The Law Society Gazette recently published an article that reported on the findings of a mystery shopping exercise carried out by a marketing collective. It was a simple exercise. Mystery Shoppers contacted 52 firms of personal injury solicitors by telephoning their offices during working hours and then again in the early evening. They contacted them based on the premise that they needed help in choosing a good personal injury solicitor.
What were the findings of this law firm survey?
- Nearly 25% of the shoppers who called firms out of hours got to speak with someone when they called.
- 56% were able to leave an answerphone message when they called
- 18% of those firms called had no facility for leaving a message
- One firm’s answerphone was full and so a message could not be left!
- When calls were made to the firms during the day, the reason for the call was dealt with well, by the firms
- Only 44% of those called during the day, made any attempt to sell the benefits of using the firm
- 30% of those called offered to send further information
- 20% said they would make a follow-up call – a third of these firms did follow up as promised
Summary
- 18% of firms called out of hours had no facility for leaving a message.
- One firm’s answering machine was full, so no message could be left
- 56% of firms called during the day, made no attempt to sell their firm’s benefits to the caller.
- 70% made no offer to send more information about the firm to the caller.
- 80% of firms didn’t offer to make a follow up call.
- Of the 20% that did offer to make a follow up call, only a third of them did what they said they would do – call the client back.
What Do We Make of These Findings?
- If personal injury solicitors don’t have systems in place to take and respond to new enquiries from prospective clients out of hours, then they are missing out on the opportunity to take on new business. In what is a very competitive area of law, it is ridiculous that such a large percentage of firms (albeit based on a small sample of mystery shoppers) do not have the facility to take calls or message out of hours.
- Even when prospective new personal injury claim clients were responded to, almost half of the solicitors sampled didn’t take the opportunity to extol the virtues of the firm and woo their would-be new client. Again, these are huge, missed opportunities in competitive times.
- Only a fifth of the solicitors contacted by mystery shoppers offered to make a follow-up call. To compound matters, only a third of that 20%, did what they had promised to do and made the follow-up call. It’s not presenting personal injury solicitors in general in a great light, is it?
If our response so far to the survey’s findings seems somewhat underwhelming, it’s because sadly, it comes as no surprise to us. At Mooneerams we hear similar stories all the time, especially from those clients who have asked if we can take over their personal injury claims from other solicitors. The most frequent communication problems that we hear about, are solicitors’ firms who;
- Don’t respond to calls or emails and who don’t come back to the client, without being chased, often numerous times.
- Don’t communicate very well or explain things clearly to their client.
- Fob their clients off with ‘waiting to hear’ responses every time the client asks for an update on the file.
- Delegate a client’s case to a member of staff, who is too inexperienced to deal with it properly or efficiently. That often leads to poor communication, simply because the person who is handling the case, doesn’t really know how to respond to specific queries.
- Pass a client’s claim to different people within the firm, so that the client never knows who is dealing with the matter, is unable to build up a rapport with one person and feels that their case is unimportant to the firm that is supposed to be pursuing the claim for them.
The Mooneerams Way
We can’t speak for other firms of solicitors, so here’s how we at Mooneerams do things;
- We don’t advertise for new work, nor do we pay a claims management company or other such outfits, to provide us with new work. Most of our clients come to us through recommendations or because they have seen the fantastic online reviews we have received.
- Injured people who have used our personal injury compensation services recommend us to their friends, family and work colleagues. We receive frequent enquiries through our website and via the messenger service of our Facebook page.
- We are very active in our local South Wales community. We have a reputation for the high standard of our work, being good at dealing with personal injury compensation claims and getting great results for our clients.
- When we receive new enquiries about our legal services, from whatever source or through whatever means, we respond promptly. If we say we’ll call you back, we do – 100%
- For out of office hours telephone enquiries, we employ the services of a dedicated out of hours call answering service. We return those calls the next morning at the latest.
- New clients contact us via our very active Facebook page and Messenger. If a message is left out of hours, we make contact first thing on the next day, at the latest.
- When speaking to those who have contacted us for the first time, we love having the opportunity to tell them all about Mooneerams solicitors. We don’t think that we can ever be criticised for failing to tell people all about our services and how we can help them!
- When new lawyers join us, they will already have demonstrated to us that they have excellent client care skills. This means that they are friendly, professional, experienced and skilful personal injury solicitors, with great communication skills. It also means, that when they are giving legal advice to their clients, they do so in straightforward language that is easy to understand. We are not fans of speaking ‘Legalese’!
- When a client asks us for an update on their case, we’ll tell them, honestly and concisely. If there is a delay caused by waiting for another party to do their bit, we’ll explain why this is, how long it is likely to take and what we will do to move things along, if the delay gets too much.
- Clients who come to Mooneerams will stay with the same solicitor that started their case off, through to the end.
- There’s a bonus too – we go out and visit our clients at their homes to take their instructions. Of course, they are free to come into one of our offices to see us, but if they would prefer, we go out to see them! We’ll travel up to 3 hours away from our Cardiff office to see clients (further if needs be). We bring new meaning to the meaning of ‘your local solicitor’!
When you are choosing a personal injury solicitor in South Wales or wherever else you are in the country, finding a solicitor that will you get the best compensation settlement is of paramount importance.
With Mooneerams that’s a given. However, we also do our utmost to make the journey along the way to that settlement, as comfortable as possible for our clients.
Mooneerams solicitors have been helping personal injury clients to make successful compensation claims since 2002. Personal injury claims require specialist solicitors handling them, to get the best results.
If you have been injured in an accident that was caused by someone else, contact Mooneerams on 029 2048 3615 and speak to one of our experienced personal injury solicitors from the very start.
If we believe that you have reasonable prospects of making a claim, in most cases, we will be able to take your claim on, using a No Win, No Fee arrangement.
You can also send us an email by using the blue form on this page.
Alistair Worth is the Managing Director of Mooneerams Solicitors, specialist personal injury solicitors. Alistair is based in the Cardiff office.
Mooneerams also have offices in Aberdare, Caerphilly, Rhondda, Pontypridd and Bridgend. Alistair was born in the area and has lived locally all his life. He cares passionately about the local community, both business and social.
Mooneerams are active supporters of many grassroots projects in the region.
