Essay Example on Lawyers Must Adapt to the Information Age to Attract New Clients

Expanding the client base is a challenge for lawyers and law firms. The information age has changed the pattern of consumer behavior in general, requiring service providers to develop skills, competencies, and strategies complementary to legal activity to attract new customers. The findings of the report show satisfying customers require a personalization in the treatment, direct knowledge, closeness of the professional and clear communication with the client. The lawyer must be able to establish with the client a bond of trust that allows a recurring professional relationship. Clayton UTZ needs inform employees about the change and ensure there is no barrier between the top management and the employees, they should conduct training sessions, and promote interdisciplinary collaboration between all departments.

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How Clayton UTZ Can Transform from a Traditional Legal-Centric Thinking Towards a Client-Centric Mindset Engaging Staff at All Levels

Introduction

Attracting clients in a law firm is one of the top challenges for law firms. This is due to the increase in the number of professionals, generating a lot of competitiveness. The road to transforming a law firm into a client-centric approach can be complex and long. However, it is perhaps the only source of competitive differentiation that gives firms competitive edge over others. Dominated by environments of economic recession, customers become increasingly selective when spending their money (Mosten, Macfarlane, & Scully, 2017). Consumers have become increasingly fickle and will not hesitate to end a relationship with a company that does not meet their needs. These clients expect flexibility, agility, convenience, and customization, and when they do not obtain it, they go elsewhere. This reversal of the relationship between customers and businesses means that consumers have more power than ever to dictate the future of an organisation. Clayton UTZ is seeking to build capabilities in the forensics area, which will help them grow the compliance part of the business into fraud management and regulatory investigations. The organisation needs to transform from the traditional legal-centric thinking towards a client-centric mindset engaging staff at all levels if it is to compete with Big Four accounting firms (i.e., Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG) (Walsh, 2017). The client-centric approach will create an environment in which clients can experience empathy and trust through a personalized service based on their needs and consumer expectations, thus making clients choose Clayton UTZ services over their competitors.

Defining and Framing the Issue

Clayton UTZ is one of the top Australian law firms with a significant history of over 175 years (Clayton UTZ, 2010). They are a full service law firm and offer legal services across the spectrum including (but not limited to) litigation and dispute resolution, restructuring and insolvency, taxation, arbitration, intellectual property, compliance, and industrial relations (Walsh, 2017). As part of their growth strategy, they are seeking to build capabilities in the forensics area, which will help them grow the compliance part of the business into fraud management and regulatory investigations. The foray follows client needs in offering a holistic and integrated service product to meet client expectations (Walsh, 2017). The customer experience is a disruptive factor in business so that companies that include it in their strategy and enrich it will gain competitive advantages in the market, given that it is more difficult to replicate aspects such as price, product or service.

The customer centricity theory calls for the understanding of the individual needs of clients and customers since this enhances the customer experience thus creating sustainable and profitable customer relationships that are impermeable by competitors (Burnett, 2011). A positive experience between the company and the client can build a lasting differentiator against the competition and ensure loyalty. Customer-centric companies have a universal approach to customer requirements and an intrinsic understanding of their integrated experience at the heart of the business (Siegel, Hussemann & Van Hoek, 2016). In a customer-centric organisation, each employee is dedicated to providing an excellent consumer experience at every point throughout the user's life cycle. Becoming a customer-centric culture is not without its challenges, but at a time when the consumer exerts considerable power, it is the only way to increase profitability and improve performance.

Addressing the Issue

Customers today have a plethora of ways to share their experience (both positive and negative) with a product or service. For law firms, a customer-oriented way of working is, therefore, the perfect way to stand out from the competition and build customer loyalty. Being customer- focused is not a unique initiative; rather, it is a cultural change of the entire organisation that places the client at the forefront of all decisions in all departments and functions. Fundamentally, customer satisfaction is the responsibility of each person, not just those in customer-oriented roles (Mosten et al., 2017). It requires significant interdisciplinary collaboration, as well as a deep understanding of how each employee's function affects the client's experience, either directly or indirectly.

Being customer-centric means being able to take into account the impact of brand decisions on customers. More than saying "the customer is important" is to say "we will put the customer in the heart of our concerns and all our actions should be thought accordingly." Thus, this reflection extends throughout the organisation and not only in traditional services already focused on the customer (customer service, after-sales service, etc.). The work of the employees is also essential; the company must train its employees on the fact that the decisions they make can affect the customer in many ways. This approach will help Clayton to better understand the needs of its clients, including growth opportunities previously unknown (feedback from unsatisfied customers for example). The implementation of a customer-listening approach can, for example, will make it possible to identify new needs. The direct consequence of this first benefit is to increase customer satisfaction.

Conclusion

Focusing on the customer is no longer optional; it is a basic business requirement that will improve efficiency and profitability. It requires a radical change in the culture of the company and should be seen more like an evolution than as a revolution. A customer-centric approach goes beyond handling customer calls efficiently - being customer-focused means addressing all customer problems and solving them in their entirety. It is not just about ensuring that support functions consider front-line workers as their internal clients: - it is about ensuring that each employee adopts an external client approach. It involves more than telling employees how to treat customers appropriately - but rather involves giving employees the authority and tools to decide the right way to manage clients. Being customer-centric is not about creating an organisation that serves customers - it's about allowing customers to run the organisation (Siegel et al., 2016). It is not just about winning new customers through recommendations from current customers - but about having customers who think prices should rise. Being a customer-centric does not only mean providing excellent customer service but above all placing the customer at the heart of the business. Thus, each decision must be taken accordingly. A customer-centric company can offer a unique experience on the whole customer journey (notoriety, information search, purchase, post-purchase), so to differentiate itself and develop its activity.

Recommendations

There are several recommendations will ensure Clayton UTZ becomes a customer-centered law firm.

The first step to becoming a customer-centric organisation for Clayton UTZ is to inform employees about the change and ensure there is no barrier between the top management and the employees. The top management should interact with employees through creating an awareness of how each person's role impacts the customer experience and stipulating how customers should be treated will go a long way towards creating a customer-centered spirit.

Secondly, training sessions should be conducted to ensure that employees are taught to focus all their efforts on the client. Clayton UTZ management should embed customer service in the organisational DNA. This is only possible when all the employees of the company join the concept of focusing on the client. It is the top executives who will initiate the process of eliminating the organisational silos and ensure the inter-functional collaboration required to become a customer-focused company truly. Clayton UTZ management must provide practical guidance to its teams and exemplify the behaviors that its employees need to adapt to achieve lasting change. This means actively training and guiding its employees so that their behavior revolves around the client. It also means providing their employees with the right tools and the right information to perform their functions effectively. Inclusively, the management could consider establishing reward and recognition frameworks to consolidate these new behaviors.

The third step should be promotion of interdisciplinary collaboration. For an organisation to truly focus on the client, organisational silos must be disaggregated, and interdisciplinary collaboration must be fully accepted. All employees must understand that they are a link in a chain and that changes within their function will also affect other functions. For Clayton UTZ to provide seamless customer experience, it must ensure that all employees fully understand the customer's journey and how each function contributes to generating value for them.

References

Clayton UTZ (2010). Celebrating Clayton UTZ 175 years. Retrieved from https://www.claytonutz.com/ArticleDocuments/178/Clayton-Utz-Celebrating-175-Years-2008.pdf.aspx?Embed=Y on 11th May 2019.

Mosten, F. S., Macfarlane, J., & Scully, E. P. (2017). Educating the New Lawyer: Teaching Lawyers to Offer Unbundled and Other Client-Centric Services. Dickinson Law Review, 122, 801. https://ideas.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/dlr/vol122/iss3/2

Siegel, J. A., Hussemann, J. M., & Van Hoek, D. (2016). Client-Centered Lawyering and the Redefining of Professional Roles Among Appellate Public Defenders. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 14, 579. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/80794

Walsh, K. (2017). Clayton Utz takes forensic approach to fight back ag...