How to choose the right client listening platform for your firm according to MyCustomerLens

Inspired by recent law firm conversations we have put together a reference guide to the key considerations when scoping your client listening platform.

What is a client listening platform?

A client listening platform is software that unifies a wide range of feedback signals, automates the analysis of that data, and then makes the insights available to decision-makers across the business.

A client listening platform is more than a survey tool because it aggregates a wide range of qualitative and quantitative feedback sources. It also does more than support individual analysis. It automates regular analysis and reporting jobs, so that client listening teams can ‘move up the value curve’.

Key considerations – mind the GAPS

A client listening platform like MyCustomerLens sits at the heart of a modern client listening programme and therefore needs to be considered within that broader context. So before deciding on specific technologies you need to begin with the end in mind and consider your GAPS:

• Goals – the overall purpose of your client listening programme
• Actions – how your firm will engage with the insights
• People – who needs to know what, and when
• Signals – the feedback sources to include

Goals – the overall purpose of your client listening programme

Key questions:

• Why does our firm want to listen to clients?
• What do senior leaders expect from client listening?

It may seem a silly question to ask why your firm wants to listen to its clients. But beyond discussions about the matter at hand, the answer is often ‘we don’t’. Or at least ‘we don’t want to listen to all of them’.

Other reasons for establishing a client listening programme include the need to ‘report an NPS’; ‘check on our most valuable relationships’; ‘generate 5* reviews’; ‘evidence feedback for a quality mark’; ‘identify new opportunities’; or ‘learn how to improve client experiences’.

I’m not judging, but you need to. Understanding what senior leaders expect from client listening is crucial to defining a realistic scope for your programme and platform.

If senior leaders only want to measure feedback, rather than learn from it, a survey tool will do the job. If the goal is to check in on the top 1% of clients, then an annual project of interviews may be enough.

But what if there is genuine desire to identify new opportunities, reveal changing expectations or learn where client experiences can be improved? Then you need a scalable way to look across multiple clients and data sources.

Actions – how your firm will engage with the insights

Key questions:

• What is the appetite for taking action?
• How will we measure the RoI of our client listening programme?

Once you’re clear on the purpose of client listening, you can clarify how your firm will use the insights. Currently, most firms have a de-centralised process for closing the loop. Unilateral actions are generated from individual interviews and shared with the specific relationship partner or account team.

However, if your programme’s goal is to drive organic growth or to improve client experiences, then you need a broader perspective. This starts with centrally tracking the status and impact of all actions. Why?

Firstly, your client listening team should have a view across all the feedback and insights being created by your firm’s programme. This gives you the opportunity to look beyond unilateral actions and discover opportunities to add value to groups of other clients.

A common example is fixing communication or billing issues for a specific client. But if you can discover and resolve the root cause of the problem, you can improve the experiences of many clients who have yet to raise it.

Demonstrating return on investment

Secondly, by having a central view of both the listening process and the impact of the actions it generates, you can reveal the RoI of client listening. This helps demonstrate that client listening can help drive strategic initiatives, not just individual relationships.

Understanding how your firm wants to act on client feedback, will help you see whether you need a simple survey tool or a platform that can unify data, insights and actions.

People – who needs to know what, and when

Key questions:

• Which decision-makers want to make client-led decisions?
• When and how do they want to access the insights?

If your firm is doing client listening to strengthen client relationships, enhance brand and reputations or to deliver organic growth, then your insight users need to be singing from the same hymn sheet.

If you have a small number of insight users, or a limited collection of data, then you can get away with manual reporting and responding to ad hoc queries. But as the scope of your programme grows you have the option to embrace automation and on-demand intelligence.

Providing the right insights to the right people at the right time, means delivering a mix of:

• Regular / predictable insights. For example, answering ‘what feedback has this client shared recently’ or ‘what recent testimonials demonstrate how we deliver on each part of our brand promise?’
• Bespoke / ad hoc insights. For example, answering ‘why don’t we win more pitches in a specific industry’ or ‘what is the root cause of inconsistent client experiences?’

Considerations for scalable and timely insight creation

Do you want people analysing the data themselves? Or should they have direct access to the answers? Modern platforms combine bespoke AI with a central analytics framework. This ensures that your automated analysis delivers consistent and predictable results, relevant to different insight needs.

Do your decision-makers need answers quickly? If so, you can give them real-time access to the automated analysis. For maximum usability, these real-time dashboards can be tailored to the specific needs of each team.

By enabling self-service for repetitive insight requests, client listening managers get an additional benefit. You can focus on the fun stuff – reading across the data and helping colleagues turn insights into impact.

Signals – the feedback sources to include

Key questions:

• Where do we need to capture the client voice?
• When in the client journey will we be listening?

Traditionally client listening plans started with the feedback channel. The intent was to run a client survey or some research interviews. The project plan was developed from there, with the available insights driven by the agreed questions.

Modern client listening works the other way around. It begins with the required insights and works backwards to identify the feedback signals needed to create them. Our recent Future of Client Insights survey revealed that 83% of firms are challenged by too little feedback data, or the data coming from a small percentage of clients.

The signals your firm is already receiving

When you look beyond formal research, you will discover that the voice of your clients is being heard in many different ways across your firm. However, these have traditionally been managed in different siloes, and often not considered ‘client listening’.

These signals will be a mix of formal and informal feedback and both qualitative and quantitative data. Interviews, surveys of various lengths, complaints, testimonials, reviews, meeting notes, emails, feedback forms, research reports and revenue data are just some of the potential signals you could be using.

Check list for a modern client listening platform

Frankly, if the desire is only to evidence feedback, report an NPS score or check in on key relationships, then you can get by with spreadsheets, PowerPoint and simple survey tools.

However, if you want to combine multiple feedback signals, discover emerging client needs or improve client experiences, then you’ll need a client listening platform.

A modern client listening platform enables firms to listen differently. Specifically it has the following capabilities that support the shift to ‘always-on’ listening:

• Unifies all sources of the client voice
• Automates the analysis of text data using a consistent analytics framework
• Delivers real-time insights to decision-makers across the firm
• Centrally tracks the status and impact of the resulting actions
• Doesn’t charge based on the number of users or responses

Ready to transform your client listening approach?

Discover how MyCustomerLens can help you unify feedback across your entire firm, generate actionable insights automatically and drive strategic decision-making.

MyCustomerLens is the innovative, always-on client listening platform designed to give law firms a competitive edge. By harnessing the power of advanced AI, we transform formal and informal feedback signals into real-time, actionable insights.

Our pioneering approach helps firms drive organic growth by unlocking deeper client. Ready to learn more? Click here to arrange a time to chat.