Importance of "Face Time" With Clients

Great post by The Wired GC on the importance of face time with  your clients.  He sums up an article from the New York Times about the role of telecommuting during the recent transit strike.  The article took the approach of talking about the importance of face-to-face meetings, which prompted The Wired GC to make this important observation:

In the law firm environment, it is common for some partners and very common for some associates to have never personally met a long-term client. I feel that if a lawyer ever wants to move up the trust food chain with a client, you have to supplement good service and high value with a personal relationship. With a personal relationship, you are less likely to be thrown into this year’s beauty contest with other commodity-type service providers.

And it may go without saying–visit your client on their home turf. I have heard some lawyers complain that they are “too busy to travel” or “can’t bill for client relations time”. My answers: (a) you will have plenty of time to travel when your clients drift away and (b) you can’t bill for any time when you don’t have a client in the first place.

To this I can only add two things.  First, this observation is consistent with my own personal experience: the more time I spend with my clients, the better and the more work I seem to get.  Second, the observation is consistent with feedback we get from clients when we do client satisfaction surveys--clients want face time with their lawyers.