Thought Leadership
Brand Promises and Service Realities
In this year’s market research (2017/18), we list the firms in UK legal which have mastered client-centric service delivery.
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We find that service excellence is not confined to one particular section of the market, acknowledged by the mix of firms: premium-priced global firms rub shoulders with regional ones operating keener priced business models. Nor does service performance mirror brand performance either.
TOP THREE SERVICE LEADERS
#1 HERBERT SMITH FREEHILLS
“Highly professional. Demonstrable excellence in selected areas of practice. Results orientated.”
#2 SHOOSMITHS
“Very much ‘on your side’ – solution driven and commercial understanding. Some excellent people if you know which teams to pick.”
#3 OSBORNE CLARKE
“High level of awareness of international impact on the business when giving advice.”
“The really valuable stuff is the advice you hadn’t asked for. That’s what really impresses me: those who ring up with something you hadn’t thought of – what’s going on in the market.”
Director of Group Legal,
FTSE-Listed company
It goes without saying that performance focus should be aligned with clients’ priorities, but this requires private practice to be all over what matters to clients.
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Clients trust that their advisers have the requisite technical expertise and understand their market sufficiently well. However, more attention should be directed towards the most important service factors, including strategic thinking and personal chemistry. Interestingly, firms actually exceed client expectations on factors such as professionalism, technology and offices, all factors which are rated as being of less importance.
These results come care of surveying over 2,000 in-house legal counsel in the UK, Europe and beyond. Complete with service benchmarks and performance rankings, you can download a free copy of the report.