It seems you like my music themes. I had a host of emails from people last week ranging from ‘made me smile’ to ‘can’t get that tune out of my head now’. So here I go again with a music theme to this week’s message.
This week the message is about thank you. And this is a personal thank you from me to you as well as a thank you to the NHS. And you know me, I’ve found a way to relate it to a relevant work message for you all!
Let me share a personal story with you.
Last Wednesday I was due to host a webinar with Lindsey Kidd from HM3 Legal. We were going to chat about how the HM3 team are approaching law, and with an approach that aims to deliver ‘wow’ every time, it was clearly going to be a great chat.
But … I woke up that day with an overnight change to my left eye.
As you do, I Googled the symptoms and Google told me that if I didn’t go to the hospital immediately, I would lose my sight 😬 😉
So I did the sensible thing and called my GP surgery. I was called back an hour later by the GP and 3 hours later (when I was due to be hosting the webinar) I was being seen by the consultant at the hospital. Roll forward 2 hours and I’ve been seen, had lots of tests done and been diagnosed with a torn retina AND had laser treatment to ‘fix’ the tear. It wasn’t my best afternoon but it was necessary.
In short this was the NHS at its absolute finest.
I clearly had to tell Lindsey and the webinar registrants that I needed to postpone. I only gave them all a couple of hours’ notice. So I was mucking them around … so I them told them why I had to postpone.
The messages of support and concern I received in response to the postponement were absolutely lovely and a fabulous reminder of how wonderful people are, how understanding they are and how supportive they are. I think this is true of people generally but clearly very true of our professional services community.
I am thankful, I am grateful and I am relieved. Thank you.
So now to join this up with a relevant professional message – the analogy here is that clients contacting law firms are typically in a heightened emotional state – they are scared, frightened, angry, worried, nervous etc. etc (check out the Moneypenny LFMC What Clients Want Research here). These were many of the emotions I experienced.
Are we being responsive? Are we making sure we communicate clearly with them? Are we managing their expectations? Are we allaying their fears? Are we being supportive? Are we letting them know what to expect?
I know our day-to-day dealings are not health threatening … but they are really important to clients.
So please, take my story and apply it to your clients and how you respond and react … a little bit of empathy, being responsive, a lot of clarity, great service and brilliant communications alongside managing expectations will go a long way to supporting your clients. In turn this will result in you having a great reputation which will result in returning clients and referrals.
Two things before I go:
The webinar with Lindsey Kidd is being rearranged – I will share the revised date with you as soon as possible.
We have released a new podcast today – in this episode I chat to Sarah Whitemore from Warner Goodman. Sarah talks about 30 years of being at one firm, how to build a community of clients and our role as custodians of our businesses. It’s a great listen so grab a cuppa and catch it here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1721052/12874208