How to hone your competitive advantage
There are four fundamental business habits all modern law firms should adopt: think digital-first, be client-focused, implement continuous improvement, and empower your employees, advises Osprey Approach
While all four should have a clear strategy and focus for your firm, being client-focused is an SME firm’s key competitive advantage. How you deliver your legal services, and how you make your clients feel, will help you to compete with other firms like you in your geography — according to the LPM Frontiers 2024 report, the biggest threat to your success.
And with 63% of firms planning to grow organically over the next five years, as the LexisNexis Bellwether report found, now is the time to invest in your strategy to differentiate yourself.
Four best practices from the sector’s experts
Industry experts and former leaders share their best practices on Osprey Approach’s Empowering Law Firm Leaders podcast. Below are four strategies to elevate your client experience and help you win business from the competition, from experts who have been there and done it!
Commit to a service pledge
“Your happy client will become part of your salesforce and marketing efforts.”
Simon McCrum, former managing partner of the UK’s fastest-growing law firm, emphasises the importance of a service pledge, which is a promise of how you’ll commit to your client. A service pledge is an agreement between all employees, which forms part of your brand, your culture, and the goal you’re all striving towards.
The commitment ensures consistency and excellence for the client, and tech is the enabler of standardisation and quality. Using tech tools can reduce human errors, ensure reliability, speed up processes, and free your team up to deliver the type of service that you’ve committed to.
Prioritise data to enable tech
“Data is about helping technology – help you – to take away the mental calorie load, because all lawyers want to do is get on with the work.”
CJ Anderson, former head of information at a leading global law firm, states that effectively using and reusing data enables teams to progress their work faster. Employees and clients shouldn’t have to work hard to get the data they need.
But CJ warns that “many issues with tech implementations come down to the data that’s input into them.” This is where a data governance framework can help you to manage and use your data to improve tech utilisation.
Empower leaders at all levels
“You need to create leaders at all levels of the business because that’s where you get the drive to move forward.”
Ian Hopkins, former managing partner and chief executive at firms across the UK, emphasises the importance of clear communication to empower leaders to deliver with clear goals and objectives.
Empowering leaders at all levels helps to ensure the service pledge you’ve committed to is being upheld and delivered. Access to the right data can inform leaders of trends and opportunities to help drive teams in the right direction.
Align your success measures
“Often, success measures don’t review the quality of the work that’s being delivered.”
Simon Tupman, non-practising solicitor and consultant to many firms across the globe, highlights that ineffective success measures can lead to wrong decisions being made. It’s important to consider whether your KPIs and targets are aligned to your firm’s values and service pledge.
External feedback helps to shape internal thinking, and success measures should track client satisfaction and service-quality goals, not simply billing-output measures. Continuous feedback and monitoring informs leaders to make the right improvements, use the right tech tools, and invest in the right resources to stay competitive.
