The Proper Care and Feeding of Referral Sources
Because I work with a lot of different lawyers, people often contact me when they need to engage one. Sometimes a friend needs legal services, and I hear from them later about their satisfaction level with the services received. Often, however, a friend calls on behalf of the potential client. I give them contact info for a couple of appropriate lawyers, which they forward to the client. Usually I give the lawyers I recommend a heads up by email or voicemail…and that’s the last I hear of it.
Over the course of a couple of years, I referred 5 or 6 potential clients to one lawyer. I never even heard whether she got hired. When a new referral request came in, I had a little conversation in my head: “I wonder whether the previous referrals were good matches for her. In any event, she didn’t seem to particularly appreciate them. She never let me know what happened. Did she even say ‘thank you’? I think I’ll send this referral to someone else who will appreciate it.” […]