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In this article I’m going to take you through learning to listen to your clients and further into this guide use that knowledge to inform the rest of your website redesign.

First of all, listening your potential clients is part of a much bigger process of User Research. Where we learn about behaviours, needs, and motivations through;

• Observation
• Task analysis
• Feedback loops

The sole purpose of this is improving the way potential clients use your website and help them convert into clients. This is often done with designers, engineers and your team across all stages of a website redesign from the;

• listening phase
• Inventing phase
• Improving phase

With over 25 years of insights from producing websites we’ve learnt when it comes to a website redesign fundamentally it’s about four things;

1. Getting to know your potential clients pain points.
2. What language they use.
3. The terms they use when searching for law firms online.
4. After they leave your website how do you nurture that relationship? 

Let’s look at why do this?

This is a simple mind set shift and a new way of looking at a website redesign through empathy and collaboration. Listening to your potential clients will inform the rest of your website development. This is about your law firm understanding the challenges your potential clients face.

So we listen and stop guessing to what they want, the alternative is spending endless hours looking at your competitors when all they have done is looked at what you are doing.  

It means designers can create the very best for you directly from client insights rather than worrying solely about internal opinions or what your competitors are doing. It will certainly give you the biggest opportunity for growth and biggest advantage over your competitors.

By defining exactly who your legal services are created for also builds focus within your team. For example when adding content to you website ask yourself - would potential client “A” find this information useful? Would it help them with the task they came to perform?

Looking further ahead if you wanted to evaluate an existing design – your knowledge of who your potential clients are will help or recruit the right people for discussion or testing.

Who should you interview and what questions do you ask them?

Firstly research can be done anytime. For example even if you are considering new features or a full website redesign, the benefits of research will deliver a stronger client focus and best use of your marketing budget.

There any many methods that reveal the challenges they face and opportunities to improve their experience online. For now I’d like to focus on the most direct method – interviews. This is a fast way to help you build an understanding of why they behave the way they do. Interviews help you understand attitudes and words they use. You can discover what’s relevant for your potential clients and you can then put the challenges they face in context, uncover any new challenges and spot trends – when you go through this process be prepared to get  surprises. 

So, which groups make up the best people to listen to, here are three to start with;

1. New clients, as part of your on boarding process.
2. People who have made an enquiry but are not ready to work with you.
3. Clients who came to you “out of the blue”. 

What questions should you ask?

We have discovered the questions that typically reveal the most, here are two you can ask;

• In the perfect world how would you like this service to work for you?
• What one thing nearly stopped you from making an enquiry with us?

By listening to these answers can reveal insights that may inform your long term online strategy. 

Research Outcomes.

Listening to these groups informs you of how they want to use your website and will allow you to spot potential pitfalls. There are other methods like behavioural research which is about watching your potential clients actions online, we’ll talk more about that later.

The outcomes represent goals, language, stress levels and your potential clients’ behaviours. Put simply, understanding who they are helps put a human face to a strategy, improves their experience and ultimately helps them on their journey through your website to become a client.

You may also be interested in;

Understanding your potential clients intent >>

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WEB invites you to take the Online Marketing Law Firm Benchmark

This survey is being conducted solely for the law firm online marketing community. The subsequent report will highlight key trends, stats and averages, allowing law firms to benchmark themselves against their peers. It’s fantastic opportunity to reflect the reality of the online marketing community capturing your successes, challenges and expectations of the year ahead.

This is not about you all as competitors but as a community who can learn from each other in an open and sharing way. Here is a sample of what we will provide for you: 

1. What method has been most effective in picking up new clients online.
2. How many enquires a successful law firm websites produces.
3. Marketing tools or technology you couldn’t live without.

The survey takes about 7 minutes to complete and as a thank you for taking part, you'll receive a copy of the full results.

Remember if you have any questions about your websites redesign - you can start a conversation on 0131 454 3311 or just add your contact details here and we'll get back to you.