None of us could have ever anticipated that in March 2021, law firms would still be operating remotely. As we approach the one-year anniversary of Lockdown 1.0 though, there has been a noticeable shift in attitude. The novelty has gone, there’s less sympathy around operational teething pains and it’s very much a case of ‘time to get on with it.’
The pressure has been on law firms and their marketing teams to ensure that experience is the same, whether the team is in the office or working remotely. Clients expect service levels to be back to, if not better than, normal and firms are recognising the importance of living up to this – particularly if service was neglected last year under the stress of simply remaining operational.
According to new Moneypenny research, efforts are paying off and law firms are among the best performing businesses for customer care and low call waiting times. The survey of 1000 people revealed that just 6% of survey respondents feel legal firms have poor call handling times – compared with utility companies (33%) doctors (27%), banks (25%) and phone companies (21%). The best performing businesses of all were estate and letting agents at 5%.
The findings also revealed that 85% of people believe UK businesses are blaming long call and live chat wait times on Covid, despite being almost a year into the pandemic.
Over the last 12 months, there has been a marked increase in the number of legal firms calling on outsourcing call handling and live chat support because they recognise the importance of accessibility for their clients, particularly during such worrying and uncertain times.
Any firms that say unprecedented demand due to Covid is the reason for long wait times are essentially telling clients they are not important – and our data shows that they recognise this. Meeting demand is imperative to business survival, now more than ever.
Even with reduced staff through redundancies and furloughing, there are so many cost effective solutions available to ensure client calls and live chat can continue, it’s not good enough for firms to reduce service levels and expect clients to be happy – there is a real danger that they’ll vote with their feet and move to a competitor if poor service levels continue.
For more information about Moneypenny’s work with the legal sector and how you can avoid pandemic-induced impact on service, visit: https://www.moneypenny.com/uk/legal-answering-services/
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