Make Money Mondays: Client Updates and Status Reports
If revenues are a little slow this month, personalized client updates and status reports are guaranteed to jump start cash-flow. Client status reports work because they keep you at the forefront of the client’s mind, and they can be used to identify new issues that a client may decide to pursue. Here’s the most efficient and effective ways to make client status reports work for you.
- Work in Bulk Set aside a chunk of time so that you can send out updates all at once – ten or fifteen all at once. By working in bulk, you’ll increase the odds of a favorable response.
- Choose or Create a Format You can provide client updates via emails – it’s an approach that I often use, though it’s not particularly efficient. For a bulk project, you’re probably best off creating a template: you can use Excel to generate the version above, or check out this stylish template that Matt Homann created several years back that can be modified to dispatch updates.
- Decide What to Cover You’ll want slightly different subject headings for clients with pending matters and clients whose cases have since closed. For clients with pending matters, you’ll want to include a summary, current status, next steps and future to-do options. If a client’s case has closed out, you may want to send a quick note labelled “new developments” and describe the implications for the client.
- Use a Personal Touch A client update or status report ought to be personalized. That’s fairly obvious for existing clients – but it’s true for communicating updates to past clients as well. So even if there’s been a change in probate law or child support regulations that may impact a dozen clients, don’t just send a news release, but take the time to explain how the changes may impact clients. You’ll get far better results from a dozen personal updates than 50 news dispatches.
- Make It Easy For Clients to Get in Touch Before sending the update, offer several ways for the client to contact you by providing a phone number and email and inviting them to follow up.
Other than a few hours of your time, there’s no real cost to client updates and plenty to gain. Invariably, client updates have always generated several new matters fairly quickly – and hopefully the same will be true for you.
Do you send client updates or status reports? How have they worked for you? Please contribute your tips in the comment section below.
Make Money Mondays is a new feature of MyShingle. Every Monday, we’ll share an easy-to-implement money making tip to generate quick cash. These tips aren’t a substitute for a comprehensive marketing program but the hope is that they will bring money in the door quickly to reinvest in your practice. Please share your success stories!
More work just because I’m sending existing clients an update on the work I’m doing for them at the moment?
Keeping clients up-to-date is normal – and I’m not sure if it has ever led to new work. Of course, keeping your clients up-to-date should be helpful to retain them for later work.
Of course you are obligated to keep clients up to date – but if you have a case where a ruling has been pending on a matter for 10 months or a case is otherwise dormant, you may not be as inclined to reach out proactively with a status update. Also in this situation – where a case has been dormant for a while – I wouldn’t bill for sending the update but only for any additional work that might flow from it.
OK, we’re on the same page. I just consider these things standard practice! 🙂