How to Earn Renewals & Referrals from Clients

Roughly 2/3 of new matters derive from repeat clients. If you add their referrals, existing clients account for more than 75% of revenues. The key to renewals and referrals (and references, for that matter) is how your clients feel about their client experience. Notice the emphasis on the word feel. It isn’t the experience itself that matters. In fact, the client experience can be below your standards. But if the client feels great about it, they will remain a client, speak highly of you, and send you more clients that are like them. Thus, it is important that you curate the client experience that you deliver and tailor it to your client profile. If you are not a member of your client profile, keep your personal likes and dislikes out of it.

Do you know how your clients want to receive professional services? How much involvement do your clients want to have? Do they only want the conclusion, or would they prefer a detailed explanation of the rationale? Do they want a highly digitized experience? Do they want a partner who helps them think through issues before they make decisions?

How to Make Clients Feel Great

You may be thinking it varies from client to client, but it really doesn’t. Here’s why.  Realistically, what a client wants depends largely on how much they wish to spend and what the timeframe is for performance. Thus, client expectations equal your client profile’s general attributes plus any special requests.

How to Determine Client Expectations

You determine general attributes by creating a client avatar (a process we teach in our beginner’s courses: The Beginner’s Guide to Rainmaking and The Lawyer’s Guide to Rainmaking).

Then, ascertain which extras clients are willing to pay for by asking your top 3 to 5 clients to tell you what they like most about their experiences with professional services providers, what they wish they were getting from them, and what they don’t like. Once you’ve combined the general attributes with the special requests, you know what your client profile wants, and you are ready to curate your client experience.

Finally, debrief at the conclusion of a matter. During the debriefing, confirm that the client received the intended service level. If that’s the case, you can confidently ask “How else can we help?” to receive renewals or repeat business.

You can even take your client into your confidence and say, “I’m trying to grow my client portfolio. Is there anyone in your professional circle who might benefit from an introduction to me? I’d like to sit down with them and evaluate whether it makes sense for us to do business together.” This line of conversation opens the door to referrals.

The Key to Renewals and Referrals

Thus, the key to renewals and referrals is delivering a client experience that your client feels great about and then asking for renewals and referrals. The debriefing is the perfect opportunity to ascertain whether you’ve met client expectations. Then, you can unlock the rewards that await.