The Secrets of Making Clients Like You

Establishing healthy relationships with your clients is crucial to success. However, when clients pay by the hour and depend on our legal acumen to get the job done right, it's challenging to earn their trust and respect.

The most crucial step is inspiring confidence in your ability to determine, address, and resolve their pain points. No amount of charm or welcoming hospitality will overcome what they might perceive as shoddy work. In the legal sphere, you won’t win every “at bat,” but if your clients feel confident that you’ve done the best job possible and heard their concerns, they will likely reward your efforts with trust in future endeavors.

Let’s explore other tips to ensure you can maintain a stellar reputation and maintain relationships with your existing clients while attracting new clients to your firm.

Never Make Them Feel Like the Meter Is Running—Even When It Is

Clients should know exactly how you bill for your time, but they also need to feel valued and respected. That can be hard to do if they’re trying to cut corners by reducing the time you spend communicating with them.

It is crucial to make your clients feel like they’re a top priority, which will create a positive experience that makes them feel validated and heard. Return phone calls in a timely manner, answer questions concisely, and make sure you are fully present in face-to-face meetings.

As an attorney, there is little doubt that you are a talented speaker. However, you need to be an active listener to win over clients. Not only will this make your clients feel valued, but you may also be surprised at the pertinent information you gather by listening attentively.

Show genuine care and concern for the personal well-being of your clients. Humanizing clients can be the key to establishing a foundation of trust and loyalty in a business where it’s easy to reduce clients to a case file. Not only will healthy relationships help you maintain your current clients, but they will also serve to bring in referrals, expanding your customer base and distinguishing you from your competitors.

Minimize Errors

No one wants to pay by the hour to have it done wrong. Whatever your legal specialty, and regardless of your skills, mistakes can and do happen. Take advantage of technology tools that can help you minimize errors and boost the confidence of your clients.

AllDrafts is a word processor specifically for contracts. It allows you to copy any existing contract and paste it directly into AllDrafts. Then, you redact all personal information and turn the contract into a template. AI then labels these fields and can auto-generate an intake questionnaire exclusively for you and your team.

You also have the option of providing a publicly accessible link, enabling clients to submit their own information, and generating a new draft contract. Imagine a contract review that only requires you to review the newly added information instead of tedious reviews of entire contracts, and where transcription and copy errors are reduced by working directly from client-provided details.

AllDrafts also monitors facts, defined terms, bracketed text, and more directly in the word processor, making it easier to spot errors, typos, and omissions.

Offer Something for Free

Everyone wants to feel like they’re getting a deal. You can do this by offering something free to new and existing clients or bundling an extra service at no cost or at reduced cost. These small efforts show your clients that you are committed to providing them with the best possible legal service. This helps build loyalty and can encourage them to spread the word about your firm.

Take note of the services you offer and how billing is handled, and explore ways you can provide a value-added service for your clients. Offer simple contracts such as NDA generation or basic employment and service agreements for free—or include them as part of a monthly subscription service.

Smart templating systems like those in AllDrafts can turn simple documents into almost-self-serve products you can offer clients while still controlling and reviewing the generated documents..

It’s a marketing tool as old as time, but that’s because it has remained effective in building loyalty and attracting new clients.

Let AllDrafts Help

AllDrafts helps you leverage modern technology to spend less time on administrative tasks like document creation, formatting, and e-signatures. You can then invest a portion of that time into relationship-building with your clients. AllDrafts can dramatically reduce the amount of time you spend crafting and reviewing contracts and allows you to offer basic contracts for free or at a reduced price.

While it feels good to have clients that like you, it’s even more important to maintain a reputation for excellent legal service.