One Three Four

What's in a name?

Highlights

…
Clients are more like you than they are different from you

They’re short of time and overloaded with information from your competitors, from their colleagues, and from a host of other sources.

They want the same things from know-how updates (and any other kind of document) that you would want if you were in their shoes.

In the last ten years we’ve done a lot of research into what clients want from law-firm updates, investment research reports, and accountancy briefings. Here are our top three thoughts:
a) Produce less news, and get the basics right when you do.
b) Issue-based updates – and shiny new formats – really stand out.
c) Talk to clients: use ‘active’ research, and don’t ask “Are you satisfied?”

…
a) Produce less news, and get the basics right when you do

News – coverage of developments and regulations – is a commodity. Many news items will be covered by you, your competitors, specialist publishers, and the mainstream media. Your update will often be one of half-a-dozen on the same topic that’s sitting in your client’s in-box.

You may need to produce news for clients – often they’ll ask you to. When you do send out news updates, make sure that they are as pithy and client focused as possible.

We’ve got a simple mnemonic for better news updates: Running Animals Beat Crawlers. It stands for relevance, actions, brevity, and context.

We can help you sharpen-up your firm’s news updates in two ways:

• Writing training: we run tailored courses to help lawyers and investment analysts structure and write more effective updates.
• Templates and tools: we’re not a software firm, but we do  help firms with Word templates, HTML-email templates and easy-to-use website and blog solutions.

…
b) Issue-based updates  – and shiny formats – really stand out

Produce less news, and you’ll have more time for issue-based items. Issue-based doesn’t have to be complex, time consuming ‘thought leadership’ that’s based on surveys and polls.

Issue-based items can be:

• A simple twist on a news item that sets out practical pointers.
• A note that covers a growing trend and the implications for clients.
• A briefing on how to handle a situation that doesn’t come up that often (e.g. product recalls, legal privilege) but could affect many clients.

…
Formats: the law of shiny things
Magpies can’t tell the difference between worthless tinsel and valuable diamond rings – they’re both shiny things.

Your clients (and the rest of us) are pretty much the same. If you use a format that’s different from your competitors, you’ll get noticed. It’s no coincidence that law firms and accountants are making more and more use of formats like video clips, podcasts, and other shiny-thing formats. For a taster of an interactive PDF, or iPDF – a classic shiny-thing format – click here.

…
c) Talk to clients: ‘active’ research and don’t ask “Are you satisfied?”

Professional-services firms are often reluctant to talk to clients about possible improvements. But testing improvement ideas with clients is easy and cheap. And sensible.

We often recommend quick, simple (cheap), ‘active’ research. In active research we show clients proposed improvements in mock-ups that use real text. The mock-ups show current items against proposed improvements so that clients can do a before-and-after comparison. And we can use this approach for websites and microsites as well as e-bulletins and briefings.

An active-research project can test ideas with 20 clients in a couple of weeks. We email clients the before-and-after mock-ups, and discuss them in 25-minute phone calls.

We’ve always found clients receptive, and you usually find several things that clients like and are easy to get done. Plus you can look your colleagues in the eye and say the magic words, “We tested this with clients”.

“If I’d have listened to my customers I’d have built a faster horse”
‘Passive’ client research can do more harm than good. In passive research you ask “Are you satisfied with what you have now?”, and “What else would you like?”. This is like asking someone who’s never seen an orange or a banana what kind of fruit they’d like.

This approach would never have identified a need for touch-screen phones – because people hadn’t seen one yet. In the same way that no-one had seen an affordable car before Henry Ford produced the Model T in 1908. Henry Ford had this to say about the value of passive client-research:
“If I’d have listened to my customers, I’d have built a faster horse.”

Passive research tends to deliver a vote for the status-quo. Clients are very unlikely to say that they’re dissatisfied, and – more importantly – they can’t think up ideas for improvements on the spur of the moment. Particularly ones that they haven’t seen yet.

Active research shows clients the improvements they could have

Our active-research approach shows clients the improvements that they could have. It lets them see and taste oranges and bananas when they’ve only ever had apples and pears.

Active research will give you and your firm:
– More detailed feedback on proposed features and formats.
– More useful ideas – clients will talk about other things they’d like to see.