Law firm Cooper Grace Ward (CGW) has established itself as a market leader in client retention and acquisition, winning a rare double at the Financial Review Client Choice Awards for best professional services firm and best law firm. Insights spoke to Neil Baker, Director of People & Culture at Cooper Grace Ward, on what changes the firm made to achieve these client choice awards, and what advice he might have for other firms looking to keep ahead in a competitive environment.

“CGW has maintained revenue over a period of several years, at a time that competitors were experiencing declining revenues” said Neil. “CGW has done this despite exiting several sectors, and altering its client and industry mix, with less reliance on our largest clients and greater spread of high value corporates.” CGW’s wins align with its own client serve reviews, reflecting sustained improvements in how the firm is viewed as a service provider. “This is supported by high team engagement scores which are known to correlate with client service.”

CGW achieved these outcomes by implementing three major initiatives.

“The Engage Client relationship & Business Development Programme combines a skills and knowledge training programme with tools to capture activity. This includes better use of technology to track client relationships and pipeline activity.”

The firm also established a task force to focus on client touch points and actions aimed at improving the overall client experience. Finally, the firm continued to improve its technical capabilities ensuring it was well-placed to meet evolving client needs and overall firm strategy.

“In addition, we put in place other general structural and supportive strategies, shifting business development (BD) activities to be everyone’s responsibility, and developing BD KPIs for all team levels,” Neil said. Partners were given a clearer understanding of the firm’s profit and the potential impact of their pricing decisions. Client activities are more rigorously tracked via business intelligence providers. Providing ‘outstanding client service’ was deliberately core value of the firm, and aligned with client service imperatives.

“The firm now participates in far more benchmarking and other information sharing to gain an understanding of client needs, as well as our performance against the best firms in the market place, and our own year on year performance,” said Neil. Quality of service is assessed with key clients face to face, as well as via online surveys. “In addition, the Engage program focuses on understanding the client’s business direction and issues – not only their legal issues.”

Competition, a shrinking market for legal services, and a long-standing commitment to building stronger client relationships gave CGW the impetus to change.

“This required a more strategic approach to building relationships and trust with our clients and being involved when a business issue arises rather than when a legal service or solution is required,” noted Neil. “Underpinning this approach is a strategic imperative for growth and profitability to ensure talent and high quality clients are retained. We must maintain critical mass to maximise our infrastructure and overhead costs.”

Implementing such dramatic change was not without its challenges.

“While people understand intellectually the need for improved approaches to business development and client relationships, ensuring the day to day activities and administration required to deliver the overall approach proved challenging.  In professional services there is also always tension between the short-term benefits of productive billable time, and the investment of time in training and business development which produce long-term benefits. This was overcome through a combination of refocusing accountability and alignment of personal goals with firm-wide strategy, good quality training to develop understanding and capability and change management around technology bringing greater efficiencies and improved client service.”

What ultimately underpinned CGW’s success was its absolute focus on client needs and client relationships.

“We deliver a pragmatic and successful business solution that matches the particular needs of our clients. This level of client relationship cannot occur without also having a sharp and deliberate focus on our team, ensuring they are appropriately engaged and have the leadership, high performance culture, value-based approach and strategic intent to succeed.”