How to improve client care in law firms with due diligence 

Exceptional client care in law firms involves delivering a high standard of service to your clients. While the client service team plays a key role in this, the responsibility shouldn’t end with them; fee-earners should also take an active interest in the client to serve them better. Truly knowing the client doesn’t start when you begin client matter work, it starts at the onboarding stage. By cultivating strong internal relationships with the firm’s compliance team and actively engaging with their work, fee-earners can gain a deeper, more complete understanding of the client. Read on to discover how your firm can use due diligence to strengthen client relationships and unlock new business opportunities.

First impressions are everything

When meeting new clients, you might quickly look them up online or ask an associate to create a brief background report. These “taxi reports” are crucial for providing key insights about a client before the first meeting. Understanding the client’s background helps partners make a strong impression, establish trust, and increase the chances of securing their business. However, this initial research can also reveal potential risks or red flags. With a partner’s time costing over £1500 per hour, knowing these risks upfront ensures they don’t waste time on clients who might fail compliance checks.

Onboarding is a large part of client care

Clients should see your firm as organised and efficient, starting with your internal processes. A smooth onboarding sets a strong tone for the client relationship. However, delays often happen due to fragmented, manual onboarding processes. Most due diligence processes don’t match scrutiny to a client’s risk profile, meaning low-risk clients face unnecessary delays, sometimes waiting days or weeks to be cleared. Additional due diligence or requests for more client information can further slow the process, frustrating both fee-earners and clients. This affects internal dynamics and negatively impacts the client experience when their expectations are still very impressionable.

Automate due diligence to onboard clients faster 

A seamless onboarding process is the first step to exceptional client care, while a complex one can lead to dissatisfaction. Law firms must onboard clients efficiently, but manual due diligence takes days. When clients need swift legal representation, they expect fast, reliable onboarding. This is where Xapien’s AI-powered due diligence comes in.

Before a partner meets a potential client, they can use Xapien for a quick background check. Compliance teams can also use Xapien to assess the client’s risk level. If the client poses little risk, they can be cleared instantly. If Xapien flags any issues, teams can immediately dig into the report for additional information. The result? A smooth client experience, fewer back-and-forth emails, and a quicker start to billable work.

Better due diligence leads to better client care

Firms can only deliver exceptional client service when fee-earners truly understand their clients beyond the surface level. Achieving this requires a deeper collaboration with compliance teams to build a comprehensive client profile, considering risks and opportunities. With so much information publicly available, fee-earners have a unique chance to strengthen client relationships and establish themselves as trusted legal advisors. However, this level of service is only possible with the right tools for qualitative due diligence, enabling them to extract valuable insights from the vast online data.

Book a chat with the team to learn more about Xapien.