Peer to Peer Magazine

32 PEER TO PEER: THE QUARTERLY MAGAZINE OF ILTA | SUMMER 2016 CASE STUDIES Client Feedback Rules, and The Scores Are In! It's no secret it is a great idea to have a data-driven approach to understanding what customers want, how they want it and what they thought of it. Some of the world's leading companies, from Apple to Uber, rely on highly analytical tools to get a sense of what their customers really think of the service they received. Why is the legal profession, once again, slow to adopt the same analytical tools prominent across other industries? The proliferation of simple, effective and inexpensive tools to allow our clients to judge us has made these types of tools a key part of the #NewLaw practitioner's tool belt. Giving Clients Control Our firm began the journey of hyperactive aention to our clients' feedback about a year ago with the launch of a proprietary value-based billing (VBB) platform. It allowed our firm (then Cognition LLP, now rebranded as Caravel Law) to put its proverbial money where its mouth is. VBB is a feedback collection mechanism, whereby clients can reduce or increase their invoices (up to 10 percent in either direction) based on the service they received. While there was some uptake on this tool, we pushed to find additional avenues to connect with our clients to collect, and act upon, their feedback. Enter Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is a means of measuring the willingness of a client to recommend our firm to others. We solicit an answer to a single question: "From 0-10, how likely are you to refer a friend or colleague to Caravel Law?" The NPS calculation works such that any rating of nine or 10 flags the client as a "Promoter," a rating of seven or eight flags the client as a "Passive," and a rating of less than seven flags the client as a "Detractor." The general premise is that a Promoter will work wonders for your organization by promoting your firm and your expertise. A Detractor is the exact opposite. A Passive does not count toward your promoter score. The overall NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. When a Net Promoter Score comes in, the system immediately notifies us. Each NPS is flagged with the responsible lawyer along with the invoiced amount. Our dedicated Director of Client & Lawyer Happiness is then responsible for following up with both clients and/or lawyers to communicate praise or address concerns. The Results Are In The future of legal technology requires a focus on utilizing the tools that increase our internal and external efficiencies to make our clients happier. We also need to focus on geing true data on whether our clients will spread the gospel of the firm's practice. In three months of soliciting Net Promoter Scores, we have received at least 10 to 20 times more responses versus past survey response rates. The optional comments and feedback provided have been incredibly valuable to our organization. The best news of all is our overall score. We currently sit just below 80 percent — a result in the same league as the world's most admired companies. When we set out on this journey, we were not sure what results to expect. We hoped for client participation and have been blown away by the incredible response rate and, more important, by the volume of promoters. NPS has allowed us to keep a finger on the pulse of our organization and our clients. For the first time, we are not dependant on long-form survey results or client check-ins. We can view, manage and extract data on the most important question of all: Would you recommend us to a friend or colleague? The question is no longer mere rhetoric; the answer is aainable. P2P Net Promoter Scores and Analytical Tools Are Essential to Legal Practitioners by Steven Pulver Client Feedback Rules, and The Scores Are In! STEVEN PULVER Steven Pulver is the chief legaltech geek (aka Chief Technology Officer) at Caravel Law (formerly Cognition LLP). Caravel Law created NewLaw in Canada. Over the past 10 years, we have transformed the delivery of legal services and solutions for business by deploying a technology- based model with lean overhead and utilizing more operationally experienced lawyers. Contact Steven at spulver@caravellaw.com.

• Cover