Lawyer is in court for a client, and another client’s phone call wasn’t returned for six hours: client upset.

Lawyer is 15 minutes late for a court appearance after getting a continuance for a different client in another courtroom: client upset.

Paralegal copies a document from an old case and forgets to change the spouse’s name in the draft sent to the client for approval: client upset.

What do these three situations have in common? An upset client.

What else? A completely justifiable situation causing the upset. After all, the lawyer was tied up and couldn’t return the call faster. The lawyer was helping another client and no harm came from being 15 minutes late (in fact, she called the clerk and alerted the judge of the delay). The paralegal saved the client money by reusing an old document.

So?

The clients are still upset. The justifications won’t fix the situations.

Clients perceive each of these scenarios as the firm treating them as if they aren’t important. No one likes to feel unimportant.

How do you make your clients feel important? You set expectations, and you meet them.

You alert them of your call-back policies, and you abide by those policies (which might mean someone else makes the call).

You call them and tell them to wait outside of the courtroom and explain that you’ve made arrangements to start 15 minutes later than expected due to a situation beyond your control.

You explain that forms are used and that drafts will have mistakes (that’s why they’re called “drafts”) and why that’s a good thing.

When clients feel like things are being handled as expected, they continue to feel important. When they start to feel like someone else or something else is your priority, they feel slighted, and there’s little you can do to repair that situation.

Do everything in your power to make sure your clients feel important. There’s never a reason for them to feel that other clients are more important than they are. They want and need to know that they are your most important priority. Careful expectation management allows every client to have that same feeling.