How do we strive for an Unbeatable Legal Customer Experience?

It’s not often you see a law firm recruiting the role of ‘Head of Customer Experience’ so when Caroline Houghton spotted an advert, she was instantly intrigued and wasted no time in applying. Here Caroline shares her journey. 

Taylor Rose TTKW is a top 200 law firm which has expanded quickly under the leadership of Managing Director Adrian Jaggard. Adrian immediately sparked my interest when he explained his continued vision for growth at my interview and his passion to drive the business forward.  The firm’s vision to deliver Smart Modern Law coupled with their mission to challenge larger firms and established practices in the legal sector through innovation and entrepreneurship, underpinned their commitment to a five year plan to invest in people, technology and processes to ultimately deliver an excellent customer experience. Recruiting a Head of Customer Experience was the next logical step.

Delivering the customer experience was, at that time, managed locally at departmental level. By bringing a Head of Department on board meant that the firm would have a centralised approach with an outreach programme that was consistent across the whole organisation. This would create a framework for continuous improvement and provide better management information. The latter, which is essential for reporting upwards and downwards, is a key driver for me as communicating and sharing valuable data, trends and analysis with the teams is vital in what is, in essence, a change management programme.

My first challenge on joining in July 2017 was to understand how the company operated, as I came from an insurance background, which is very different to the legal profession from both a regulatory and product knowledge point of view. The second was to review the current situation in order to introduce a bespoke customer experience training programme and roll that out company-wide. No mean feat when the company is constantly growing (we established two additional offices since I joined with a third on its way)! My insurance sector experience became a real bonus as the legal profession can take on board a best practice approach which has been honed over many years. And at the end of the day our customers have similar needs. Regardless of industry, the need for clear, regular communication, reassurance and empathy underpinned by a ‘low effort, high quality’ approach is a basic need for all customers.

In October last year we introduced one year strategic objectives, with customer and service as the headline act to deliver a service which meets the needs of our customers to an unbeatable standard in our sector. Although we’ve not reached our full reporting year, I’m really pleased that positive customer satisfaction surveys are up by 9% and the amount of positive online reviews and customer compliments have also increased. This means that we are moving in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go to become unbeatable.

My focus is to now continue the delivery of the customer experience training and to consolidate the training already delivered by utilising the expertise within the Client Care team to deliver one to one coaching to individuals. By continuing to use the analysis from complaints and customer feedback, we’ll continue to identify trends, training opportunities and process improvements to further enhance the service our customers receive. Our Customer Care team has expanded, and we are motivating and rewarding all staff through our Star Awards, a programme we introduced this year that recognises both legal and corporate staff who provide both external and internal clients an unbeatable service. 

By combining an exceptional customer journey with our expert legal knowledge, I have no doubt that we will achieve our objective and deliver unbeatable smart modern law.   

Peterborough law firm Taylor Rose TTKW is a top 200 law firm with offices in Peterborough, London, Lichfield, Liverpool, Manchester, Northampton and Workington. For more information about Tayor Rose TTKW or if you are interested in joining a team who strive to deliver unbeatable customer service please check out our vacancies here. 

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