Differentiation by Design

By Debra Bruce

Recently I ran into a Houston lawyer at the Hermitage Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee. As we chatted, he extolled the virtues of the hotel. He began with his amazement that, although he had only stayed there once before, the doorman called him by name when he arrived. Then he gushed about the impact of walking into the luxurious bathroom in his room.

At the Vintage Inn in Napa, California, as I unlocked the door and stepped into my room, I heard gentle strains of soothing music. Lamplight and a fire flickering in a fireplace created a romantic mood and warmed me from the chill of the night air. A small table held a complimentary bottle of wine, with glasses and a corkscrew. I sprawled on the bed, and felt like I had landed on a fluffy cloud. This was not my usual business trip experience. When I got home I started planning how I could get back to that hotel.

What do these stories have to do with your law practice? They illustrate the marketing power of focusing on a client’s experience when delivering service. These hotels stood out in an industry with competitors literally around the corner. Would your clients say that about your firm?

An article in the October 2007 issue of Fast Company magazine reported that “a three-year study of more than 40 Fortune 500 companies by the research firm Peer Insight found that companies focused on customer experience design outperformed the S&P 500 by a 10-to-1 margin from 2000 to 2005.” Jeneanne Rae, co-founder of Peer Insight LLC, says “Customers will gladly pay more for an experience that is not only functionally but also emotionally rewarding (emphasis added).”

Psychologist and marketing experts say that most buying decisions are emotional, and the buyer’s analysis is really just designed to support the emotional decision already made. That’s why Madison Avenue uses sex to sell cars, beer and soap.

I work with lawyers in large firms all over the U.S., and when we survey them about what differentiates their law firm from their competitors, a high percentage of them respond that they provide superior legal services. These top notch firms compete against other top notch firms, and if there is any real difference in legal ability at that level, I doubt that most clients can discern it. Clients can discern, however, differences in how they feel when they receive legal services. The lawyers surveyed, however, tended to focus on functional needs, and rarely considered the emotional needs of their clients.

What would effective “customer experience design” look like for your law firm? Begin by identifying the emotional needs, concerns and preferences of your client base. What do your clients want? There are probably a number of core needs in common with most clients, regardless of the kind of legal services sought. They want relief from stress and worry about the legal issue they have entrusted to you. They want to feel important and know that you have their interests uppermost in your mind. They want to feel safe. They want to feel taken care of. They want to feel valued and appreciated for choosing you. They want to feel understood. They want to feel special.

Now think about the “touchpoints” with your clients and the ideas, emotions and memories that these interactions trigger. It may help to think of them not as “clients,” but as “participants” in an experience of sights, sounds and smells that you create.

Don Norman, a nationally-known design guru, says “attractive things work better.” Norman asserts that a pleasant aesthetic design can help people be more flexible and creative in finding solutions to challenges. Stress, however, makes people less able to cope with difficulties and less flexible in their approach to problem solving. So it is important to minimize distractions, bottlenecks and difficulties, and to maximize aesthetics. A well-designed experience for your clients may actually help them be more creative participants in problem solving.

For most clients, situations involving legal representation involve stress. To improve interactions with clients, begin by creating a pleasant experience for them when they come to your office. Difficulties in parking, or a late start for an appointment, can reduce your client’s ability to deal with unexpected news or to be flexible and creative in negotiations.

By way of example, I went to a new dentist, and thought it was odd that a dental office would have coffee and chocolate chip cookies in the waiting room. The snacks were attractively presented, as if Martha Stewart had chosen the table cloth, napkins, serving plates and containers for cream and sugar. Several of the chairs in the waiting room had vibrating back massagers. I felt comfortable and welcome, and found I even wanted to linger there. I found I didn’t mind dealing with all of the usually bothersome new patient questionnaires and insurance paperwork. That dental office used good customer experience design to improve my impression of their services, and after my first visit I told several people about those dental offices.

One Houston family lawyer has offices in an old house with a large attractive flower garden at the entrance. She keeps homemade cookies on hand and burns scented candles in the office. Her clients have commented that the environment helps them calm down.

Give your own office a client experience audit. Contact your own office as though you were a client.

When your clients call your office, does the person answering the phone recognize their name? How many times did the phone ring before they picked up? If it is necessary to put the caller on hold, does your assistant or receptionist ask permission first? Does he or she actually wait to hear the response? If a client informs you of an unsatisfactory telephone experience, what do you do about it? Do you thank the client for letting you know?


If you serve elderly, injured or disabled clients, can they get to your office without climbing steps? Is the physical environment pleasant and soothing, or noisy and chaotic? Do your clients have the sense that their matters are truly confidential, or can they overhear telephone conversations as they walk down the hall? Do they see other clients’ documents as they meet in your office?

Do you give the clients the experience of feeling special? Does your receptionist know to expect their arrival and address them by name? Do you promptly greet them, or do you keep them waiting? If they meet in your office, do you put your phone on “Do Not Disturb” and turn off the email alerts so that you can give the clients your full attention? Do you offer your client a beverage? Does the client have a comfortable place to sit? Do you stay behind a fortress of a desk, or do you join your client in a symbolic gesture of your partnership with them?

In rendering legal services, do you help your clients know what to expect and keep them informed of developments? Evidently many lawyers do not, because I repeatedly hear General Counsels say that surprises are their pet peeves about outside counsel. How quickly do you respond to emails and phone calls? The most frequent complaints received against lawyers by the State Bar of Texas have to do with poor communication and failing to respond to client request for information.

What other ways can you give your clients a positive experience when working with you? It is worth some thought if you want to stand out in a crowd of competitors.