customer service

You wouldn’t have a CLNC^® business without your attorney-clients. And once you gain an attorney-client, you want to keep that client for life. A single attorney can represent hundreds of thousands of revenue dollars to you as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant. The CLNC^® Pros share 12 tips for retaining attorney-clients through good old-fashioned customer service. That’s right – simple customer service is always in vogue. Check in and grade yourself on how you’re applying these attorney-client retention strategies.

Track Your Cases

1. I track all my cases using what I call a “Priority Review Table.” As each case comes in, I quickly add it to the table including the type of project, due date and the assigned CLNC^® subcontractor. I also track the progress of the project from beginning to end. This table acts as a quick reference so that when an attorney-client emails a question or needs to reprioritize the case, I am able to respond promptly without taking time away from the project that is in front of me. It also helps me to focus and maintain my productivity levels.
   – Suzanne E. Arragg, RN, BSN, CDONA/LTC, CLNC

Respond Promptly to Requests

2. I respond to emails and phone calls from attorney-clients within 24 hours. Since I travel quite a bit, I rely heavily upon my Blackberry^®. If an email streams across that can wait until I return to my office later that day, I respond at that time. If not, I am able to acknowledge my client’s request quickly. This gives the attorney confidence that I’m on it.
   – Suzanne E. Arragg, RN, BSN, CDONA/LTC, CLNC

3. My attorney-clients know that I am available to them at any time. I tell them to call or email me with any questions or to bounce ideas off of me. The attorneys appreciate this. I also extend the same invitation to their paralegals.
   – Jane Hurst, RN, CLNC

Meet or Beat Deadlines

4. I always meet or beat deadlines. Although I make every effort to educate my attorney-clients that planning ahead helps me to help them, sometimes “rushes” are required. When I am able to accommodate the “rush” or even beat the deadline, it communicates accountability and reliability time and time again and keeps the relationship strong.
   – Suzanne E. Arragg, RN, BSN, CDONA/LTC, CLNC

5. Keep your time commitments. Always carefully consider deadlines when making commitments to your attorney-clients. Think about the work and other deadlines you already have, so you do not over commit and risk compromising your work product and reputation.
   – Linda Turner, RN, MSN, NNP-BC, CLNC

Practice Quality Improvement

6. Working with employees, subcontractors and various vendors makes quality improvement paramount to the success and reliability of my CLNC^® business practices. I have regular conversations not only with my attorney-clients, but with their paralegals, legal assistants and secretaries to obtain feedback, receive suggestions, discuss concerns and welcome compliments!
   – Suzanne E. Arragg, RN, BSN, CDONA/LTC, CLNC

Stay in Touch

7. While a case is active, I stay in close contact with the attorney. I don’t call or email them for every little thing, but I do make a point of letting the attorney know when I discover new and important information in the case. I keep the attorney informed about my progress and create an atmosphere of joint collaboration.
   – Dale Barnes, RN, MSN, CLNC

Leave Your Other Cases at the Door

8. Let your attorney-clients believe that they and their cases are the only things on your mind when you are dealing with them. There is no reason for them to know you are juggling 10 cases at one time!
   – Margaret Gallagher, RN, BSN, MSN, CLNC

Give a Little Extra

9. I anticipate the attorney’s needs and always give a little more than requested. For example when I am screening a case, I add a few relevant research studies. On the invoice, I indicate this “free gift” by writing no charge – professional courtesy.
   – Dorene Goldstein, RNC, CLNC

10. I always give my clients more than they expect. In addition to the agreed-upon reports and services, I always try to do a little something extra, like a chart, some deposition questions or articles. I want them to know that they always get their money’s worth.
    – Jane Hurst, RN, CLNC

11. Always inform the attorney of other CLNC^® services you can provide as they relate to the case you are working on.
    – Mildred Mannion, RN, BSN, CNOR, CLNC

Live the Golden Rule

12. Treat your attorney-client exactly the way you want to be treated. When you provide first-class service, you usually get first-class response in return.

    – Lawrence H. Frace, RN, CLNC

Thanks to all the CLNC^® Pros for sharing their attorney-client retention strategies.

Success Is Inside!

Everyone has a favorite restaurant and I’m lucky enough to have several, depending upon which city I’m in when I get hungry. Here in Houston, it’s an Italian pizzeria enoteca called Dolce Vita in an old house near downtown. Sunday afternoons, if we’re in town, you can frequently find Tom and me on their shaded patio indulging in the outdoors with a glass of healthy red wine and scrumptious, real Italian food. This is a very casual, feel-good, comfy restaurant completely void of pretensions. But Dolce Vita’s standards are far from casual.

From the moment you pull into the parking lot, the valet welcomes you back and parks your car without giving you a ticket. (Side note: Visitors to Houston are always surprised that most restaurants have a valet to park your car 20 feet from the restaurant’s front door, but once you’ve experienced a Houston summer you instantly know why). Somehow when you go to leave, he clairvoyantly has your car waiting, air-conditioner running.

When you first walk in, the staff greats you effusively and escorts you to your table like you’re an old friend. The food is fresh and inventive. One of my favorites is the unique Truffle Egg Toast which is a thick piece of country bread with an egg inside, covered with parmigiano-reggiano cheese and toasted to perfection under a high-temperature broiler until it’s crispy and brown outside. Then it’s covered with sliced black truffles, drizzled with truffle oil and served on a plate so hot I’m surprised the servers can even carry it to the table. When you first cut into it, the egg yolk runs out onto the plate, mixes with more crispy cheese and begs to be mopped up with the bread. (I’m making myself hungry).

But the real magic of this restaurant is one of the servers, Isabel. There are a couple of servers that recognize us and always stop by to chat, but Isabel is different. She takes total ownership of us from the moment she sees us – whether it’s in the doorway, at our table or waiting at the bar for a table.

By total ownership, I mean exactly that. Even if we’re not seated in her section, she treats us like we’re old friends. Once we’re seated, she’ll stop by to chat and supplements the attentions of the assigned server so we receive double the service.  She anticipates every want and need and sometimes I believe she can read our minds. Isabel always has the inside track on what’s good or new on the menu. Best of all, she’s never pushy. If we drop in for a glass of wine and an appetizer, she’s just as happy and attentive as if we bring a bunch of friends and spend a long evening chowing down encouraging each other to “mangia, mangia.”

On our last visit, Tom noticed mussels were part of one of the specials and asked Isabel about his favorite appetizer, mussels in a marina sauce with oven-roasted bread, which wasn’t on the menu. Before we knew it, she’d arranged for the kitchen to prepare that dish for us and delivered it to the table.

In all of the years she’s owned us, Isabel has consistently delivered amazing service. I love the restaurant even when she’s not there, but when she’s working the restaurant feels more like home. In fact when we travel back to Houston, whether it’s from a CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Seminar, business trip, visit with family or vacation, we immediately dump our luggage and head straight to Dolce Vita.

Could you be more like Isabel in your legal nurse consulting business? Do you take total ownership of your attorney-clients as a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant? Do you provide the type of service that they’ll rave about to other attorneys? When you’re reviewing a case, do you make recommendations for additional CLNC^® services based on the attorney’s expressed likes and needs or do you simply provide the same size bowl of spaghetti and meatballs or worse yet wait for the attorney to tell you what to do and when?

The next time you’re getting ready to talk with one of your attorney-clients, take a moment to think of Isabel and take total ownership. They’ll love it and you’ll most likely be creating a relationship for life.

Success Is Inside!

I’ve stayed in a lot of hotels during my travels. Everything from Ramadas to Mandarin Orientals with more than a few Hiltons, Hyatts, Marriotts and the occasional Peninsula in between. As a result I’ve become quite jaded concerning hotel services. On a recent trip to Austin, Texas, I was stunned by the service at our hotel, the Four Seasons. The staff did much more than just meet requests, they seemed to anticipate every need. It started with the bellman who offered to find additional luggage stands. Then it was the waiter who, after I asked for the check and told him we needed to get to the airport, he offered to call a cab for us.

The front desk clerk who not only upgraded us to a lake view (without my asking) also suggested happy hour on the hotel’s terrace overlooking Lady Bird Lake and told us about a few of the appetizers we shouldn’t miss. The doorman surveyed the directions to our dinner spot (La Condesa – my favorite Mexican restaurant in the U.S.) and recommended a better, more direct route and even told us where to park. This service extravaganza ended with the valet who provided us with bottles of water for our drive to the airport.

From the time we arrived at the hotel to the time we left, it seemed the staff anticipated our every need and went out of their way to try and beat us to the punch. I couldn’t help but contrast this with so many other experiences where the staff simply wait until you ask them for help.

Are you doing the same for your attorney-clients? Are you anticipating their needs and offering different legal nurse consulting services than you’ve provided in the past or do you just sit passively by the phone or computer waiting for the call or email? The impression you want to leave with your attorney-clients is one of superior service and the best way to achieve that is by transcending your prior service.

As a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, you know that you can provide more than 30 different CLNC^® services to your attorney-clients. Offer them! Don’t wait for the attorney to ask you. He hasn’t seen the list and doesn’t know the full range of your nursing knowledge and experience. Show him how you can stand out by anticipating his needs, not just meeting them.

Success Is Inside!

To paraphrase Seth Godin, there’s only one thing you have to do to be “remarkable” and that’s actually, “to be remarkable.” He has also suggested that a critic, referred to as a troll, can interfere with your remarkability. My concept of a troll is just the opposite – a troll is a pretender selling nothing more than pretense.

I believe to be remarkable, you must deliver remarkable service. You can’t just be a salesperson, promising and promising what you won’t or cannot deliver. That turns you from genuinely remarkable into a remarkable troll.

I recently ran into just such a sales-troll. He personally came to Vickie Milazzo Institute, did a wonderful presentation, charmed our staff, promised the moon and, when it came time to deliver, sent work product that was unsatisfactory, full of errors and which didn’t reflect agreed upon delivery metrics. When he was challenged on the failure to deliver, his troll-like act was to crawl back under his bridge or wherever it is that trolls live.

I’m sure that you’ve run into this troll-type. The person who called you every day to make the sale, but after the sale is suddenly unavailable, out of the office, on a mission trip to Lower Handstandastan, lost his cell phone, has the swine flu or is at the funeral of yet another “close” relative (how many grandparents can you really lose?). Eventually, you get a call back, accompanied with more promises and then, later on, more broken promises and disappointment.

I encourage CLNC^® consultants to offer risk-free guarantees as a standard part of their legal nurse consulting business. After all, the first mission of any company is to serve its customers to their satisfaction. Sure, some customers will be harder to satisfy than others and certainly there are one or two who may never be satisfied. How you and your CLNC^® business handle those customers is what makes you “remarkable,” not your success in ignoring those customers. Sometimes they even push you to another, better level.

For me business is personal and the team at Vickie Milazzo Institute knows that I take the satisfaction of all of our prospects, CLNC^® students and Certified Legal Nurse Consultants personally.

Remember when you were a kid, everyone got a trophy for playing, even if their team came in last. Well we’re not kids anymore – we’re adults in an adult world where if we want to feel good, we have to do something to genuinely feel good about.

Service is what you do for the customers and sometimes in spite of the customers. “Can’t please everyone” isn’t an aphorism, it’s a cop-out. Sam Walton once said, “The customer isn’t always right, but he’s still the customer.” Here at Vickie Milazzo Institute we’re dedicated to providing customer service, delivering what we promise and standing behind our guarantee. Beware of sale-trolls in all their shapes and forms and whatever you do – don’t settle for less than you deserve. That only feeds the trolls and encourages more troll-like behavior.

As for the troll mentioned in this blog, we somehow managed to end our relationship professionally and amicably. I wished him future success, knowing full well he is destined for failure. How do I know?  Because now I am being serviced by someone who is genuinely remarkable. In today’s post bubble economy the world can no longer afford a pretender. I for one will be glad to be rid of the trolls.

Success Is Inside!

The other day Tom and I went to purchase a new mattress. We thought it was time for a change and that a rainy afternoon was a good time to start looking. We’d already done our homework so we knew what we wanted. The first store we went into, the sole salesperson reluctantly left his seat at the counter only after we struggled in from the rain, shook off and folded our umbrellas. It was still two hours before closing according to the sign on the door, so I wondered if he figured we weren’t serious shoppers, although who else would be out in a hard rain? He answered our questions, let us roam about the store unattended and didn’t really try to sell us anything.

We left and drove about three blocks to the next store. Even before we had the umbrellas wrapped up a young salesperson named Tiffany walked up and introduced herself. She asked what we were looking for and patiently heard us out. After helping us with the mattress set, she inquired about other products we might be interested in as well as any concerns we might have. She complimented us on our choice, told us why it was different from similar sets and spent a lot of time with us without exerting any pressure tactics.

She was so good that before we left the store, we’d not only laid on almost every mattress they had, we’d also tried out all their recliners and added one of those to our growing list. I had to draw the line when I heard her telling Tom that they made a matching cup and snack holder for the recliner. When we made our final purchase she checked the store’s inventory and told us that while the recliner could be delivered the next day it would be a week before she could arrange delivery of the mattress set. She offered to send over the floor model along with a complimentary set of sheets to let us sleep on it as a test until ours could be delivered. We walked out of the store the proud new owners of not only a mattress but also a new recliner, a reading lamp and some other accessories, a not inconsiderable sale for a rainy afternoon.

On our scheduled delivery date, Tiffany arrived at our house just after the delivery truck. She supervised the load-in and helped set up everything. After the delivery crew left Tiffany stayed to orient us to everything and to go over our invoice to show us what had been delivered and what was still outstanding. The next day she called to see how we’d slept and if we had any questions or needed any adjustments. She also updated us on the delivery date for our mattress.

I was struck not just by how good her service was, but by how far she went above what I would have considered normal or even great customer service. How often do you walk into a store and have to struggle to capture the attention of a salesperson or even pry them off their cell phone to work with you? Here was a woman who not only took charge of the sale from the minute we walked in the store, but did everything she could to make our experience a memorable one.

As a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant, do you do the same for your attorney-clients and prospects?

• Do you offer a seamless experience from the time you meet them, up to and after you deliver your work product?
• Do you offer additional CLNC^® services that will benefit the case?
• Do you assess whether you can provide something more (such as articles on the topic) to the attorney right away, and before you deliver your final work product?
• Have you followed up to see if the attorney-client has all the information that she needs and to answer any questions she has after reading your legal nurse consulting work product?

Next time you find yourself working with an attorney-client or -prospect, ask yourself whether or not you’re delivering “Tiffany-quality” service.

Two nights ago, Tom and I had dinner in a fairly chi-chi restaurant here in Chicago. It’s known for celebrity sightings, great food and décor. Tom and I tend to eat fairly early (I’m up at 4:00am and usually have two meals before most people eat lunch). We’re not so early that we get caught in the walker stampede as the 2-for-1 early birds make their exits, but we do sometimes bump into the last of the hobbling stragglers.

We went for dinner after a day of teaching at the CLNC^® 6-Day Certification Program. We were seated at our table and the waiter finally showed up and asked us what we wanted to drink. We had reviewed the menu (posted in the window) while waiting in line, and since we were short on time, we ordered our appetizers before he’d even brought the menus.

The waiter seemed put off by this. He came back with our drinks (Shirley Temple – with a cherry for Tom, healthy green tea – iced, unsweetened for me) and proceeded to tell us about the menu. “Chef Brutus recommends…shared appetizers for the table, followed by distressed green salads, overly large entrees, coffee, desserts to share and mignardes just when you think you’ve had enough.” He had his script down and launched into it as if he’d never seen us before. It seemed he’d forgotten that we’d already ordered appetizers!

I politely interrupted him to remind him that we’d already ordered appetizers and I wanted to learn the daily specials (instead of how Chef Brutus recommended we maximize our dining experience as well as our check). That seemed to jog his memory somewhat, but he skipped over the specials, a little disconcerted by our preempting him, and told us he’d be right back with our starters.

As in most restaurants, the tables were close enough that you could eat off the plate of the person next to you and I heard the woman next to me say she “would have loved the fried soft-shell crabs, but fried foods are sooo bad for you.” My ears were on it and I was all in. Being from New Orleans, the idea of sentencing a soft-shell crab or two to a quick, cornmeal-battered, deep-fat-fried death doesn’t bother me.

I wondered why our waiter hadn’t mentioned the crab, or any specials, and then I realized – it was because he couldn’t handle the script change. It had disconcerted him so much that he launched straight into let-me-get-your-starters mode forgetting to tell us about the specials. I asked the waiter about the soft-shell crab special when he returned to the table and he denied that they were offering such a dish. My guess was that he’d already put in our dinner order and was unwilling to retract it from the computer (plus I’m sure Chef Brutus was already personally mashing my potatoes).

Throughout dinner, this waiter’s service was less than stellar. Have you ever wanted to say to a waiter/waitress – “If you were in my ICU, ED, etc., and I gave you the same service you’re giving me, you’d end up in the perpetual care unit (a.k.a., “MetalSlab Ice Cold”), giving me the cold-stare, not the cold-face.” Well that’s exactly how I felt.

Needless to say when the bill came around, I was not into tipping-you-for-a-bad-job-at-dinner mode, but against my better judgment I left a slightly larger tip than I wanted to for the sake of the busboy who’d delivered great service.

In contrast, we dined last night in another Chicago restaurant and the waiter was all over us. I asked him if they had unsweetened tea and he said, “No ma’am. But I’ll make you some, if you’d like.” Wow – withering cross examination on the ripeness of the heirloom tomatoes. Simple requests for additional salad dressing were met with equal grace and he continued to score points throughout the meal. By the time the bill came I was pumping rounds into the tip gun.

As a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant are you sticking to your script instead of listening to, or anticipating your attorney-client’s needs? Still reciting your list of 30-plus CLNC^® services or focusing on the one or two that put a sparkle in the attorney’s eyes? Are you reactive or proactive with your attorney-clients? Do you wait for them to ask for an additional CLNC^® service or do you volunteer ways you can improve your work product? Ask yourself, if you were the attorney-client, how much would you tip yourself as a legal nurse consultant? Does your service rate a 10%, 15% or 25+% tip? What level of service do you provide, or at the least, look like you want to provide? If you were a restaurant, would you be 5-Star or 1-Rotten Tomato?

Legal nurse consultants practice in a service-oriented industry. If you’re not providing 5-star service (even to a 1-star attorney-client) you’re letting yourself, your CLNC^® business and the legal nurse consulting profession down. It’s our duty to give the best – in everything that we do. Next time you reach out to your attorney-clients – think about your most fantastic dining experience and try to provide a level of service that the attorney will remember and tell other attorneys about.

Success Is Inside!

I just got home from the Great Christmas Migration of 2008. Tom and I are bicoastal. His family is in Pennsylvania and mine is in San Diego. Both demand our presence (and presents) at Christmas. This gives us plenty of chances to enjoy the fun of air travel and to meet interesting and helpful people along the way. This year instead of emulating the executives from the auto industry we decided to forgo taking the VMI company jet (Southwest, in our case), and instead flew our various journeys on a mainstream airline.

Christmas and the holidays are supposed to be the merriest time of year – so why is airline customer service the gloomiest? It starts with the smiling (not) faces at the airport check-in. The check-in staff is the frontline of the airline. They’re the first impression you get of the service you’re about to receive (or not). I’m sure that everyone has some part of their job they don’t like, but excuse me, sir, your job is to help me check in, tag my bags for the right airport, get them on the belt and tell me my gate number. If you don’t like that portion of your job, rotate to something else. Don’t make a face because my bag looks heavy or because I have two of them. Yes, I know you’re going to charge me to check them, but you don’t have to be so stern about it. I’m a customer not a prisoner (at least not until I board).

I think that being a nurse makes it difficult to sympathize with someone who’s upset about the fact that you asked for a second 4-ounce glass of lukewarm water. Look at what nurses do every day – change catheters, clean suppurating wounds and get sprayed by bodily fluids we shouldn’t discuss in mixed company (but still do). Some flight attendants really make me want to take their blood or at least stick them with an oversized needle. I feel like saying “Look lady, I asked you for a napkin – not to wipe my ass. Don’t act like you’re doing me a favor after taking 20 minutes to bring it. Yes, I know there are other passengers onboard, but right now you’re standing in the back of the plane kvetching about your upcoming layover in Poughkeepsie.”

It’s not just airlines that have bad service. Retail sales are down everywhere you go. ‘Blame the economy,’ you may say. If these retail employees keep it up, there won’t be any retail economy. I don’t know about you but I’m sick and tired of trying to give my hard-earned money to the lethargic, tattooed, multi-pierced cashier who’s on her cell phone. Or, the two salespeople talking to each other who act put out when you ask one of them to look in the back for a size 4. Try getting away with that type of behavior as a nurse. Can you imagine a patient saying, “Excuse me ma’am, I’m truly sorry to bother you, but I’m in desperate need of defibrillation. Would you please stop chatting about your ex and shock me back to life?”

In contrast, here I am at the Mecca of customer service – the Apple store on 5^th Avenue in New York City. Like an airline, this store is open 24 hours a day and there’s usually a line to get inside. Unlike an airline, people wait patiently, even expectantly, because they know that once they get inside, the experience will be extraordinary. When’s the last time you heard someone say their flight or shopping experience was extraordinary unless they were talking about the extraordinary prices?

Apple sets the highest bar for customer service (plus the store is mad cool inside). Sales staff help you with your purchase and stay with you until you’re done shopping. They accompany you to the checkout line or point out one of the roaming check-out staffers who comes conveniently equipped with a wireless credit card machine. You walk up to any one with your purchase, joyfully swipe your credit card and get on your way without a hassle. My receipt is emailed to my BlackBerry^® before I’m out the door!

Even if you don’t buy anything, staffers will patiently answer any question about all the cool stuff on display (and you get to play with it as long as you want). You can even make an appointment to bring in your computer, iPod or iPhone that you already paid for to get whatever service or training you need, including how to turn it on. The entire experience is exhilarating from the time you walk in until you leave. It makes me want to turn my whole office into Mac users. (Just kidding, Tom.)

I live by my rule, “do what’s right, not what’s easy.” A legal nurse consultant was complaining to me about something her attorney-client wanted her to research. He was off-base but demanding about it. She got angry with him and it may have cost her the relationship. I wanted to support her, but I couldn’t agree with her and said, “Remember, the attorney-client isn’t always right, but he’s still the attorney-client. Just be grateful he didn’t ask you to wipe his butt. If he’s paying you to do a job, it’s your job to do it and your duty to do it with a smile on your face (if not in your soul).”

Certified Legal Nurse Consultants exist because of our customers, attorneys. Aim to be more like an Apple store than a lemon airline.

Success Is Inside!