Client rating: consumers like their lawyers
While researching Avvo, consumers told us unequivocally that they wanted the ability to read what former clients had to say about their experiences with specific lawyers. Some in the legal community, however, questioned whether client ratings would really be useful to consumers. After all, wouldn’t only dissatisfied clients take the time to submit a rating? And do consumers really know if they should be satisfied with a lawyer’s work? Won’t clients that “lose” their case be dissatisfied, even if the lawyer represented their case well?
At least those were some of the assumptions.
Six weeks after our launch, consumers have submitted over 1,500 client ratings to Avvo. And 80% of them are positive. The number doesn’t surprise me, as it is in line with the findings from an Ipsos survey that we commissioned namely, that only 12% of consumers surveyed were not satisfied with their lawyer’s performance. But it may surprise those who assumed that the ratio of positive to negative ratings would be reversed. Here are a couple of examples (click on the Client Ratings tab on each profile):
http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/92008-ca-randall-walton-305156.html
http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/95032-ca-j-peironnet-285977.html
There are a couple of points to take away from this. First: perception and reality can be worlds apart, particularly regarding relatively new and unfamiliar technologies. Second: lawyers who embrace the Internet including new features like client ratings — as a marketing vehicle have a lot to gain. Every lawyer knows that a client referral is the most powerful way to attract new clients, and client ratings enable those referrals to be broadcast to the world. Particularly for solos and small-firm lawyers, there may be no more powerful marketing tool available to them.
On a related note
August 1st, 2007 at 7:38 am
Paul,
I believe client reviews, while in theory compelling, will always be somewhat problematic:
1) Are a handful of client reviews out of potentially hundreds sufficient to tell a story?
2) Are clients who had particularly bad experiences willing to post their experiences?
3) Does a bad review say more about the client or difficulty of the case, or the quality of the attorney?
4) Has the attorney encouraged certain clients to post a review?
My guess is where reviews will be most useful as part of an evaluation is when there is a strong pattern of positive (or negative) reviews.
On your site if a search is performed (“Criminal Defense”, “Seattle”) I noticed the column labled “Client Rating” appears not to work. So, Geoffrey L. Burg, the first on the list, has next to his name “Be the first to review this lawyer” even though he has in fact received reviews. Also, my understanding (from Avvo, actually) is client (and peer) reviews are not used to determine the Avvo Ranking/Best Match. In theory, then, an attorney with a rating of 8.2 and far down the list (and not likely to be seen by many visitors) could nonetheless have far more positive client reviews than everyone higher on the list (either through the Avvo Rating or Best Match). Is this correct and, if so, doesn’t this create the potential whereby clients may say one thing about an attorney, but Avvo another?
August 1st, 2007 at 9:29 pm
James, thanks for your comments. Let me try to address them.
The primary reason that we’ve enabled client ratings is because consumers told us, emphatically, that they want to know about former clients’ experiences. I agree with you that the more ratings posted about an individual attorney, the more help they are to a prospective client. But even a “handful” of ratings is better than what most consumers have access to today, which is no client feedback at all.
I also agree with you that client ratings, by themselves, should not be the basis of a consumer making a choice of attorney. Rather, client ratings provide another set of opinions — in addition to the Avvo Rating and peer endorsements — that consumers can evaluate when going through the process of choosing a lawyer. Our belief is that the more relevant information available, and the more opinions that can be heard, the better.
Finally, let me clarify a couple of your observations regarding the Avvo Rating and the search results page. The Avvo Rating does not take into account client ratings, but does take into account peer endorsements, because in our opinion peer endorsements are a form of industry recognition. And you are correct that the Avvo Rating could differ from client ratings. As I stated above, the Avvo Rating is an opinion, and client ratings are opinions, and these opinions won’t necessarily be the same (in fact, client ratings could differ from client to client). As for the order in which lawyers appear in the search results, it’s not necessarily true that a lawyer with a low Avvo Rating will sort lower than a lawyer with great client ratings. Our search results algorithm takes into account several factors, and it is evolving (as does Google’s) in an effort to serve up the most relevant results to consumers.
Apologies for the long post, but I hope this clarifies some of your questions.
Paul