Planet Client | ‘Differentiate or die’, firms warned

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One positive aspect of recession for clients is it raises the bar on service levels, For companies who rely on clients, though, it means offering a gold-standard service no longer marks you out from your competitors.

Irrespective of sector, when clients today see a company trumpeting their ‘world-class service levels’ they see not a selling point but a ‘hygiene factor’, in that world class service is a deciding factor only if it is absent, not present.

If you are currently marketing your brand on the back of an ‘unsurpassed service’, then you may wish to rethink this approach; It’s a bit like telling a girl on a first date that you’re desirable because you haven’t got clap.

The UK legal sector has been operating under precisely such market conditions since way before the Credit Crunch, a situation that offers the wider business community telling insight into the art of winning clients and keeping clients in a climate of homogenized excellence.

Winning business ‘by inches’

In a profession whose top practitioners can charge up to £700 an hour, superlative-quality service has always been a given for legal clients. If a law firm or barristers set wants to stand out, it has to offer clients something different.

In the past few years, most elite law firms have rebranded, yet there is still little to distinguish them from their competitors, and it’s a situation that leading design consultant Jim Prior says necessitates far closer attention to microscopic but vital branding details - so-called ‘winning by inches’.

One such detail might be having senior law firm partners greet clients in reception the moment they enter the building, rather than leaving them in the manicured hands of a receptionist.

“A carefully crafted brand identity has become as de rigueur in a medium-to-large sized firm as wigs and gowns in the courtroom,” says Prior, managing partner at The Partners design consultancy, which has undertaken rebranding for some of the legal world’s biggest names.”

Stand out from the crowd

He adds: “You need only make a quick trawl across the homepage of the UK’s top 30 law firms to see the extent to which attributes such as the scale of the firm, the expertise of its people, the diversity of its offer and a commitment to client servicing have become generic communication themes.” [See images, right]

So generic, in fact, they can no longer be legitimately claimed as the basis for a brand proposition, says Prior.

He continues: “Differentiation must be something no one else offers and, ideally, that no one else ever could.”

Customer journey is key

This, Prior contends, is most likely to emerge by examining the customer journey in detail – “from pre-relationship to final billing, because small opportunities have the potential to significantly enrich the overall experience”.

“With a differentiated proposition in place,” Prior argues, “brand identity, communications and environments can all be redesigned to reflect and reinforce its message.”