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SAT
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satisfaction
satɪsˈfakʃ(ə)n/
NOUN
satisfactions
(plural noun)
fulfilment of one’s wishes,
expectations, or needs, or the
pleasure derived from this:
Some things in life are very satisfying,
like breaking into a new jar of coffee, an
ice cold drink on a hot day, scratching
that hard to reach itch and receiving
good service.
‘Client satisfaction’ is a term frequently
used in marketing (I should know).
It is thought of as a measure of how
products and services supplied by
a business meet or surpass client
expectation. Client satisfaction can be
defined as “the number of customers,
or percentage of total customers,
whose reported experience with a firm,
its products, or its services exceeds
specified satisfaction goals.”
At Mayo Wynne Baxter we have
always been very proud of our service
levels and we used to send out client
satisfaction surveys to find out what
our clients thought of us. 98.8% of
all respondents to the surveys stated
that they were either ‘satisfied’ or ‘very
satisfied’ so we certainly felt like we
were getting it right. The pessimist in
me points out that this leaves 1.2% of
our clients who might not be satisfied;
however with further investigation the
dissatisfaction has sometimes been
more about the outcome of the matter
rather than the way with which we
handled it.
Having statistics like these can provide
some reassurance to potential clients
who are unsure which firm to use but we
have been looking at ways to cement
this into a form of guarantee.
I read in the legal press last year of a
firm in New Zealand who had moved
to a ‘pay what you think we are worth’
model. Whereby they would tell the
client how much they would normally
bill for a piece of work but the client
could chose how much they paid.
Interestingly many clients paid them
more than they would have billed as
they were very satisfied with the work
done, I suppose it is a bit like leaving
a tip for good service. Obviously there
would have been a few people that
‘took the mickey’ and paid substantially
less than they should have just because
they could but on the whole most clients
were pretty decent about it.
We thought that we could use some
elements of this and provide a
guarantee of our own by putting our
money where our mouth is. So from
September 2017 we are launching our
own Satisfaction Guarantee.
Any clients that use our services should
expect to be satisfied with the work
we do and the advice we give. We would
hope that clients would let us know
if they felt we were not meeting their
expectations and then we can address it.
When our bill comes in we want our
clients to be happy with the service
they have received. If they are not,
then under our Satisfaction Guarantee
they can decide how much to pay and
deduct an amount from our bill that they
feel is appropriate (up to a maximum of
20% of our fee) and we won’t quibble.
Honestly, we won’t quibble, not even a
little bit. We will ask what we did wrong
though, as it is only by knowing how we
let you down that we can make sure we
don’t do it again.
Of course we wouldn’t be a law firm
without a few caveats but there aren’t
many:
The discretionary element is up to a
maximum of 20%, if we have got things
so bad that this isn’t enough then we
would welcome a call to discuss fully.
The discretionary element is only on our
fees and not disbursements.
We can’t offer the Satisfaction
Guarantee on certain litigious work
types. This is only because of the way
that the courts award costs for these
types of cases.
We obviously wouldn’t be offering this
if we didn’t feel that we were already
doing a great job for our clients (well
at least 98.8%of them) and in fact we
are the only firm in the South East (if
not the country) to put our money where
our mouth is and offer a Satisfaction
Guarantee like this.
By Jason Edge
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