Constant Content : Legal Ghostwriting & Content : Janet Raasch : Copy for Lawyers & Attorneys, Law Firm Business Development

A couple we know started buying season subscriptions to repertory productions of the Denver Center Theater Company nearly 30 years ago -- and has resubscribed every season since.  For the past ten years, our "theater group" has grown to include five couples buying season tickets. 

When the entire group did not renew this year, our 30-year member (and group coordinator) got a call asking if we were going to resubscribe.  She said no, and that was it.  There was never a follow-up question or call to find out why -- and what the DCTC could do to change our minds.  We were a good source of revenues.  How could they not, especially in these tough ecomonic times, try to find out why we would change our minds -- after 30 years of loyalty -- and use this information to improve their product and service?

Unbelieveable.

If they'd asked, we'd have provided a good answer.  For the past five years, we have been trying to get the DCTC to work on how they schedule the plays.  Every year, we get tickets for three Saturdays in a row -- and then nothing for two months.  Couldn't they perhaps space them out better?  For five years, the DCTC has said they cannot.  Too bad.  It is just too much work for subscribers to go out to dinner as a group and then to the theater three weekends in a row.

We've come up with a solution that works well for our group -- but not for the DCTC.  Five couples, ten individuals, ten months of the year (with two months off).  Each person is assigned a month to come up with an interesting cultural activity on the third Saturday of the month (so we can plan).

This summer, we are traveling to The Santa Fe Opera to hear Natalie Dessay in her debut as Violetta in La Traviata.  Locally, we will attend the Denver Art Museum's exhibition of The Psychedelic Experience (art from the Sixties) and a Broadway touring production of August: Osage County at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.

Our tired old theater group has been reenergized as a "culture club."  Remember, your seemingly loyal clients always have a choice.

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When it comes right down to it, client service is the quality many clients use to distinguish one law firm from another.  To keep their clients happy and to differentiate themselves from the competition, an increasing number of market-savvy law firms are creating, implementing and marketing formal client service standards.  In this December 2006 article, commissioned by the Canadian Bar Association, Janet Ellen Raasch discusses ways in which progressive Canadian law firms are creating and using client service standards.

Canadian law firms using client service sgtandards to set themselves apart

Sidebar:  Basic client service standards

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If you think that most of your clients are satisfied, think again.  Research shows that law firms consistently rank themselves much more successful at client satisfaction than their clients do.  The only way to know what your clients are thinking is to ask them.  In this October 2008 article, consultant Martha Cusick Eddy discusses the results of more than 100 interviews she has conducted with in-house counsel.

Don't be an ostrich:  Ask general counsel, "How're we doing?"

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There's a maxim in commerce:  You can get it fast, you can get it good, you can get it cheap -- pick any two.  The same maxim can be applied to legal services.  In this January 2005 article, in-house counsel from four Denver companies discuss their "fast, good, cheap" expectations when dealing with outside counsel.

Fast? Good? Cheap? What inside counsel want from their outside law firms

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