At our law firm, we try to always remind ourselves and our workers that we are a customer service business. Handling an automobile accident case for an injured person involves our specialized expertise as trial lawyers. However, it also involves our handholding the injured clients to make them feel as good as they can about our law firm and the claims and trial process. Ideas about how to keep customers happy applies to automobile wreck clients just like any other service business. You have to treat people kindly and with respect. This is especially true because people are often at a low point in their lives when they have been hurt in a vehicular crash. Our injured clients are often stressed out by dealing with the insurance companies, dealing with hospitals and doctors, coping with their pain, worrying about mounting medical bills, and lost wages. At difficult times like those after an injury, it is especially important that our law firm be polite and helpful so that we are making the injured client’s life better, not worse.
As a personal injury lawyer, I try very hard to be responsive to my clients’ needs. For example, I try to return all phone calls within the hour. If I am not able to do that, then I return all calls within 24 hours at the latest, whether from an injured client, an attorney, or an insurance adjuster. Because I have a very good staff with two excellent legal assistants who work just for me, I am able to make sure that they call the person back if I am not able to because I am in a trial on another client’s case. Being adequately staffed by competent legal professionals, secretaries and paralegals, is one of the things that separates our firm from many others. A lot of law firms these days cut back on staff to save money. However, it may be the injured client who gets shortchanged in that situation. So many times when the injury case is closed, I get compliments from the clients about how excellent my secretary, Vera, and my paralegal, Roz, were to work with. Because both of them have been doing legal work in the field of injury law for many years, they already know the answers to many of a client’s questions about his automobile or railroad injury case. My legal assistants also know exactly how I want things done and can make sure that every client is treated with respect and the attention they deserve whether they have a relatively minor injury from a car wreck or a catastrophic injury from a medical malpractice error.
I try to make sure that our law firm handles clients with injuries like I would want to be treated myself. If you obey this Golden Rule of customer service, I think the rewards are great. We get most of our clients from referrals from past clients. Our past clients know that we treated them like we would want our own family to be treated in the difficult situation of an automobile accident or other injury.
About the Editors: Shapiro & Appleton& Duffan personal injury law firm is based in Virginia (VA), near the NE North Carolina (NC) border and handles car,truck,railroad, and medical negligence cases and more. Our lawyers proudly edit the Virginia Beach Injuryboard, Norfolk Injuryboard, and Northeast North Carolina Injuryboard as a pro bono public information service. Lawyers licensed in: VA, NC, SC, WV, DC, KY.