With an hour to kill at the dentist on Monday, with my son in the hot seat, I took along a little light reading – the recent YouGov survey results published on behalf of the Legal Services Board. There is comparatively little hard statistical consumer data available for professional services, so I was intrigued about what might be revealed.

The LSB press release and the Gazette headline both focused on the fact that most consumers don’t know what lawyers do. The actual question asked respondents ‘How much knowledge do you have about what lawyers do in general?’ Only 11% of respondents answered that they ‘didn’t know’ or had ‘no knowledge at all’. The remaining 89% had a ‘little knowledge’(58%), a ‘fair amount’ (28%) or a ‘great deal’ (4%). Isn’t a little knowledge enough?

I considered what the orthodontist might be doing to my son’s teeth and thought that I knew very little, and I was happy enough. He had been recommended by a friend who, and from what little I do know of the dental profession, would have trained for many years and been closely supervised before being allowed to practise.

A later question asked ‘...Imagine that you were unsatisfied with the service provided by a lawyer. Would you know how to go about making a complaint...’. Some 66% of respondents replied that they would not know how, and I reflected that this was probably a good thing. I am only familiar with the process for holiday complaints as I have had two bad experiences which have involved several months’ work in obtaining a refund. I would be happier if I had not acquired that knowledge and hope that I will not need to become familiar with the process for complaints regarding dentistry.

Interestingly, the survey did not ask the consumer if they had ever complained about legal advice or why. It did ask about levels of satisfaction and received a very positive response overall with only 10% of respondents saying that they were ‘dissatisfied’ or ‘very dissatisfied’. Backing this up, 67% of respondents were ‘fairly likely’ or ‘very likely’ to recommend the lawyer that they had used to a friend.

Another piece of good news (for the moment) was that 77% of respondents did not shop around and did not want to or need to.

The survey contains a great deal more interesting information, and it will be interesting to hear if there are plans to repeat this and how often in order to establish trends. I can think of a number of other questions that I would like to have included – as may readers of the In Business blog. Suggestions please?