So, you think you know what your clients think?
Many firms are eager to discover how satisfied their clients are, often using metrics like Net Promoter Score (NPS) to gauge success. A survey sent by the firm, often in the wake of a piece of work being finished, will ask clients to score its services. NPS ratings provide an indication of how likely clients are to recommend that firm to others based on their experience.
Any score above zero is a small win – a pat on the back for your firm and team. It confirms you have more clients who would recommend you than those who definitely wouldn’t (a NPS below zero would indicate the opposite).
But are you really winning if you’re not viewing these scores in a broader, market context?
Numbers are meaningless in a vacuum
Remember back in school when the mathematics teacher would hand around marked tests with a percentage number on the front?
You’d glance at the red pen denoting your score – 70 per cent – you passed! However, that happy result could soon become a frustrating one if you looked around the room and saw your classmates achieving upwards of 80 per cent. Alternatively, you’d be celebrating if everyone else scored in the 50s and 60s. The same principle applies for feedback and NPS ratings in professional services firms.
Beaton data in the graph below shows Net Promoter Scores have risen steadily over the last decade across each of the professions we track. If you’ve been tracking your firm’s own NPS internally and it has risen in recent years then that is good news, but have you kept up with the rate of improvement across your profession?
Charmian Holmes, Partner at The Fold Legal, explains why it is crucial for her firm to view client satisfaction data in context.
“It is important for our entire team to understand what we are doing well, and what our areas for improvement are as compared to our competitors and the broader legal community. This enables our team to better articulate and differentiate The Fold’s service offering to clients, as well as giving us competitive advantage,” she says.
Identifying and acting on this competitive advantage appears to have worked for The Fold Legal: it recently won the 2022 Client Choice Awards for Best Banking & Finance Firm (less than $30m revenue) as well as Best Insurance Law Firm.
“We don’t share competitor benchmarking results externally with clients, as we prefer to articulate how we can add the most value to their business with reference to our niche expertise, industry knowledge, and client service delivery, rather than by comparison to other firms,” Charmian adds.
Objective market feedback is the only type worth your time
Like grading your own mathematics test scores, it’s hard for firms to measure validly their own success. Clients can sometimes be reluctant to offer honest feedback when directly questioned by the firm they employ. An independent party like Beaton can help overcome this hurdle as well as being able to provide the comparison data.
Andrew Poole, Chief Executive at MinterEllisonRuddWatts, explains why his firm prefers to outsource client feedback collection.
“Objective market feedback is invaluable to our firm – it provides insight that shapes our business now, and for the future,” Poole says.
The information we gain from Beaton offers unbiased insights into what matters most to our clients, supporting our ambition to become trusted advisors. We know from the insights that Beaton provides us that our clients choose us for two standout reasons: we bring industry expertise to the table, and we are easy to work with.
MinterEllisonRuddWatts has been able to act on this feedback and the results speak for themselves: the firm was named Best Provider to Financial & Insurance Services at the 2022 Client Choice Awards. Client Choice Awards are judged entirely by client feedback submitted externally to a third party; Beaton.
Collecting feedback externally, and measuring it against the market, offers firms like Poole’s an unbiased reflection on what is working or not.
To find out more about Beaton’s benchmarking products and how they can benefit your organisation please visit our Competitor benchmarking page or contact us to discuss your options with a Beaton partner.