By Joseph Donia
You may have spent a load of money on law school but when it comes right down to it, law is a service industry – and good service can make or break your brand.
From onboarding to invoicing, constant interaction between the service provider (you) and the service user (your clients) creates multiple opportunities for, and threats to your brand.
Service isn’t a one-way street – it requires the participation of the user, and good service will therefore mean different things to different people. Properly designing these experiences to meet service users’ needs is essential. Research shows that people are more likely to remember the beginning and the ending of an experience than how it felt overall, so exceeding expectations at key points can do more to satisfy your clients than simply providing favourable legal outcomes.
Identifying touchpoints
Touchpoints describe any interaction that a client has with you or your firm, online or off. Identifying how people behave at these touchpoints can help you more effectively meet the expectations of your clients, and can also help you to identify where technology and marketing investments are likely to have the greatest impact. Too often firms evaluate investments from their own point of view, leading to ill-informed and costly decisions that may actually harm the brand, rather than provide new or better value to its clients.
Mapping touchpoints
The emerging field of service design offers methods for mapping touchpoints, including service blueprints and journey maps.
Journey maps are visualizations of touchpoints and the spaces between, allowing you to evaluate the emotional impact of your service, including users’ thoughts, emotions, and desires.
Service blueprints go beyond clients’ perspectives and outline the back-end processes required to deliver your service.
Blueprints and journey maps are not just visualization methods, but also idea-generating tools. Combining the two allows you to identify challenges to client experiences, and how process improvements might improve outcomes.
For example, when creating these maps you could consider the following:
- How might a client feel at this stage of the service? Why do they feel this way?
- What are they thinking at this stage of the service?
- Which digital touchpoints are they interacting with (email, website, invoicing software, etc.)?
- Which physical touchpoints are they engaging with (parking lot, reception, associate, board room etc.)
- Which behaviours or actions does the firm require of the client at this touchpoint?
- How long does this touchpoint last?
- Which actions are required of service delivery personnel?
- Which potential mismatches between client thoughts, feelings, and actions and service delivery exist?
- How might changes to processes improve experiences and outcomes?
- How might new processes improve experiences and outcomes?
- Which changes are likely to achieve the greatest improvement in perceived value, with the lowest effort?
- How important is this touchpoint to the overall service experience?
Collaboration
The best way to find out the answers to any of these questions is to ask clients directly about their experience with your firm. Their perspective on your service can offer important insights into how your brand can create differentiated and sustainable value.
Joseph Donia is the founder of Huddle, a service design and innovation consultancy. For access to tools and templates like the service journey map and blueprint, sign up for HuddleU. Connect with Joseph on LinkedIn, Twitter, or email him.