‘Well, at least I won’t lose my luggage!’, I remarked to a friend after being told that we probably won’t be flying anywhere this year.
Have you ever lost a bag when flying?
I should probably have given you a trigger warning before I asked.
I used to fly quite a bit and was on my way to Canada for business. I arrived late in the evening and shuffled to the reclaim. No bag.
There was of course no physical person to speak to about it. I was told to call a number where I waited on hold for 45 minutes before getting through to an indifferent agent whose helpful advice was to fill in an online form.
48 hours passed with no word. I got angrier by the hour.
They did nothing to manage my expectations or attempt to provide any transparency on the process.
Finally a week later I got a call saying that my bag was gone forever but that they would replace up to $500 worth of possessions, assuming of course that I had the receipts. (Has anyone in history ever kept receipts for suits?)
The coup-de-grace? My phone bill for all the hold time on their customer service number was astronomical.
Let’s call this ‘system’ of customer service the Black Hole approach.
The next time I lost my bag things were rather different.
I arrived in Vancouver. My skiing gear, did not.
I’m pretty sure the agent knew what had happened as soon as she saw me walking up to the counter to deliver my pre-prepared rant.
‘Your bag almost certainly isn’t coming back.’ she very politely said.
I was so stunned that I didn’t know what to say. With that one statement she had immediately reset my expectations.
‘We put a minimum of three stickers with barcodes on each bag and can track it along every step of the process.
If it fell off a conveyor or got on the wrong plane we’d scan it again and get it back on track. Our team will look but almost certainly the barcodes have somehow come off so we have no way of identifying it and no way to get it back to you.’
The anger I had before she started speaking was gone. She’d provided me transparency on the process.
Before I asked she went on and explained that the airline would give me a voucher for $750 right then so that I could get up early, get some new kit and not miss out on any skiing.
This entire interaction took no more than 10 minutes. The agent had provided a clear path forward which I was now bought in to.
She never apologized. She simply managed my expectations, provided transparency and then agreed a path forward.
We’ll call this type of customer service the Comet approach. It doesn’t come around very often but when it does we remember it for being special.
The Black Hole and Comet approaches aren’t limited to airlines. The vast majority of law firms we work with follow one or the other pretty strictly.
In legal terms the Black Hole approach usually looks something like the following:
- The client emails a partner and vaguely outlines the matter but without being specific on deliverables and acceptable assumptions.
- That law firm doesn’t provide a budget or estimate or if it does it’s vague.
- The clock runs.
- The matter is completed and a bill provided that is incomprehensible and bears little resemblance to what the client thought they were asking for.
- There’s no meaningful communication between the start and finish of the matter to manage the client’s expectations.
- The client disputes the bill, an argument ensues.
Many clients fight back by instituting e-billing but this just attempts to close the farm gate after the horse has bolted. (If I had a dollar for every horror story I’d heard about clients and law firms going back and forth for weeks trying to resolve if it was ok for a given associate to have worked on a matter for 6 or 8 hours in a day…)
It results in both sides trying to nickel and dime each other and eroding their relationship.
At some point one or both will get sick of arguing and agree to an invoice that neither side is happy with or believes reflects what has been delivered.
It’s also bad for business. Both sides waste enormous amounts of time preparing, delivering and then arguing over invoices that don’t relate to actual outcomes.
The good news is that we’re seeing a number of firms start to take the Comet approach which usually goes something like the following:
- The client and firm discuss the matter and agree a comprehensive scope with appropriate assumptions.
- The firm proposes a reasonable budget to the client who agrees that for the objectives they have in mind that the price is fair.
- Both sides start working from an agreed set of expectations.
- When things happen mid-matter the firm informs the client, explains the change and provides a new estimate.
- The matter closes and there’s no bill surprise.
Under the Comet framework the firm has achieved the three hallmarks of customer service – managed expectations, provided transparency and delivered on an agreed plan.
The Black Hole approach is transactional and relies on the client returning to the firm out of obligation or because of brand.
The Comet approach is relational and encourages the client to return to the firm out of loyalty and past performance.
Clients increasingly have many choices as to which firms to work with and as they do they are going to return to those that have invested in high quality relationships.
Moving from the Black Hole to the Comet approach does not require wholesale change.
It does require structure and a framework which encourages the behaviours that lead to better outcomes.
We’d love to chat if you’d like to learn a bit more about how Alacrity helps clients encourage and law firms deliver on the Comet approach to improved relationships.
Alternatively I’d love to hear your lost bag stories!
Not missing my luggage,
Christopher Thurn
Founder – Alacrity Law
