(Click on image to see original enlarged version)

I was fascinated by this piece at the Consumerist:   How To Beat The Stock Market: Buy Companies With High Customer Satisfaction Scores

If the same phenomenon occurs in the legal profession, there would be a tremendous return on investment from enhancing client satisfaction.

The story is that a portfolio comprised of “companies at the top 20% of the the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI)… greatly outperformed the stock market, generating a 40% return.

“From 1996-2003, the portfolio outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 93%, the S&P 500 by 201%, and NASDAQ by 335%.”

How would you like to out perform the average law firm by somewhere between 93% and 335%?  More importantly, how much should you invest in order to reap a return of that nature?

Don’t bother disseminating this information to your people in order to encourage them to focus on enhancing client satisfaction.  Their consequential improved knowledge on the subject will do little.  It takes results (client satisfaction) to get results (improved profitability).  SKILLS rather than knowledge with be essential to achieve the desired outcome.

PUNCHLINE:  In my opinion, there is an overabundance of information in law firms and a dearth of client-relations training.  If you are a Managing Partner, you may want to balance this disparity.

Note:  I admit that this post is an act of unbridled extrapolation.  I cannot prove that the empirical research referenced would apply to the legal profession per se but my view is that it probably would.

(Thank you to my son, Daniel, for bringing this to my attention.  Daniel (Riskin) is a PhD and a renowned expert on bats – he discovered Vampire bats run – check out his site.)