In 2014 we saw conveyancing clients pushing the boundaries of how they expressed their unhappiness with poor service. No longer is it just a letter to the senior partner, consumers are increasingly vocal.
Despite all the regulatory arrangements imposed by the SRA, CLC and Legal Ombudsman clients are incresaingly using Twitter and Facebook to mount personal campaigns to seek redress.
Every week we chuckle at some of the twitter posts about conveyancers, including this one that was posted yesterday:
"Wondering if Dignitas would also accept an estate agent and a conveyancer. I’ll drop them off personally for ‘treatment’."
Even more damaging though has been a song posted about allegations of negligence about a firm in Felixstowe.
The client says it all in their facebook post: "What do you do when your solicitor/conveyancer fails to tell you about a £28,000 covenant on the land you’ve purchased, and won’t take responsibility?
"If you’re a Broadside Boy you write a song about it and produce a video! The guys want this to go viral so please share, share, share!"
The video in question is shown below.
We have no idea whether these allegations are reasonable or accurate. The purpose of posting this is to emphasise the changing relationship between conveyancers, solicitors and their clients.
Whilst we haven’t spoken to this firm we have spoken another firm that faces a client tweeting many times a week how awful they are following an Legal Ombudsman decision that supported her claim three years ago.
The fact that the client continues to tweet and post negative publicity about the firm is considerably distressing to the firm but because her comments are supported by the Legal Ombudsman there is little they can do.
How would you protect your brand in these circumstances?
