Building a Client-Centric Law Firm

I think customers can be classified according to three criteria. The first criterion is according to customer status, whether they are an ex-customer, existing customer, or target customer. Regarding ex-customers, we want to analyze how many customers we lost in the past year. Why are they lost? Existing customers refer to customers that exist in the filed cases, to which we should pay much attention. Target customers are potential customers. The second criterion is based on industry. Try to figure out how many customers the Shenzhen office has in the fields of finance, real estate, international trade, asset management, and individual citizens. Then further divide them into agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, sideline fishery, etc. We must classify all our customers comprehensively and obtain accurate information about them. The third criterion is based on the number of charges. How many customers pay more than 10 million service fees? How many customers pay more than 5 million service fees? How many customers pay more than 1 million service fees? Why segment customers? We do this to better integrate resources, improve service quality, gain new customers, avoid losing existing customers, and increase profit for each of our partners.

If I am elected, I will immediately set up a customer service center to gradually improve services for existing customers from the two aspects of professional redevelopment and regional redevelopment. I hope that in the future Hylands’ Shenzhen office will discuss researching customers, analyzing customers, and expanding customers. We must also pay attention to party-building work, and at the same time pay attention to customer analysis and research. The point of the customer analysis is: How many clients does each attorney have? What types of cases are the 1000 filed cases in 2021? Can we provide value-added services to clients? Whether it is possible to expand the service scope for existing customers? That is, whether it is possible to carry out professional redevelopment? Regarding regional redevelopment, assuming the client has a branch in Hunan, can we certainly recommend the client to Hylands’ Changsha Branch? We should put all our attention on customer redevelopment and business redevelopment. I hope we have more customer research sessions in the future. We also need to set up a market development and bidding center to continuously improve bidding work and increase the bid winning rate. The construction of these two centers is in progress. As I mentioned in my speech on ‘Strong Middle Office, Integrated Development’, bidding and customer service are the two key points in the construction of the middle office. Hope the Shenzhen office follows the example of the head office and began to improve customer research, classification, and development work.

Accurately grasping client needs is the prerequisite for providing clients with high-quality legal services. How to understand customer needs? The key is to strengthen communication, think from the perspective of clients, and use independent judgment.

We must strengthen our communication with customers, whether it is through visits, meetings, online communication, or communication outside of working hours. Only through communication, we can know what our customers are thinking. What are they doing? Face-to-face communication is much more effective than online communication. By reading the body language of customers, especially though eye contact with them, we can better understand the true thoughts of customers, so as to provide them with the services they really needed. Clients usually have an incomplete understanding of legal issues, so we not only need to understand clients' ‘explicit needs’, but also their ‘implicit needs’. Ford once asked one of his clients "what do you need?" and the client said, "I need a horse". The reason why Ford became a well-known company is because of his next question-"What kind of horse do you need?", the customer said "I need a fast horse", "Why do you need a fast horse?" "I need to arrive as soon as possible to my destination". In the end, Ford gave the customer a car. Only when you communicate with customers you can know what their real needs are.

The second is about putting yourself into the shoes of clients. We must always consider issues from the perspective of customers in order to understand what services they need and understand their expectations and concerns. If you can't grasp the real needs of your clients, you will never become a top lawyer. At this stage, the biggest concern of customers in the financial industry is compliance; the biggest concern of clients in the asset management industry is the disposal of underlying assets; the biggest concern of clients in the real estate industry is asset restructuring, and the biggest concern of clients in the foreign trade industry is default handling. At present, due to the sharp fluctuations in global commodity prices, the impact of wars, and the pandemic, the cost of a breach of contract is lower than the cost of compliance, so many companies have chosen to default to avoid further losses. Therefore, lawyers need to help clients solve their biggest concerns in order to provide the legal services that clients need the most.

The third is independent judgment. In my book ‘Follow the Trend’, I pointed out that it is right to follow the trend, but at the same time, we also need to think independently. Learning without thinking will lead to failure, and thinking without learning will lead to peril. We have to think for ourselves before we know what our direction is. Therefore, we must always grasp the needs of customers. Why do we say "grasp" the needs of customers, but not "understand" the needs of customers? Because "grasp" means a comprehensive understanding of client needs, and only through this you can provide clients with better legal services.

     The first one is to be persistent. The key to success lies in persistence. Only by anchoring the goal and moving forward step by step, we can get things done. 

      Second, the price should be fair. Price is a key factor in sealing a deal. We should charge reasonably according to fee standards and reject vicious competition. No matter how the environment changes, the lawyer's fee should be consistent with the service provided. Overcharging constitutes fraud, but undercharging is not good for building customer trust. 

    The third is to think before the clients start to think. Whether it is in terms of resource allocation or legal arrangement, we must think before the clients start to think, which is why clients hire lawyers. We must not only put ourselves on the shores of our clients, but also think before the clients start to think, actively discover problems before clients discover problems, guide customer needs, and solve customer concerns in all possible ways. 

    The fourth is about quick response. Lawyers should take the needs of clients seriously. They should continuously improve work efficiency to respond to their needs as soon as possible. 

     The fifth is to maintain sincerity. Treat customers like a family. Clients are smart and have many attorneys to choose from. Therefore, when serving a customer, we should adhere to the principle of good faith, treat every customer sincerely, do our best to serve every customer, and gradually build a sense of trust with customers. 

     Sixth, if you are not in the client's office, you should be on the way to the client's office. Many lawyers asked me, why I have so many clients. I say it is because I keep writing books, writing articles, and delivering speeches. I combine knowledge marketing with team marketing to promote market awareness, and always practice the concept of being customer-centric. 

    I hope Hylands can break down the barriers between lawyers and clients, form a unified client base, and create greater value for clients. After moving into Ping An International Finance Center, the most high-quality office building in South China, I hope we can hold different high-quality client research meetings, client appreciation meetings, communication meetings, and exchange meetings there, so as to continuously expand our customer resources. 

    In addition, we need to improve service awareness, constantly research customers, meet customer needs, and provide customers with a good service experience, so as to improve customer satisfaction with our services, and provide customers with products and services that exceed their expectations. By improving customer experience, we can gain a more competitive advantage.

A lawyer who cannot solve a client's problem is not a good lawyer. There are some non-litigation lawyers who write hundreds of pages of legal opinions for their clients, without a conclusion. They just point out risks for clients but offer no solutions. There are litigators who can write fancy bids but lose the lawsuits, but we know that the only thing our clients want is to win. Regarding how to solve customer problems, I think we need to work from three aspects.

The first aspect is to unremittingly develop high-quality products and provide high-quality services to clients.

The second aspect is to eliminate lawyers with poor execution ability and look for wolf-like lawyers. I don't trust the professional level, professional resources, and judicial resources of some lawyers, so I cannot recommend them to my clients. We must eliminate our teammates with poor execution ability, because they will not be beneficial for the development of the law firm, but will also greatly reduce the quality of legal services of the firm. We should help teammates with poor execution ability to grow into wolf-like lawyers, because wolves are always running, aggressive, and team-spirited. Lawyers with poor execution ability will gradually be eliminated by the market and by law firms. This is obviously not what we expect to see. We must learn from Huawei and implant the genes of the ‘wolf culture’ into the firm’s culture. We want to work with wolf-like teammates, keep running, and move forward at full speed.

The third aspect is to fulfill the promise to customers and satisfy their needs of customers. What is the client's purpose in hiring a lawyer? They hire us to win litigation and avoid risks, which is our ultimate goal of providing legal services. A lawyer who cannot solve problems is not a good lawyer. We must fulfill our commitment to clients, spare no efforts to help them solve problems, and strive to provide services that exceed clients’ expectations.