Episode 83 - Taking CX to the next level with Alistair Tudor From Stephens' Scown Solicitors

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: Hello everybody and welcome to the CX podcast RR with my good self Richard Knight and him over there.

Speaker A: Uh, thank you Richard, the even better self, Ryan Huxtable. Great to be with you in September. Rich, where has the summer gone?

Speaker B: Well, I, it's disappeared and actually the weather's still not too bad over down in the west country. As always, the sun is shining and the siren is still available to drink. So everything is good with the world.

Speaker A: The sun is shining and, and today even more, the sun is shining because I am delighted, uh, more than delighted, uber excited to introduce our special guest, Alistair Tudor. Alistair, uh, is head of transformation and client experience, um, at the rapidly growing law firm of Steven Scone, which is a, an amazing business based down here in the west country, but rapidly growing, uh, rapidly growing out right out uh, of the west country into a much bigger regional firm. And part of that has been driven, and Alistair will share some of this in a second by their focus, their laser light focus on the uh, experience they give clients. We're lucky enough to count Stephen Scone as one of our larger law firm clients. Uh, and we've been working with Steven Scoan now for m, I think about 10 years of helping them independently verify their client data. So delighted that Alistair's joined us. Alistair, did you just want to share a little bit about what you do at Steven Scoen?

Speaker C: Thanks for the um, glowing introduction. It's great to be able to join you. Thank you and thanks for the invite. Um, yeah, so as you said, I'm head of client, uh, delivery and transformation or transformation. Client delivery. Um, that covers a couple of main areas. Uh, business development to coordinate the uh, activity that we're doing with our legal teams. Uh, there's the transformation element of what we do. So we look at um, how as a business we can be doing things better. That could be process improvement. It could be different pieces of software, could be mapping um, out, um, how different activities are done to find efficiencies, um, to kind of generate more time back for our lawyers and ultimately um, help our clients achieve the outcomes that are as important to them as they are to us, uh, hopefully in rapid time for them. Um, and then the final part is a client delivery, uh, team and client services function. Uh, within that uh, we include the CX element of what we do, which is a lot of client listening, a uh, lot of um, uh, mystery shopping, buyer insight 6. We use the Instant Insight portal and also um, any other sort of initiatives that we're doing around delighting our clients and Making sure that they're getting what they want out of ah, their interactions with us as a firm.

Speaker A: Um, so you're fairly busy then, Alistair?

Speaker C: Yeah, just a bit.

Speaker A: So I think what's really great to have you on, have you on the podcast is um, Rich and I, Rich we were talking about um, the types of experiences businesses create back in uh, back in our July, August podcast. Um, and Rich rightly challenged me. Rich didn't he? He said well let's, let's prove that who's doing it.

Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. We've been talking a long time about the theory and all of those great things around customer experience and client experience. But a lot of the time um, people still sort of asking the questions. Well yeah, but how's it done? How is it actually the difference made? How do these businesses that are delivering great experiences for their clients and their customers do it? So to have you on today Alistair, is fantastic to be able to really talk about the practicalities of it and also the chall that you may well have come across as well would be really interesting to hear some more about. So how did it all start?

Speaker C: Uh, well as Ryan said, we've got a long background with um, not just insight 6 but with um, client experience and understanding how important that is. Um, as a law firm, um, I think it can sometimes, dare I say it be the thing that um, is missed out uh, when within professional services, um, ultimately some firms still feel the product they deliver or the service they deliver is all the differentiation they need. Um, what we found is that within professional services, because you need a certain level of qualification, a level of expertise to be able to practice it, the delivery of the service is almost a given. So how do we differentiate ourselves, uh, within what is quite a crowded and competitive marketplace and really how that client feels during their transaction or their matter with us is really, really important. So um, we've done quite a lot of work over the last kind of three years to map that out and decide and crystallize what we want that to look like. So um, I joined the firm just over three years ago now. Um, I come from a background of commercial and business development roles, um, and kind of wanted a change of tack. I'd had sort of, you know, we all have three careers, don't we? So um, I'd had one of those and decided actually I wanted to do something a bit different and joined Steven Scone in May 2023. We had a fairly well established um, client experience strategy that was in place. Um, predominantly it looked at um, the feedback that we get from clients at the beginning and the end of a matter. Uh, we had an element of mystery shopping and we had an element of key client review that was in there as well. M But really, um, and I've used this analogy with Ryan before, um, when you ask clients at the beginning of a matter, it's a bit like going out for dinner. We asked for a table for two. Uh, you know, Richard and I would get taken to a table and the waiter goes, how was that? And we go, well, it was fine, but I haven't really experienced the meal yet. I haven't. I don't know what this is all about. Um, and then at the end of the meal, once we paid the invoice, we then go, how was it? It would have been nice to have some more vegetables or a bit of salt or something in between. Nothing terribly groundbreaking, but we missed those opportunities to make the experience better. Um, so, um, my role really has, um, been around a number of different areas. When I started, the priority was to create a centralized inquiries funct. Um, Ryan, I know you touched on it a little bit in the last podcast, which was a really interesting listen, but the, that inconsistent and varied experience that we were giving clients was, is a really good practical example of that. So what would happen is, as a new client, you would phone in, you'd speak to a receptionist, they would get a rough idea of why you were phoning and what it was that you had a problem with. We'd then try and transfer you up to a legal team. Legal teams, by their very nature tend to be quite busy and quite kind of time pressured. So you might get somebody able to answer the phone and take the details of your inquiry or not. If not, we'd have to take an email and email the team and get them to phone you back. If we could take the inquiry, it was done a Word document and then emailed around the team. Does somebody want to pick this one up and go back to the client? So we had a lot of, a lot of variety within all of those moving parts that you can see depending on the team and the nature of the inquiry that we had.

Speaker A: Alistair, I'm curious because, yes, I know many of the things you've been on with, but there's also some stuff that you've done really innovatively, um, through your own experience. And you, you intimated that in the last podcast we talked about this random experience to, um, delivering this intentional experience and that, you know, working, you know, with you as your external consultant. One of the things I Think has been really interesting. Is, is your, and I use this word with all the love it's meant to, with your dogma of driving that intentional experience. It kind of sits with everything you do. How easy did you, how easy around it to move from uh, delivering that random experience you just described to a much more of an intentional experience. And was it hard taking everybody with you?

Speaker C: Um, it's a really good question. Um, we started with a team that was under pressure most, which was our family finance team. So if sadly you want to get a divorce, you would phone up our family finance team and we would help you with the legal side of that. They had the vast majority of the inquiries or the highest proportion of the inquiries that were coming through. So um, we actually took um, a couple of people within that team that would be handling a lot of the inquiries and created a centralized function out of that. Um, from that we took that, if you like paper or word document and we digitized it and we created some automation that would push the inquiry up to the team whilst also collecting all of the data. Um, and really once we'd started to demonstrate the value of this work with other legal teams, they were quite keen to get involved. So we've moved from one team at the start of the process to explaining how it works to demonstrating the value of it, um, to really now taking about 90% of inquiries via um, the client service team for the whole firm. There's a few little outliers that are very specialist that tend to go direct into the, into specialist teams. But the vast majority come through and we estimate we've probably saved about £4 million worth of fee earners time or legal advisers time by centralizing those inquiries through the system. Um, and we're probably up to about 15,000 inquiries, inquiries that we've taken through that system in the last three odd years. So the volume is there. And when you talk to legal teams in particular about saving all of that time and giving a consistent experience to the client, um, they're quite easy to get on board. But you need to demonstrate that it's going to work. Um, one of the key things that we found with this was that um, if you make the effort to pick up the phone to a law firm, um, the minimum expectation really that you should have is that somebody takes the details of your inquiry. Um, instead of being told there's no one available to take your call, somebody will call you back. So by hitting that almost minimum expectation that as a caller you would have, um, we're finding our ah, conversion ratio of inquiries is much higher. The ability to, um, gather all the data that we've got is really invaluable when we're trying to talk to the teams about different marketing initiatives, um, about what their response times need to be. So if you take that family example, the response time for an inquiry needs to probably be within half an hour to an hour. Some of the longer term, more commercially focused inquiries could, um, take a couple of days to come back. But the client's expectations are not that they're going to hear back immediately. So we're trying to kind of work out and unpick these client journeys and what the variety is between a private individual who's got an inquiry and a business who's got an inquiry. Um, it's been a really interesting, interesting process, but it's not been without its challenges. But the fact that we've got 90% of all inquiries going through and the resistance, or the fact that we haven't got 100% is not down to resistance. It's just there's some real specifics around how those teams work that probably don't make it worth including in those inquiries functions.

Speaker A: I've got to say, Alistair, 100%. Congratulations. I've never known Rich be quite so quiet on a podcast. He's taken it all in.

Speaker B: I tell you, I tell you why I am, for starters, is that 90% figure in terms of everybody going through that one inquiry, uh, uh, mechanism which, um, across, uh, lots of experience that we have ourselves and our colleagues around the UK have. This is really, really difficult to actually get people on the same page about it because we hear it time and time again is. Yeah, but our department's different, we're different. And I think it's a really, really good advertisement that, that, that it's about the client, it's not about the department, it's what, what does the client want? And that was that. That got me thinking actually for. Next question for you was really about how did you understand what the clients want? How did you, did you gather feedback that on ongoing or did you go, uh, proactively to do some group, group listening? How did, how did that, that information come to you?

Speaker C: I think, I think it's a really good question. Um, ultimately, if you put yourself in the client's shoes or if you're able to, that's a really good starting point. Um, and, and going back to that point about, you know, if you pick, if you, if you, if you can be bothered, if you take the effort to probably look on the Internet these days. Find a phone number for a law firm, pick up the phone, talk to somebody about it. What do you, what, what would I want that to look like? What would I want that to feel like, would I feel? And something that we spent quite a lot of time flitting around a little bit here, but it does relate directly to this is we did some work probably two and a half years ago about um, what do we want our clients to feel when they're dealing with Steven Scone. If you look at something like the retail sector, it's quite easy. If I go and buy a jumper, I know if I walk out with a nice bag with a really nice jumper in it, I feel quite, quite sparkly and joyous and it's great and I'm happy. We struggle to elicit emotions like that within the legal profession. Let's face it, we tend to be a bit of a distressed purchase, um, or a necessary, I don't want to say evil, but a necessary part of a transaction. So we can't expect kind of joyous emotions when people transact with us. We boiled it down to three key words which were confident, valued and respected. We want our clients to feel confident in our ability to support them. We want them to feel valued. We've got the time to speak to them and to listen to them and understand exactly what their need is. And respected in that, uh, we're going to take the time to explain what the process is and what it is that we're doing and what the next steps are going to be. Because although we do this on a day to day basis, the chances are that, that a large proportion of our clients are probably doing whatever it is that we're doing for them for the first time. So we need to take the time to understand, um, you know, those three emotions if we get those right. Um, and we see that coming back now in the feedback that we get from our client listening process. Um, if we take the time to get people to understand that those are, those are the emotions we're after, then that kind of crystallizes what we want that client journey to be. Certainly at that initial start point, um, you know, they should feel confident the lawyer that they are speaking to can help them. Valued in that the responses come quickly, um, and confident we can help them with what the need is. Um, you know, respecting them to come back to them really quickly on their inquiry.

Speaker A: You used a couple of really, um, insightful phrases there Alistair, but I think the one that really hit home was you said we really want to understand how we made them feel. Um, and I think when you look at a lot of client journeys, they're very heavily process driven. And you, you've described when you arrived in, in the firm, you did a lot around process. You did a lot to reprocess that client journey.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, you know, but you haven't. And this is the mistake at sadly, you know, many businesses make is they, they complete a process map and they think, yeah, that's it, we've got the client journey licked. You know, everyone's going to follow this process. Uh, and then Rich's question was a good one. You know, in terms of. I don't say that very often, so well done. Um, you know, it was a great question around, uh, you know, how, you know, how did you know that was the right direction to going to, you know, you know, was it evident from the mystery shopping or whatever, you know, you were doing? Um, and it's that feeling, that sort of peak end piece of the puzzle that when a client leaves that interaction, they're thinking, yeah, my law's got my back, or, you know, that receptionist is going to get me to where I need to go and get me the right information. Um, and you know, I think the, the other really interesting piece, um, of the puzzle that, that we've got the pleasure of working with you on now is, you know, you're even taking that down to, you know, in the future, looking at how does it feel walking into your offices? What does it, what does it look like? You know, what's the experience like? You know, so that level of, of um, empathy that you're showing clients really shows the intent of the business to, to move to that differentiate experience.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think empathy is a word. I think emotional intelligence, um, is another. I think being able to put yourself in the client's shoes or imagine, imagine if I walked in to Steven Scope, what would I feel like? How would I be feeling? What would make me feel better about the process? You know, so we, we just opened our Taunton office a couple of weeks ago. Um, it's quite a big step for the firm. We've been in, in the region for a, um, couple of years, but we've now got our permanent base here. And I'm talking to Jasmine, who's, who's one of our receptionists and, and um, Ryan, you're, you're speaking to, to um, Becky, uh, who is part of our client service team as well. And we just got something in the diary, um, to bring all our receptionists together to say look, what do we want it to feel like when somebody walks into Steven Ski? Do we have a coloring book and pencils? If somebody walks in with a child and they need to have a, you know, a quiet conversation with a lawyer, can we keep that child occupied and happy? Um, either in the room with mum, dad, whoever it is, or you know, in our client lounge, do we have some dog treats? We don't get a lot of dogs come in but when they do come in, how do make that dog owner feel that, you know, we're, we're looking after everything. So um, you can take it to the nth degree but it's really important that we put ourselves in the shoes of the client. I think sometimes the, the professional services sector relies so heavily on delivering an outcome, they sometimes don't consider the, the journey and the, the emotional journey that that person's going on. Particularly within law law it can be an extremely emotive journey. Um, so one of the things that we've um, uh, we implemented probably two years ago was to have a, something called CX30 and that's something that allows any member of staff to spend up to £30 delighting a client. So it could be, for example, if you come for a meeting at one of our offices and you walk to the office from the train station, it starts raining, we'll get you a cabin up, don't worry, it's on us, you know, and that ability to say, um, we've got your back or somebody has a bereavement mid matter, it might not be around, you know, that might be completely unexpected, out the blue, completely unrelated to the matter that we're dealing with or they feel unwell, let's send them some flowers or some chocolates, um, you know, to let them know that we value them. That again, we're coming back to this constant, valued and respected. Which one of these points are we hitting? You know, and the amount of feedback that you get from clients where they go, thank you so much for that. You really didn't need to do that. But it meant so much that you were thinking of me at that point.

Speaker B: And it's um, often those.

Speaker C: So powerful, isn't it?

Speaker B: Often those little things, it doesn't need to be a grand gesture. I mean that idea of that CX30 sounds like a, it's a fantastic little thing to do and if it's based on wanting to help somebody and it's coming from an authentic place, it isn't a corporate gift, gifty thing. It's something that really Matters. And, and as you mentioned, I think across professional services, it's really interesting that you talk about that experience when you walk in somewhere. You know, what is the exterior of a building look like? Yeah, you know, the, uh. I distinctly remember when I first came into working with Insight6, I went to see a law firm, um, down on the south coast. And I walked into the reception and you could hear the clock ticking in the background. As silence descended, I walked through this portal into 1893. And, um, the wooden paneling on the wall was everywhere. It was dark brown. And this reception desk must have been nearly five and a half foot tall. So anybody below that couldn't see anything, and all you could see was the top of a receptionist's head. Sort of stand there nervously. It's like you're going to see the headmaster.

Speaker C: It's interesting you mentioned that, but it's something that, you know, Ryan, you will have experienced this, uh, our, our client lounge and the model that we've got for all of our offices now is to have a client lo. The idea being it's a space you can come and work in. It's a space that's also reception for us. We can have informal meetings in there. Um, when we opened our client, and this is sort of part of the learning process that we have, we opened our client lounge in January and we had a TV on the wall and it was quite quiet in there. And we had, you know, the idea was the TV would show some slides or some videos that we produced to, to, to really, um, profile the firm and the clients that we work with and the work that we do. And it was very quiet in there. So someone had the bright ide putting Radio 2 on the telly. And yes, it filled the space, but we did have to put up with Jeremy vine mid afternoon. So it sort of cleared the space a little bit about hopos too. Um, but actually what we did was we said, okay, is that the best it can be? Is that the best. Is this the best use of, of that tv? And is. Is that sound the best we could do? And we decided to put some wireless speakers in and play some essentially background music. A bit like you'd have almost like a coffee shop and repurpose that TV again for our kind of, you know, the um, slides. And it completely changed the space. And people now want to be in that space because it's pleasant and it's amazing how unpleasant some spaces can be because people haven't thought about what it feels like to be in there. So it Goes back to that law firm on the south coast that was maybe a bit fusty and a bit, bit quiet.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: How, how welcoming did it feel?

Speaker B: And it's really interesting to hear about you, you know, you wanting to develop things and changing it and giving it a go. Because that testing piece is critical.

Speaker C: Cool.

Speaker B: You can't just go, well we've done something, let's leave it like that until you know, five or ten years down the line when all the customers have left and we're scratching our heads going, why did that happen? If you're testing things and giving it a go, even if it's something like what, what music you're going to play, what's the, the audio, it can make a m. Massive difference. And, and I think also when we think about the way society is evolving in terms of people's um, ability to be in louder spaces if they have you know, um, um, in crowded spaces, are there quieter areas for people to go and sit in? And you know, and it's something we, we're sort of, we're starting to see in the events, in the event, um, industry as well, you know, big exhibitions. Not everybody wants to be in big noisy exhibitions. So where are your quiet zones? Where's the area for people to go and talk with an exhibitor in a quiet uh, low key, uh, way rather than it being all this rah, rah, rah, everything's you know, super, super go, go, go. Because it doesn't fit everybody. And I think that's really interesting in terms of that bespoke n the £30. What are you going to do for somebody that's going to make a difference to them? And I think that that's, that that comes across really clear.

Speaker C: And the most valuable usage of that CX30 initiative is where somebody understands the client. So we had um, we had a speaker who was, who was due to speak at an event for us and sadly he had a very nasty cycling accident um, over the Christmas and broke, took half dozen ribs or something and was laid up for quite a long time. We knew that person well enough to know that they really like licorice all sorts. So we sent them a licorice also tree and it was, I spoke, I spoke to him after he said that was the best thing that somebody could have sent me that week because it was, you knew that I liked um, them. It was really thought, thought out. It was, it was so timely and, and I really value about, you know, thank you very much. And this is the CEO of a national charity, um, and it just goes to show what a difference that can make. Uh, and, and, and they really couldn't do anything more for us after that. You know, they came and spoke at, at the rearranged event that we had. Um, and um, yeah, it just, it just lands so well. And the feedback that we get from it is brilliant.

Speaker A: One of the things I'm curious about, Alice, you've described a lot of the action that you've taken and you know, some, some brilliant takeaways for, for people listening, um, or watching this, um, podcast. What have you learned about your experience and is there anything you would have done differently?

Speaker C: I've learned never argue a matter of opinion with a lawyer because you're definitely going to lose there. Um, you know, the, the, the data has really helped and supported us in terms of the change in behavioral change. Um, it's very easy for everybody to have an opinion about what we should be doing or whether it's worth doing or whether we should put the effort into that. And actually if you can demonstrate that it is worth it, I. E. We've done this with a team and this is what we see or uh, we changed the process and this is what our clients are telling us about it. It's much more valuable. So, so, so base any change that you want to make or any transformation that you want to make on, on data rather than opinion. That, that's a, that's a massive thing. Um, in terms of what would I do differently?

Speaker B: Um,

Speaker C: it's a really good question. I've still got ambition, I've still got, got a desire to make the clients experience of their time with Steven Scone, the absolute best it can be. Um, we are quite, quite keen on entering awards and I want a lot of the awards that we enter over the next 12, 18, 24 months to be around client experience because I think what we do is unique within the sector and I think it, the investment in it is huge. Um, what I do differently, I try to work faster. I think it's made such a change to the business that although with, and this has been really good actually this, this podcast and this process, because in thinking about it and preparing a little bit for it, it makes you reflect on how far you've come and we've come a long way in the last three years, um, to make the client journey and our client experience way, way ahead of the rest of the, of the sector. I would suggest, I'd like to think, um, and be really innovative, but I think there's more to be done. Um, If I could have moved faster, if I'd maybe just had that one part of the job rather than all three, I think we might have done that. But I think, I think, I think we've done all right. I think we've done okay. So there's more work to do. More work to do. Still ambitious.

Speaker A: Yeah, well, we can confirm that, actually. When you, we look at your benchmark data compared to the sector you are, are streaks ahead of the sector based on, you know, inquiry management, net promoter scores. You know, you've, You've got a really, really strong show. And I think that's testament to the, to the work of not only you and your team, which has been pivotal to that, but actually the change that you've seen in the teams that you're now working with and, you know, the adoption of this by the partnership.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's a, it's a whole firm thing. It's a cultural thing. I'm very lucky to have joined a firm that already thought the client experience was important. So I was pushing on, um, uh, you know, as they say, an open door. But the, you know, the door was there to be pushed. Um, I think it's a lot that we've done in the last three years that's really taken the client experience on, but the support that we get from the partnership, the fact that we have a pillar sponsor. So client experience is one of four pillars of the firm. So it's embedded culturally in, um, who we are and we understand the importance of it. Um, so, you know, I've been very, very fortunate to join a firm that took it seriously and have the, have the freedom and the ability to push it forward. But it's a whole firm effort. Um, it doesn't come from any one person or any one group of people or any one team. Um, the whole firm get behind this and it's it. And I think that really, really shows. It's very authentic what we do.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's great. I'd agree. Uh, Rich, have you got any more questions for our star guest?

Speaker B: Uh, no, I think we've been given a fantastic little run through in terms of how you've approached that and some practical tips I think are really, really great to hear around that sort of getting everybody on board and selling it into the department and then seeing those small wins work, uh, you know, um, across the. Across the organization. So thank you very much for sharing, um, your information about that. You also, I believe, are a, um, recipient of, uh, you mentioned awards. You've been awarded something from Insight six believe as well, which is the uh, the Insight six, uh, Client excellence Mark. Um, how does, how did that, how does that feel as an organization to be, to be given that sort of um, award if you like, or the honor of saying, yeah, actually you're good at what you do.

Speaker C: Yeah, well I, I think that's always, you know, nice to recognize. It's. It. It's good to. It's good to win an award but it's also nice to, to know where we are in terms of our journey. Um, you know working very closely with Ryan Client, um, has enabled us to um, kind of maximize the opportunities that we've had. But uh, that award does recognise the hard work. It's really good to be able to celebrate that internally with the rest of the client service team as well and demonstrate actually to the rest of the firm that look, it's not just me saying that we're good. It's been recognised as being industry leading. So we're very proud of that. And it uh, is uh, in our reception in our Exeter office, uh, next to the living wall, quite loud.

Speaker B: So fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you.

Speaker A: So thank you. Thanks for your time to really appreciate it. I think um, you know this by far and away as demonstrated, you brought to life actually for us brilliantly and our listeners. You know what we were talking about last month in terms of moving from a random experience to very much an intentional experience. And I'm damn sure uh, you're going to deliver that differentiated experience, um, and you know, be one of the first. Not only are you, you know, there's a lot of firsts as a law firm. You are the, you were the first large law firm to uh, be uh, employee owned. Um, as an example, you know, you're one of the first to be b corped. Um, you were our first recipient of the six, Mark, uh, from a law firm perspective. So you know there are a lot of firsts out there and I am absolutely convinced that you will um, you'll deliver the, the next stage of that differentiated experience. So huge. Thank you for coming on and sharing that with us.

Speaker C: My pleasure.

Speaker A: Thank you and uh, look forward to uh, seeing your journey continue. Um, uh, along uh, along those lines at uh, Steven SC too.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And of course uh, any listeners out there, if you're needing any assistance from a legal point of view. Stephen Scone available, uh, uh, and I'm sure they're available on, on all platforms, uh, go, go and have a chat with them.

Speaker C: Well done Richard.

Speaker B: Thank you. You'll have a great experience you'll have a great experience. So he says we have to test it anyway, so.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, test it out. Yeah. Brilliant.

Speaker B: Well, thank you very much to all our listeners today. Uh, that's, uh, me, Richard Knight, and him, Ryan Huxtable saying thank you very much.

Speaker A: We'll see you in October.

Speaker B: See you again. Thank you very much. Bye bye.