It doesn’t take a rocket-science degree to understand that what upsets people when they are in the middle of the whirlwind that is the home buying and selling process, that not knowing what is going on, is at the top of the list of grumbles.
The problem is that looking at this issue from the outside, the solution seems simple; so simple, in fact, that we often see it trumpeted in articles criticising the villain of the piece – lawyers. The thinking goes, that if only lawyers told their clients what was happening on their case, this would stop them getting upset and complaining to the Ombudsman,
Which raises the question – if that’s all it takes to keep clients happy, why don’t lawyers do it?
Why don’t lawyers tell their clients when nothing has happened.
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
The arguments typically follow along the lines of, if clients were told that nothing had happened for weeks on their case, they would be less likely to jump onto ChatGPT and generate a 5000 word missive outlining their “total and utter disgust with this appallingly old-fashioned process.”
It’s safe to say this level of boundless optimism is right up there with the confidence that this year, notwithstanding the latest nail-biting game, ( what WOULD we do without Harry Kane ) that football is indeed “coming home”. Suggesting to a lawyer that they should voluntarily tell a client that they’ve not done any work on a file would garner a similar response as when an agent says, “let us know if you’re too busy to take on any more work”. Which would be, “I’ll come back to you on that”.
If a lawyer has a client who’s read on a consumer website that calling them every day for a month will help get the deal through, sending them an email to say they’re still waiting for the management pack, is not going to be at the top of their to-do list, as it’s probably going to generate a telephone call. After all, most clients have binge-watched Suits and will ask the lawyer to use their superpowers to make that pack arrive immediately, expressing their bitter disappointment that they’ve not been chasing them harder.
We see the same issue where lawyers do their best to avoid telling their clients that they are going away on holiday. Whilst in theory, it makes sense to let a client know that their taking a break should not affect progression of the case, in reality, we know that this causes panic, and increased pressure to try and move things more quickly. Which is why lawyers don’t say anything, resulting in the inevitable client complaint.
THEORY VERSUS REALITY
The problem is that while clients might tick a box in a survey that receiving unchanging updates is better than not hearing anything at all, that’s not what happens in real life. Our experience of sending out hundreds of thousands of weekly updates to our clients, is mixed at best.
Despite this unusually helpful and proactive service, the feedback we increasingly receive is, “Yes it was good to hear from you, but” followed by a amuse bouche of “we’re disappointed it was the same as last week”, “we’d rather it was more detailed” through to “Why haven’t you chased that buyer more frequently?” Whilst we have seen a noticeable change in recent years that people are now calling us more following receiving these updates, we have seen that on balance, it’s still a good thing to do.
It’s also important to recognise that technology to give automatic updates to clients when anything substantive occurs is also not necessarily a good idea. Information changes throughout a transaction, and this can result in misleading or inaccurate updates being given, resulting in even more frustration.
Managing the expectations of clients during long and often intricate transactions is not solved by such simplistic thinking, but instead comes from agents, brokers and lawyers working together to share information that has real value to the client, at the right time. Which is a whole different and more complicated quest than just sending an email on Monday to explain that we’re still waiting for the other side to complete their source of wealth check on their client.
