Solicitor is a brand itself.
When asked about the importance of brand it can be too easy to think about logos, slogans, name awareness and advertising and in doing so perhaps lose what is important in the solicitor brand. Namely that ‘SOLICITOR’ is your brand and an extremely well respected one.
The Firm Code of Conduct.
The individual and collective brand of solicitors is rightly held in high esteem so what becomes paramount is more the reputation of the firm and the solicitors within it. It is, in my opinion why your regulator, the SRA introduced, in 2019, a code of conduct for the firm, alongside that for the individual to encourage law firms to create a common set of processes and therefore a common high-level experience for the consumer. Because it is the experience of dealing with your firm that creates your reputation, which is the most vital brand awareness of all.
The Legal Services Consumer Panel Tracker survey report.
Nowhere is this more beautifully and clearly illustrated every year, than in the annual tracker report published each July, by the respected Legal Services Consumer Panel. If you have not read the paper, based on consumer research with over 3600 individuals, I strongly urge you to seek it out with a simple internet search, but the brand new 2024 report is here. The findings, in the section on how consumers find their legal services provider, shows relatively unchanged results since the very first LSCP report in 2011, that over half, 52%, do so based on a RECCOMENDATION.
It ties in with the survey also finding that of all the factors influencing the choosing of a legal services provider, REPUTATION is top at 88%, up 5% on 2023. Fascinatingly, the 52% of recommendations is broken down neatly – 39% was due to a previous personal experience, or a recommendation from family/friends and 13% (up from 12%,) was through a recommendation from another professional organisation.
Personal and professional referral build your brand.
Despite the SRA’s ongoing trial with a championing of price/review comparison sites and the desire to see ‘quality indicators’, in 2024 the report discovered that only 3% of those surveyed used such sites to source a provider, which is down on 2023, and the only 4% had responded to an advertisement. The conclusion therefore is firmly that it is your firm’s reputation will be enhanced by and built on, quality service earning recommendations and professional referrals. And it is your reputation that is your true brand, and this is separate to any decision to promote or advertise your actual brand.
Matrix Capital can be one of your brand builders.
On a concluding note, with a Matrix Capital hat firmly on, we simply must revert to the fact that 13% of all the recent consumers of legal services surveyed by the LSCP were recommended to their solicitor by another organisation they trusted, and we would bet good money that most of those organisations were financial advisory firm like us. Particularly, as we will only refer our clients to highly qualified and empathetic private client solicitors. With so many Matrix Capital clients being in later life, or indeed in vulnerable circumstances, trusting in and respecting the professionals we work with, is essential.
Legal and financial advice, perhaps like reputation and brand are so often inextricably linked!
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