Effective Onboarding: Setting a Foundation for Excellence in Client Service and Loyalty

Implementing a strategic onboarding initiative showcases your commitment to providing clients with the highest level of service tailored to their individual requirements. By initiating this engagement, you are exemplifying traits that clients seek in their attorneys:

• Possess an in-depth understanding of their business and grasp their objectives.
• Serve as a strategic advisor, going beyond the immediate tasks at hand.
• Exhibit high responsiveness concerning both time and the delivery of value.
• Recognize and treat them as individuals, not merely as clients.

As the adage goes, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression.” This holds undeniably true when laying the foundation for successful and enduring relationships between you and your clients. Create a positive initial impact by setting expectations and establishing norms through a well-thought-out strategic onboarding process.

Many attorneys assert, “I customize my approach and deliver nuanced counsel.” While it’s likely that many indeed provide tailored advice for each client’s specific concerns, what about their strategy for client management? Given that each client possesses a distinctive style, personality type, level of legal/business acumen, goals, and their own definition of excellence in client service, the management of the relationship also requires a nuanced approach.  The more you can understand about your client, not just the legal work at hand, the better you will be able to be of service and ensure they are a “client for life.”

Initiating a successful onboarding procedure begins with arranging a dedicated meeting to “interview” the client. This session is designed to collect pertinent information that will inform the development of a tailored approach.  Recommended themes and sample questions include:

Understand your client’s current situation by evaluating:

• Why has this client engaged me/the firm?
• What challenges are they seeking solutions for?
• What opportunities are they aiming to capitalize on?
• What are the crucial factors influencing their business/industry?

Define client’s current emotional state:

• Although it may seem a bit esoteric, understanding a client’s emotional state will help you create an approach that meets them where they are.  Clients might be in a less-than-ideal emotional condition including being anxious, concerned, uneasy, frustrated, or simply uncertain about the process and results. Your success is closely tied to your proficiency in managing and, ideally, alleviating these emotional states.
• Identify the emotional state in which each client finds themselves upon engaging the firm and determine the state they aim to be in upon completion.
• The ability to achieve this distinguishes truly exceptional attorneys from those who are proficient, hence taking your “brand” to a new level.

Align with personality types to build trust:

• Your expertise in and of itself is encouraging to them, but it is your ability to build rapport and trust that will give a big boost to your relationship with the client and go a long way in easing their uncertainties, while increasing loyalty.
• Tap your emotional intelligence to build rapport (see article – How to Enhance Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Reap The Benefits with Clients and Colleagues).  Determine the client’s preferred communication and working style based on personality types (introvert/extroverts, inductive or deductive learners/how they like to receive information, fact based or intuitive decision makers, outcome oriented, etc.).  When you align your communication and interactions with their preferred styles, they will more readily engage in a deeper relationship and enable you to foster better outcomes.  

Let’s get started…

Develop an “Intake Form” to easily gather the necessary information and provide a convenient reference document for benchmarking throughout the process.

Sample Onboarding Questions:

Know your clients’ business and goals to align strategy and legal counsel. These are inextricably linked. Ask new clients:

• What are your goals and top priorities for the year?
• What is currently impacting your business and/or legal department?
• What specific strategic business decisions is your company making as a result of the economic environment?
• What do you think will be your greatest challenges in the next 12 – 18 months (internally, market conditions, competition, etc.)?
• What is not getting addressed?
• What keeps you up at night?
• Is there anything else we can go to support you to reach your goals?

Understand client expectations by creating a “design alliance” for:

• Preferred communication methods for routine matters, time sensitive matters, key decisions, etc.  (e.g. email, phone, conference calls/videos, meetings – be very specific).
• Preferences about communication with others in the client’s organization, opposing counsel, etc.
• Progress reports/updates and cadence.
• How can I make your job easier?
• What constitutes “success” on this matter and in our relationship?
• How do you define “excellence in client service”? 
• Billing (format, updates, review against budget, projections, ensuring predictability).
• Other expectations you have of your legal counsel?

Take their pulse:

• Check in periodically to assess if the client’s expectations are being met.
• “Debrief” after key milestones.
• Plan an annual client feedback interview to elicit further information about client’s preferences and expectations, while communicating a desire to continually refine your approach to best serve clients.

Note:  The program recommendations mentioned above go beyond the existing procedural onboarding measures that law firms typically have in place, including conflict checks, engagement agreements, policies, and other required documents for representation.

For more information about client onboarding programs or for a no cost consultation on your approach to marketing, business development or practice management, contact Paige at [email protected].