Minor Wisdom

ABA help for Katrina victims

I just got an email from the American Bar Association with this message:

The ABA has put together a website at http://www.abanet.org/katrina/ for both lawyers and the general public to serve as a directory for various emergency related services. The website includes information on temporary office space availability, FEMA and Red Cross information, State and Local Bar emergency services, and information on legal services. We hope that this site is useful to you in this time of need.

Napoleonic Code?

Slate has an article titled Louisiana's Napoleon Complex: The French Influence on Pelican State Jurisprudence. It's slightly more informative than Stanley Kowalski's lecture on community property.

Lesson from a crashed hard drive

Two days ago, I wrote about a recent experience with a realtor and what the experience taught me about satisfying the customer. The point was that lawyers—or anyone else in a service-oriented profession—can learn a lot about making clients or customers happy from our own experiences as clients or customers.  Now, I want to write about the experience I had a couple of years ago that got me thinking along those lines.

One weekend, the hard drive on my computer crashed. Murphy's Law being what it is, the warranty on the computer had expired a couple of months before. So Monday morning, I pulled out the Yellow Pages to look for some help and started making phone calls. Time: a few minutes after 8:00 a.m. First number I called: no answer. Second number: I got voice mail.

The third time was the charm. I called Rent-A-Nerd in neighboring Metairie, Louisiana. And a human being answered the phone—a human being who could help. I described the problem, and this woman quickly told me:

1. that Rent-A-Nerd could fix my computer;
2. how long it would take—when they would be able to start working on it (probably Thursday or Friday), and how long the job would probably take assuming they had to replace the hard drive; and
3. how much it would cost.

So immediately after breakfast, I dropped my CPU off at Rent-A-Nerd.

Around the middle of the week, I got a call from the technician who was just starting to work on my computer. He told me that the hard drive was indeed crashed, and how long it would take them to get a replacement. He predicted that the job would be finished either late Friday or early Monday.

On Thursday, I got another call. The new hard drive was installed; he asked whether I wanted them to upload my software at no extra charge. I said yes. Friday morning I dropped off my software CDs. Friday afternoon, I picked up the computer, brought it home, and had the weekend to restore my backed-up data.

Today, I would recommend Rent-A-Nerd to anyone needing the same kind of service. What did Rent-A-Nerd do right? To me, the big thing was communication. Every time I called, I was able to speak to a human being who could answer my questions. And they kept me informed as things progressed. Another big thing was credibility: everything turned out pretty much as they told me it would (their ability to do the job, how long it would take, how much it would cost).

My approach to marketing

As a lawyer, I'm not a rainmaker; I'm more a drizzle maker. With that disclosure out of the way, I think lawyers can learn a lot about developing business from other service-oriented businesses. Or to follow this blog's tag line, you can observe a lot about developing business from watching others.

An example: A major step toward wrapping up my mother's succession was selling her house. I used a realtor, Luke Jones,¹ and I concluded the transaction feeling very comfortable that Luke earned his commission. I would not hesitate to recommend Luke to anyone else who needs to sell a house. What did Luke do to earn this?

• He kept me informed. As things moved forward, he telephoned to tell me what was going on, even though he didn't need me to make a decision.
• He told me exactly what to expect. There were no surprises. When I signed the listing agreement, he gave me a worksheet showing the estimated net proceeds we would get from the sale, assuming we got our asking price. Though this was only an estimate, it happened to match the actual net proceeds to the dollar.
• The expectations described above included Luke's commission, which he explained up front. So I knew up front how much the transaction was going to cost.

I don't think you need me to tell you how someone who provides legal services instead of real-estate services can go forth and do likewise. My point is simply this: When you find yourself satisfied—or dissatisfied—with any business transaction, reflect on what the service provider did to satisfy or dissatisfy you. Do that, and you'll learn a lesson in marketing your own services.

______________________

¹Is it just me, or does Luke resemble Val Kilmer?