Are you doing good work?

There’s only one way to know.

You’ve got to ask your clients.

Our system is to call them at the end of their case and ask them, “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to refer you friends and family to our law firm?” We use the Net Promoter System.

We call each client, and we get an answer. In the event that we can’t get an answer, we assume the client would have said “zero.” Happy people return calls, right? If people won’t answer, they’re probably unhappy.

I teach this approach quite often. It never fails that someone perks up and asks, “Can we automate that process? Can we use software for the survey?”

Oddly (maybe not so oddly), the question always comes from someone who also asks lots of questions about marketing.

How is it possible that you need more clients yet have insufficient time to ask one question of your now former clients?

Really? You have time for more clients but not enough time to ask one question? These calls take like 90 seconds each.

Automating the process via e-mail, website, or whatever saves you minimal time, and it dramatically reduces your number of completed surveys. More importantly, it costs you the subtle cues that come from a voice or in-person interaction. You lose the nuance. You lose the feedback that might have made your offering better.

Doing good work is important. Really important. You can’t do crappy legal work and grow your practice. There’s nothing more important than creating and managing systems and processes that take potential clients and turn them into happy former clients.

Take the time, put in the effort, and be willing to devote the energy to finding out whether you’re achieving the point of the whole endeavor. Find out whether you’re doing the job. Ask the question.