[00:00:00]
[00:00:07] Scott Benton: Hey everyone, Scott Benton here. How are you? I’m the host of the Classroom 2 Courtroom podcast where we help you easily transition from law school student into your professional career as an attorney. And where we make the practice of law fun. We are here to teach you everything that law school doesn’t teach you about practicing law so that once you’ve graduated past the bar and stepped into your first job as an attorney, you’re going to be a rock star.
[00:00:32] Scott Benton: And today we’re going to answer the question of What is the number one client complaint? What’s the number one client complaint?
[00:01:00]
[00:01:28] Scott Benton: Now, when things are going well for you and when they’re going well for your client and when you’ve built a strong relationship that your client has reached a level of trust with you, that they’re willing to tell you any small detail about their case and dig deeper into their memories themselves than even you’re asking them to do.
[00:01:47] Scott Benton: Those kind of cases can be extremely rewarding for both you and your client. And if you win the case and your client walks away with monetary rewards, that’s going to be icing on the cake. And you should [00:02:00] be lucky to have all your cases play out as well. And they can. The better you get at mastering the skills it takes to become proficient and excellent at practicing law, you’re going to see that more of your cases day after day are going to be like that case I just described.
[00:02:16] Scott Benton: However, not all cases are going to be as ideal as a case like that. Clients Instead, will sometimes grow dissatisfied with their legal service that they perceive that they’re getting, and in fact, they’re going to stop communicating with their attorney. They’re not going to answer the phone calls when they come in.
[00:02:32] Scott Benton: A lot of times, phone calls don’t come in for them. One of the reasons why they back off from those legal services. They’re not going to respond to texts if you send them or emails. They just are going to get to a point where they stop communicating completely. And I would assume. That they’re either going to stop pursuing their legal objectives altogether, or they’re just simply going to go find another attorney to work with, someone who’s going to communicate with them a little bit more.
[00:02:57] Scott Benton: So for those clients who do become [00:03:00] dissatisfied with their attorney, regardless of whether they disengage from the process or if they stick it out, they can stick it out and they still can be dissatisfied with the service. There’s a number one complaint that tends to come up, and that’s what we’re going to talk about on this podcast.
[00:03:14] Scott Benton: You want to know what that number one complaint is so that you can help spot it when it’s beginning to develop and you can mitigate the potential cases that are soon going to start to go unfunded and Don’t forget that cases are the lifeblood of the work that you do as an attorney. They’re the lifeblood of a firm.
[00:03:33] Scott Benton: Alright, so the number one complaint that’s going to cause clients to stop working with their attorney, or that they’re going to call into the firm and complain about regarding the work with their attorney it’s very simply, it’s this. The firm charged me a lot of money and they didn’t do anything. Now why would a client say something like this if they’re getting their billing statements every couple of weeks that documents down to the tenth of an [00:04:00] hour the work that’s been done? Even if they see proof in their billing statements that work’s getting done, they’re still going to feel like nothing’s happening and they’re going to feel that way because Really for a couple of reasons.
[00:04:11] Scott Benton: Also, like with billing statements, clients typically aren’t necessarily going to be able to read or understand them. Those billing entries should be written so they can be understood by your client, but a lot of times clients law can be a language that a lot of people don’t have. And so there are words and terms and concepts that people are going to have a hard time connecting with.
[00:04:33] Scott Benton: So reading a billing statement, it should be easy. It’s something that we’ll talk about in other podcast episodes. But for the most part, clients just consider they may not understand what’s in the billing statement. But there are a couple of other reasons. You know why they’re going to start to disengage now.
[00:04:50] Scott Benton: First, a lot of times this is going to be the first time a client has hired an attorney and they’re just simply they’re unfamiliar with the legal process and because no [00:05:00] one has really communicated with them directly on the phone or by email. If they can’t see work getting done, like physically see it or they don’t hear about it from you as their attorney, person to person, they’re just, they’re gonna naturally come to the conclusion that nothing’s happening and that they’re getting maybe taken advantage of because they hear they just keep paying out money, but they’re not really seeing any results.
[00:05:25] Scott Benton: Cases can take a long time to make it through the legal landscape, and during that time, clients are, they’re paying for legal services, but they’re really not seeing any kind of return on that money that they’re putting out. There’s this expectation that if you’re going to pay out money for a case that there’s going to be a return and sometimes clients are going to view legal expenditures as an investment in their future.
[00:05:51] Scott Benton: So if they’ve hired you because they’re, let’s say, part of an estate or a trust that somehow they got excluded from and they [00:06:00] haven’t yet received anything, then they’re only going to see money going out and they’re not going to see anything coming back in. So without proper and really constant communication with your client about the status of their case from their point of view, nothing’s happening, nothing at all.
[00:06:17] Scott Benton: It’s going to be a dynamic that you want to protect yourself against. By making sure that they know with certainty that a lot of work in fact is getting done on their case. So it’s not enough that it’s showing up on the billing statement. They really need to hear from you directly. So this is where you’re really going to start to leverage your relationship building skills.
[00:06:39] Scott Benton: And this is where things like status reports come into play. So it’s not enough to just, like I said, send a billing statement and just expect your client To understand it, you must communicate with them directly and often, and you’ve got to make sure they know about the work that’s getting done on their case [00:07:00] in order to move it forward.
[00:07:02] Scott Benton: This is also where the idea of continuous selling comes into play. And as you get deeper into your career as an attorney, you’re going to see that every communication with a client, that you want to have the ability to find opportunities in those communications, whether it’s on the phone or in person or status report or in an email or whatever, that you’re reminding them of the value of their case and the eventual reward that they stand to walk away with so that they do see the expenditures that they’re making right now on your legal services are going to eventually have a return.
[00:07:41] Scott Benton: But if they forget about the value of the case. All they’re going to do is they’re just going to start to see that deficit out of their account, that debit, every single time that they make it to the law firm. Now, sometimes people want items that are from their grandparents, let’s say, and they, sometimes these things, sometimes they have value, but sometimes they literally [00:08:00] have no value out on the open market.
[00:08:03] Scott Benton: If they were to sell those items, but because of the feelings and emotions that they’ve attached to those items from their parents or their grandparents, or maybe there’s some kind of family heirloom that’s been in the family for decades or even centuries that those items can have a tremendous amount of value.
[00:08:22] Scott Benton: So you want to really highlight those why reasons that they’re pursuing their legal goals. You really want to push that idea, the why will you want, this T set that your great grandmother had and handed it down to your grandmother and she handed it down to your mother And now it’s being handed down to you.
[00:08:41] Scott Benton: So providing the value of their case to them and where you are in the process and showing them that actual work is being done. That’s a powerful form of selling that will keep your client moving forward and it won’t leave them in a space where they feel as if [00:09:00] they spent a lot of money for nothing.
[00:09:02] Scott Benton: So I hope that’s helpful, and I hope that’s useful information. My name is Scott Benton. I’m the host of the Classroom to Courtroom podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Now, if this is information that you’re finding valuable, that’s going to help you make that transition from law student to legal professional, and you want to get alerted every time we put out a new episode, you can go to our website.
[00:09:23] Scott Benton: Our website is classroom2courtroom. com. That’s classroom, the number two, courtroom. com. You can sign up to receive. email notifications or other notifications. That way you’re not going to miss out on any of this valuable material that we’re putting together for you to help you go from classroom to courtroom as quickly and easily as possible.
[00:09:43] Scott Benton: And if you do like this material, don’t forget to share, like, and subscribe. That way you’re going to always stay on top of our newest episodes in addition to the alerts that you’ll get. And until next time, we hope you’ll join us in making the world a better place one client at a time. Thank you so much.
[00:10:00]
