I had a pretty rocky couple of weeks.
I already mentioned that my husband and I are about to buy our first home. And as any house buyer (or seller) will tell you, that’s a pretty nerve-wracking and often frustrating process. It starts from the moment you walk into the property you like right until the completion date, or probably even further.
And who makes this whole thing that incredibly stressful? Your solicitor. The one you pay shitloads of money to, and who doesn’t seem to be doing anything but being on the phone all the time and not answering any question straight. Well yes, there are other things that make house-buying stressful, those probably account for 1 per cent of the whole amount of stress you go through.
Ask anyone who ever bought a property how they found dealing with their solicitor, and 99.9% of people will tell you it was awful, horrible, frustrating. And it’s not about whether solicitors actually do their job or not – because they clearly do something as many people actually end up buying properties – it’s about the perception they create in their clients’ minds of how they do it.
Tell me who in their right mind will ignore phonecalls from their clients, fail to explain how their service works – in plain English, forget to consult with a client on issues that can delay the process, and just generally not care whether their client is happy or not? No one but the solicitor.
For a second, let me go Seth Godin style. Imagine there was a solicitor firm in town, who would go down to their customer level, and would explain everything in a simple language; a firm that would send weekly (and as it gets closer to completion – daily) updates to their customers on how their sale was proceeding and what still needs to be done. The firm where the customer could call in with any stupid question and get a simple, straightforward answer without feeling incredibly stupid about it.
Bet you – given that this firm has solicitors as qualified as anyone else – that firm would kill all the competition: the very first customer would have told everyone they know how easy they were to deal with.
I’m going to end it now. But I’m working on a post with some anti-advice on how to deal with your customers. Stuff like “let your secretary deal with them” kind of thing. You are welcome to share your stories!
