EDITORIAL

Hello, how may I get rid of you?

'We don't speak to the general public.' This is not an especially wise approach from any service-orientated business.

From a solicitors' firm - even a major company/commercial practice that normally deals with corporate clients - it is hardly the best of public relations gambits.

Yet this was exactly the response given by one practice to researchers surveying the telephone and switchboard management skills of big law firms.

It is ironic that this survey, albeit small, coincides with the Law Society's major launch of its customer charter.

While that charter advises against the use of legal jargon, 'we don't speak to the general public' is presumably not the sort of plain speaking it has in mind.

The purpose of the charter is both to provide practical information to law firm clients and to debunk the perception that lawyers are aloof and pretentious.

As the telephone survey sponsor, Gazette columnist Charles Christian, points out, law firms spend huge amounts on marketing and customer relationship management software.

That expenditure will be squandered if firms don't get the basics right.

And one of the key basics is listening to potential clients when they call - or they may not call a second time.