Perspective from Law: Protecting Your Crown Jewels: A Deeper Understanding of Your Clients (Part Two)

Editor's Note: This is part two of a three-part series. In part one, McKenna evaluated his firm's quality of client service and put your firm to the test. Now, he describes the first two of five steps toward improving your firm's client service.

We subscribe to the view that you really can’t understand how to solidify your relationship, enhance your service offering, or even get more and better business from any client, until you truly understand that client. Thus, client knowledge is critical to the effective building of relationships and to learning how you might differentiate yourself from competitive firms.

This sounds like a rather obvious and even trite observation, but it is a self-evident fact that many professionals today have at best a superficial understanding of the dynamics of their client and its industry. To our astonishment, a number of the client teams that we have come across do little to no in-depth research on the client company. It’s almost as if the professionals share a view that if you have to resort to doing research, it is a tacit admission that you don’t know your client.

In discussions with attorneys, we have found a great deal of variability in the levels of client knowledge. Some have a very deep knowledge and understanding of their client--what we would refer to as client insight. Other attorneys think they know their client, but the client does not. Still, others know about their clients, without truly knowing the intricacies of their particular company.