They are no longer allowed to keep taxes as an unpleasant surprise until the last moment when you are about to enter your credit card details, but they do still try and add an unexpected charge for using your credit card. Earlier this year the Office of Fair Trading put passenger travel companies on notice to change misleading debit and credit card surcharging practices or face enforcement action under consumer protection laws.

This summer, I was particularly annoyed when the company that we booked our family holiday with tried to charge us extra for sitting with the rest of our party on the flight. This sort of thing just leaves a bad taste in your mouth and undoubtedly diminished my opinion of their reputation.

Towards the end of last year, an OFT study on price advertising methods showed many high street stores and service providers, including airlines, were making misleading offers to shoppers. Traders were described as employing underhand tactics to make their prices look competitive in defiance of guidelines from the OFT guidelines.

What has all this to do with the legal profession, you may ask?

Well, unless someone can tell me when a lasting power of attorney might be VAT deductible for an elderly pensioner, then it seems that many law firms may be perceived to be employing slightly underhand tactics to make their prices look competitive when quoting for private client services.

An elderly relative called me to sound me out about the cost of a joint lasting power of attorney and described the conversation with her solicitor like this: 'They said it would cost £450 each, but with a 25% discount for two, plus VAT and it would cost £125 each for certification.'

The mind latches on to the words £450, so when the total amounts to much more, it feels like seeing a flight advertised for £29.99 but finding it will actually cost £79.99.

Grabbing my ever-handy calculator, I worked this out at a total of £810 for the LPAs, but we were uncertain about whether or not to add VAT to the certification or when that might be payable, so had to go back for clarification.

An alternative approach might have been: 'A single LPA costs £540, but if you make two at the same time then the total is just £810, so just £405 each and this includes the VAT.'

I decided to phone a few other firms and got a very similar approach. I understand that there is an argument for quoting like this because 'competitors do it' but, while no-one is trying to deceive or hide anything, the total price is not entirely clear and I would argue that this is not behaving in a way that 'maintains the trust the public places in you and in the provision of legal services', and it is more likely to leave a bad taste.

I was not surprised to read that the results of the Legal Services Consumer Panel’s mystery-shopping investigation into wills indicating varying quality among qualified and unqualified providers. Sadly, it seems the good-quality samples do not generate the same media coverage as those below standard – as is best practice in mystery shopping. Given this sort of coverage, is it any wonder that the profession is nervous about mystery shopping?

Qualifications and training are rarely the only drivers of quality of service. There are many factors to take into account, not least the attitude of the individual fee-earner. Who was it that first said 'hire for attitude, train for skill'?

An individual’s personality and attitude will play a vital role in how well they listen to a client, and understand their needs, concerns and long-term objectives before translating that into the draft legal document. An individual’s attitude to the use of plain English will affect how user-friendly the document is.

Mystery shopping is an ideal way of assessing these very subjective, but important, attributes of service – as well as of testing legal expertise.

While the sample of 101 wills was not large, it has clearly been a useful exercise in identifying common problems across a range of providers. I imagine that it has also identified some shining examples of good practice, but sadly these have not been hitting the headlines.

Another vital step in driving quality is setting desired minimum and target standards. Mystery-shopping techniques used mainly in other industries allow you to develop very sophisticated scoring matrices which may be used to drive forward every aspect of service.

Sadly, whenever I mention mystery shopping it often gets a less than enthusiastic reception. Some fee-earners see it as a waste of their time. Others are fearful of negative results and how they will be handled.

The results of mystery shopping activities should be used as a carrot rather than a stick - and a small number of forward-looking law firms have woken up to this. Recognise and reward those who do well - but have a quiet word and provide coaching for those with scope for improvement.

This is certainly how it is used in many consumer organisations, who do much more than pay lip service to the importance of quality control. How can you maintain or improve quality if you never really measure it?

Consider the Michelin star system for restaurants. Hotels or restaurants that wish to be recognised for quality actively volunteer to be mystery-shopped. I wonder if many law firms would be interested in such a programme!

Sue Bramall is director of Berners Marketing and former head of business development at Pinsent Masons

Are you in marketing budget limbo-land? Perhaps, you submitted your 2011 marketing budget for approval last year, but do not expect to hear what and how much has been approved for at least a month, maybe longer?

Or maybe you are just starting the planning process for the next financial year?

With all expenditure under the microscope, how do you ensure that your marketing budget is planned and spent wisely to generate the maximum return on investment? Here are some top tips for 2011.

First of all start with a clean sheet of paper; resist the temptation to start with last year’s budget.

Think about your headline objectives, and make a broad allocation accordingly. For example, if you wish to focus on developing 50% of new business from existing clients, then around half of the budget should be allocated to client-facing activities rather than prospecting.

Make sure you have a system that measures enquiries, whether by telephone, email or referral. Receptionists usually record all incoming calls, so they just need to record one more valuable piece of information: 'Where did you hear of us?'

Via your new client reporting, you should be able to track your conversion rate – the percentage of enquiries that sign up to become clients.

For example, Yellow Pages can be a huge item of expenditure. Do you know precisely how many clients you receive from this each year? How does the cost per client from Yellow Pages compare with the cost per client from pay-per-click, the annual golf day or referral fees, if paid?

Armed with this information you will clearly be able to see which marketing activities yield the most enquiries and which of these translate to the most lucrative work.

Both measures are important, as a high volume of low-value web enquiries is not as attractive as a small number of say high-value referrals.

Identify the three main activities that must happen this year and make sure that they are funded accordingly.

Make sure departments back up the budget requests with a clear plan, dates and responsibilities – one page should suffice.

Set policies against which you can assess opportunistic budget requests during the year. This will help to deflect those persistent advertising sales executives.

Try not to fall into the trap of spreading a limited budget among too many for the sake of fairness. A ‘spray and pray’ approach will achieve little if resources are spread too thinly.

Keep it concise. A one page A4 spreadsheet with 12 columns (one for each month plus total) with rows for each activity is easy to monitor.

Sue Bramall is director of Berners Marketing and former head of business development at Pinsent Masons

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Three articles in the 14 October edition of the Gazette made me wonder why the word ‘sales’ is still rarely used within the profession.

Page 1: Accountants to apply for probate rights
Accountants have simply spotted an obvious sales opportunity and are seeking to take advantage of it. Are solicitors looking for similar opportunities?

A good accountant, who has taken an active interest in the affairs of their high-net-worth clients for many years, will see probate as a natural extension of the service that they currently provide. It is a way of adding another string to their bow. It provides clients with a seamless service.

From their position, accountants will have a clear sales advantage over lawyers and even the likes of the Co-op who sell probate along with wills and funeral plans. They see their clients much more frequently than lawyers tend to do, if only to prepare their annual tax return, are more proactive at suggesting planning opportunities. They are also more adept at cross-selling.

Page 2: Profession 'inherently masculine'
There has been a great deal of coverage about the inequalities within the legal profession, but little coverage of ‘diverse’ professionals who are successful and why. In my experience, the successful professionals are good salespeople (the term 'rainmakers' tends to be used), but this is rarely mentioned and I am not aware of any studies into this in the UK, although there is some in the US.

When working with good rainmakers, I have often found them to have some sales experience. I recall one very successful corporate finance partner who financed his student travels in the southern hemisphere with a holiday job selling paintings door to door. He said that ‘once you have experienced that sort of rejection, there is nothing to fear in picking up the phone’.
Another successful female partner told me of her student holiday job in one of the major electrical retailers where the sales culture and performance rewards had influenced her approach to business development (another euphemism for ‘sales’).

Page 12: Ticking the boxes is no longer enough
How can a student, such as Carly Moore-Martin, differentiate themselves from 300 other students with a similar degree and an impressive array of extra-curricular activities and interests?

Put yourselves in the shoes of the employer. Of course, you need someone who knows the law, but you can take your pick of those. Your other objectives will be to build a profitable practice in the face of growing competition. So all other things being equal, a candidate with sales and marketing skills is going to stand out from the rest. Alternatively, if you operate in particular target markets, a candidate with knowledge, experience and contacts within that sector will be more attractive.

Is a reticence to embrace and recognise the importance of sales making it easy for competitors to enter the legal market?

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