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April 14, 2013
The Customer Experience: Compete on Value and Long-Term Relationships.
Even now, in these markets, especially now, in these markets. If a client comes to your firm for price, it will leave your firm for price. Bet on it. To land and keep great corporate clients, never compete on price. Compete on value. Pitch only to, and work with, sophisticated and lawyer-savvy clients.
(Sure, for longstanding existing clients, it's a different story. You already have a relationship there, so you can and should "play with" your rates to reflect volume and reward loyalty.)
At best, the bargain hunter corporate client out there these days isn't a sophisticated user of legal services, is aware of this fact, lacks confidence in it choices, and therefore makes self-defeating demands for "price reductions" in order to hedge its bets. Bargain hunter clients cannot discern the difference between one set of corporate lawyers and another set, between the generic and the excellent. So it guesses. Don't go there. Don't pitch to them. Don't work for them on a long-term basis.
Pitch to, and work with, clients that "get" you and yours.
Devo still evolving in 2008: "Are We Not Men?" No more gyms in Akron, guys? Dang.
Posted by Holden Oliver (Kitzbühel Desk) at April 14, 2013 10:09 AM