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"Communication is of the essence. We want to give our views on the billing, for example, and what worked and what did not. We owe this to each other in the relationship, just as I would do with my staff." — MARTINE TURCOTTE, BELL CANADA their relationship to the client is very personal. It is easier for us to get informal feedback, and the fact that our clients come back to us is a good indicator as to how they feel about our service." Most consultants and firms are likely to agree that clients appreciate being asked. Martine Turcotte, executive vice Tips for successful client feedback Make someone at your firm responsible for complaints and make sure all clients know how to reach this person. Doing so allows people to feel like they can communicate with someone in charge without jeopardizing the relationship with their lawyer. When every mandate is complete, send clients a questionnaire from the firm itself and not from the lawyer involved. Allow them to answer anonymously, if they prefer. Set up a client advisory committee, hold free seminars, and have clients register for your publications online. All of these are easy to do and lead to great client feedback. Not all surveys cost a lot of time and money. Create questions you would most like to know the answers to and put them online. Then send an e-mail to clients you want to reach and invite them to complete the survey. Make certain the information you gather is shared with everyone at the firm. Otherwise, changes will not be made at all levels. — AC president and chief legal and regulatory officer at Bell Canada, has provided formal feedback to roughly three out of the six firms Bell uses on a regular basis, including McCarthy Tétrault LLP. Turcotte says the firms come to see her annually, but "if we're really unhappy, we don't wait for them. We tell them right away. If something doesn't work, it has to be raised early on. That is part of good communication." Turcotte is very much in favour of annual audits. "They allow for a more long-term relationship discussion. It is important to tell them the good and the constructive. It is good for the firm to hear it as it is." However, she also believes in informal feedback, either quarterly and after every mandate is complete. "Communication is of the essence. We want to give our views on the billing, for example, and what worked and what did not. We owe this to each other in the relationship, just as I would do with my staff." She also says these evaluations are not a one-way street. "There are times when we could have done things in a different way. We need to learn from them as well. It is a dialogue." Whether you employ a formal or informal system, the cost of obtaining feedback depends on how complex the answers are. There are no real technical or financial barriers to gathering this kind of information, according to Stock. You don't need experts to set up basic surveys. "Simply pre-select clients that you need input from and aim for 70-per-cent compliance." Once you have the data, it has to be analyzed to see if there are issues, trends, and opportunities to be had. "It takes a couple of days to interpret the information," he says. "It can be done internally or by a smart consultant. The real art is in the design of the questions and the conduct of the interviews. The analysis is easy after that." A firm can have a good analysis conducted by an outside firm, without recommendations, for under $25,000, says Stock. An analysis tells you what the data is and what it means; recommendations tell you what to do with the information. As BLG's Hughes puts it, "We don't call [asking for feedback] a cost; we call it a non-billable investment in our clients." Says Monat: "Value for the client is not giving them more copies of their contracts. They want you to be their adviser and confidant. They want to feel like if they are struggling with an idea, they are able to talk to you for 10 minutes without the meter running. So instead of investing so much time and money in totally useless public relations and marketing activities, invest that money in this kind of relationship. Invest one hour of your time to have lunch with the client. Yes, a free lunch." www. C ANADIAN Law ye rmag.com M AY 2010 35 doing? am I How