News

Time to engage with online reviews

08 March 2021

With ever growing numbers of the people conducting their day-to-day personal and business lives online, it’s fast becoming the main route through which the public search for and select legal service providers to work with.

It is in everyone’s interests to therefore to make sure that potential clients have access to as much information as possible online. It not only helps the public choose the provider most suited to their needs, but can also help you to stand out and win new business that otherwise may go elsewhere.

That is why we have launched a pilot to bring law firms and comparison website providers together to explore how we make more information on key indicators of service quality, for example customer reviews, available online.

Nearly 100 firms and seven leading comparison websites have already signed up to work with us on this. You can find information on our website about how these third-party sites work with law firms, including a voluntary code of conduct we have asked them to sign up to.

We are also publishing a range of resources to support those of you who want to engage with online reviews and comparisons websites directly.

We know some of you may have questions on practical or regulatory issues regarding engaging with reviews or third-party sites, and discussed many of these in a recent Q&A webinar attended by nearly 200 firms. You can catch up that webinar on our on-demand facility.

You may also be interested in this article by the Chair of the SRA Board, Anna Bradley explaining why it is important that law firms engage with online reviews.

The customer review pilot is being run in partnership with the Council for Licensed Conveyancers and CILEx Regulation. Focussing initially on conveyancing and employment services, we are keen to get your input in helping us consider how we might expand the initiative in the future to look at more legal services and more potential indicators of quality.

If you have any queries, or would like to get involved with the pilot, please Quality Indicators team.