When it comes to tracking metrics for your firm, you may be used to cold, objective numbers with dollar signs in front of them. But right here in the middle of our KPI framework, there’s a category that’s much more subjective and a little bit different from the rest: client experience.
We all want to know how our clients feel about us and our services, and we need to know in order to keep providing great service and growing our firms. Let’s take a look at how we track client experience and why it matters.
The KPI: Client Satisfaction
One of the simplest KPIs for this category is client satisfaction. And while it’s true that this category is a bit more subjective, it’s also critical to your success. How your clients feel about your firm makes all the difference in how many of them return and how much positive word of mouth you’ll get.
How to track it
Tracking customer satisfaction starts with a survey. You’ll need to follow up with clients soon after they’ve worked with you to see how the experience was and collect feedback. This could be a very simple “satisfied/unsatisfied” question or something more involved that allows you to collect open-ended comments and feedback. The latter can make it much easier to pinpoint why they rated you the way they did.
If you have a binary yes or no survey, you can simply track the percentage who are satisfied with your firm. If you use something like a scale of 1-10 for different areas of service (i.e. response time, expertise, successful resolution of their issue, etc.) you can track the average score in each section. Long-form answers aren’t included in the tracking but can be very helpful in finding trends and putting language to how your clients feel.
Why it matters
Customer satisfaction is a key part of building a sustainable firm. If your clients walk away less than happy, the supply of new prospects will dry up sooner than you think. Although many firms don’t track this, I guarantee the successful ones do.
Imagine finding out that many of your clients were unhappy with their phone contact with your firm and found it hard to reach someone. If your existing clients feel that way, how many prospects did you lose to that same problem? Tracking satisfaction is a great way to identify problems and compare over time. This gives you a chance to make changes and find out where you really need to focus your energy.
If you need help setting up systems to track your KPIs or knowing what to do with that information once you have it, give us a call. We’d love to discuss how your firm can grow and profit from working with the law firm accounting specialists.
