Another way your clients can help your practice grow

Will you be seeing any clients today? This week? Good. When you’re done with your meeting, ask them if they can help you out with something and tell them it will only take 15 minutes.

When they ask what you have in mind, tell them you want to ask them a few questions about their experience with you and your office.

When they agree, ask them if it would be okay if you record the conversation. And then, do a brief interview.

Ask some basic questions about why they needed a lawyer, how they found you, and what you did for them. Ask about:

• Their background/occupation
• The legal issue or objective that prompted them to seek legal help
• How they found you (referral, search, other)
• If they saw your website, what did they read, what did they like?
• Did they talk to other lawyers before they decided to hire you?
• Why did they choose you?
• What did you do for them/how did you help them?
• What did they like best about having you as their lawyer?
• Is there anything they think you need to improve? Anything you don’t do but should?
• Would they recommend you? What would they say about you?

And so on. You’ll think of other questions, and they’ll volunteer statements about their experience with you and your firm.

At the end of the interview, ask them if it would be okay to post their comments on your website or put them in your newsletter. Ask them if you could use their name. You might also ask for a head shot photo, or take one on the spot.

Have the interview transcribed. You might use the transcript in it’s entirety, or lift quotes from it and use them in a “client profile”.

There are several benefits to doing this:

• It’s an easy source of content for your blog or newsletter
• You’ll get lots of readership. Your other clients and prospective clients like to see what others say about their experience with you
• The interviewed client will “sell” readers on hiring you, so you don’t have to.
• Their positive comments help your other clients feel good about their decision to hire you
• The interviewee may share your post with their friends and followers, bringing you more traffic and more clients (indirect referrals)
• If your client owns a business, this is a simple way for you to promote that business; they’ll also be likely to share your post
• You’ll get feedback about what you’re doing right, and ideas you can use to add value

Go ahead, give this a try. Your clients will be flattered that you want to interview them. And once you see how easy this is, you’ll want to do it again.

Could you interview one client per month? Of course you could. If you do, and you write a weekly blog post or article, one-quarter of your monthly content will be taken care of.

More ways to get your clients to provide referrals