Using Technology to Improve Client Services in Your Practice

“Using Technology to Improve Client Services in Your Practice,” that’s the subject of today’s ACTEC Trust and Estate Talk.

Transcript/Show Notes

This is Natalie Perry, ACTEC Fellow from Chicago. Attorney practices sometimes miss step by trying to replicate client service models from brands like the Four Seasons or Disney. While those are gold standards in hospitality, legal clients aren’t necessarily seeking that kind of experience. What clients value most from their lawyers is clarity, responsiveness, trust, and practical solutions.

ACTEC Fellow John Strohmeyer from Houston, Texas, joins us today with recommendations for improving your law and practice customer service with insights from his gold standard experiences in the hospitality industry. Welcome, John.

Introduction: From Hospitality to Law

John Strohmeyer:  Thank you, Natalie. Now, I got on this podcast because I am an ACTEC Fellow. Before I was a lawyer, I was the night manager of the Four Seasons Hotel in Austin, Texas, for three years. I learned a lot about client service there, and what I learned there, I brought to my practice. What’s important to see and what I want to make sure everyone gets from this podcast is that we often get confused, and I myself was confused at first by what it means to actually be part of a service industry.

It’s easy to get taken away by the stories of magical service and over the top experiences delivered by Disney, Four Seasons, and Ritz-Carlton. An example would be the story of Joshi, the stuffed giraffe that was left at a Ritz-Carlton property by a small child. Before the Ritz returned it, they went around the property and took photographs of Joshi all over the hotel, so the child got a wonderful storybook of what happened to Joshi before he made his way home. While this is a heartwarming story that we all love to hear, the reality is, even for the Ritz, that’s not something that gets delivered on a regular basis. It’s a one-off story because if it weren’t a one-off story, we would have heard about more things like this. It’s great marketing for Ritz, but it’s not reality and it’s not something that we should look to duplicate in our process or in our practice.

What we want to think about is service being how easily your practice delivers. In this year of 2025, it’s going to be a combination of both high-tech and high touch. We don’t want to be fully automated; think of Amazon where if something goes wrong, you’re going to have a hard time getting a human to deal with it.

In the same way, you don’t want it to be fully humanized because you do need to adapt the realities and the technologies available to you. We already use this–storing documents on computers, using Excel, using software to assist with drafting. What we’re looking for is a humanized delivery for every everyone.

What Is Client Service, Really?

So what is client service? Well, it’s going to be the experience that a business provides beyond its technical or physical product. We think then of three different things that are coming out to our clients: a physical product, a technical product, and a service product. Every business- whether it’s McDonald’s, Four Seasons, or your law practice- has a unique combination of those three components.

Where a physical component — the customer or the client is paying the business to get a thing that they want, and they don’t really think too much about the time or the effort that goes into it. Buying commodities, buying an item, even buying a bag of food that comes through the window of your car.

A technical component — business is where we as lawyers spend most of our time. Our clients are paying us to move the needle on their problems. Put another way, they’re paying us to know the rules, know how to apply the rules, and know which rules to use so they can go do anything else other than spend the time with us.

Finally, a service component — focused business like Disney, Four Seasons, or Ritz. Clients are paying the business to enjoy their time with that business. Why? Clients are enjoying some form of pampering, entertainment, or fun. And while we as lawyers would love to think that we are pampering, entertaining, and delighting our clients, the reality is they just want their problem solved, the will signed, or the lawsuit settled.

Applying the Service Lens to Law

So what can we do to improve our clients’ experience? What did I learn at the Four Seasons?

Well, first, we want to think about mapping out your client’s journey. This is more than just saying, “Well, I know we’re going to meet with a client, we’re going to draft some documents, and they’re going to come on in and sign it.” The people in your firm — employees from the paralegal, assistant, and clerks all the way up to partners — should know what each step is so that they can execute on that even if you, the expert, aren’t right there. They will be better able to guide the clients. And what comes from that is, then, if your people know how to guide the clients, it’s easier for all of them to guide the clients.

Similarly, you can then take that and put it into some sort of statement, paper, presentation, what have you, to help explain the process to your clients so they don’t get lost. Ultimately, you’re thinking of yourself as a guide. The client has pointed to the top of the mountain that they want to achieve, and we as their attorneys are there to help them achieve that goal by guiding them through the forest to get to their preferred mountaintop.

As you do that, you’ll identify touchpoints — the people, the processes, the places, and the things that your clients identify. How can you build out a stronger, safer process for all involved?

Tech Tools That Enhance Client Service

I’ll close with three tech tools that I’ve used to improve client service in my firm and that you can maybe use in your firm if this makes sense for you.

Rule number one: Calendly
Calendly is a scheduling tool that I’ve used for years and has many competitors. If you’re already using a different one, continue to use that if you love it.

Why should you consider a scheduling tool like Calendly? What it will do is allow people to schedule time on your calendar so that they know when they’ll talk to you. What it helps is other people to be able to get on your calendar so that you can be prepared for them, and you’re not juggling as many phone calls off the cuff and you’re unprepared.

By having that tool available, clients can schedule a 15-minute call with you so that they know they’ll talk to you at a particular time. It also allows others in your office to schedule time with you if needed. Again, there’s a lot of setup that will go into this, but what it ultimately does is allows others to know that they will be meeting with you at a particular time and that they will have your focused attention because you’re on the schedule.

Tool number two: Zapier
Zapier works by connecting your internet-enabled software to talk to each other. While certain things will automatically connect by connecting them and logging in together, sometimes those tools don’t always work together. For example, Calendly doesn’t talk to ShareFile, my storage system. But when certain meetings are scheduled, I can have Zapier take that input from Calendly and create a file system in our shared folder system.

What this does is it ends up speeding up the work by doing those repetitive, simple tasks that otherwise we’d pay a human to do. So once that call gets scheduled with a new potential client, we already have a folder set up in our system titled as we want it. We’re not missing out on any heavy-duty work. We’re saving time and allowing the humans in our firm to focus on the more important tasks.

The last tool I want to think about is TextExpander
What this does is allow you to set up certain repeated phrases that you’ll use all the time so that you don’t have to remember what it says. Instead of typing in the entire long description, or perhaps your preferred language on exercising a power of appointment, you can key in a shortcut that allows your computer- or your associate’s computer, or your associate’s iPad, or whatever program or device they’re using- to use that language for them — shooting out a consistent product. When it’s a consistent product, it’s easier to maintain and focus on what needs to be done — taking care of clients. Again, these three tools are ways of making things more streamlined so that you can focus on taking better care of your clients.

Natalie Perry:  Thank you, John, for educating us about client service.

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