Transparency Rules: Helping Customers Make Informed Decisions

Welcome and Introduction

Presenter: Aen Armstrong, Executive Director of Innovation Strategy and External Affairs at the SRA
Focus: Transparency rules to help consumers make informed decisions.
Session structure: Presentation, followed by Q&A with a panel.

Jackie Griff: Head of Regulatory Policy at the SRA.
Roy McGara: Employment Solicitor Advocate at Mangara Law.
Graham Wilkinson: Senior Partnerships Manager at Trustpilot (Sarah Chambers of the Legal Services Consumer Panel was also on the video but not present for Q&A).

Introduced in 2016 to improve customer engagement with the legal services market.
Aimed to provide clarity on services, pricing, and protections from using regulated providers.
Challenges: The occasional need for legal services, periods of personal distress for clients, and preferences for recommendations over research.

Consumers should be able to choose services fitting their needs, preferences, and budgets.
Transparency rules ensure consumers have the necessary information to make informed choices.
- Key aspects: Service understanding, price clarity, and regulatory protections.

Objective: Enabling consumers to assess affordability and shop around effectively.
Findings:
- Increasing consumer access to pricing and service information.
- Significant increase in consumers comparing services (from 46% to 55%).
- However, 21% of consumers still find it difficult to compare due to inconsistencies in pricing and service descriptions.
Issues with Comparability: Different presentations of prices and services, lack of quality indicators.
Provider Feedback: Uncertainty about the detail required.

Explored consumer perspectives on service and quality online.
Engagement with Reviews: 22% of consumers use online reviews for legal services, compared to 88% for other services.
Firms Using Reviews: 44% engage with online reviews, reporting benefits like attracting new clients and staff recognition.
Further engagement stimulated by the pilot, though still a minority of firms participating.

Improvement Areas:
- Better comparability of price and service information.
- Increasing transparency for services not covered by initial rules (e.g., family law, will writing).
- Encouraging more provider engagement with online reviews while addressing concerns like fake reviews and specific service nuances.

Shopping Around: Increase over time but slow progress, with recent plateaus.
Challenges: Decreasing ease in finding price and quality information.
- One in five consumers report no choice of provider and difficulty in comparing prices/services.
Key Aspects for Improvement:
- Enhance comparability across service providers.
- Focus on providing comprehensive, comprehensible price information.
- Show clear differentiation of services to potential clients.

Consumer Experience: Clients appreciate knowing how services are delivered rather than just the legal expertise.
Challenges with Pricing: Difficulty in generalizing bespoke services.
Encouragement for Online Reviews: Let clients share their experiences, handling bad reviews constructively.

Digital Comparison Tools: Growing importance in consumer decision-making.
- Significant increase in the legal sector's engagement with trust pilot.
Consumer Behavior Shift: Pandemic accelerated online research and trust in third-party reviews.
Business Opportunity: Use online reviews to build a positive reputation and influence prospective clients.
Handling Negative Reviews: Respond constructively and see it as an opportunity to showcase customer service.

Clarification on VAT in Web Pricing: Ensure clarity on whether prices include VAT.
Concern on General Price Info Being Misleading: Balance between providing indicative costs and specific estimates on contact.
Protection Against Abusive Reviews: Use terms and conditions to filter out non-genuine reviews.
Encouraging Reviews in Sensitive Cases: Anonymity and concise feedback focus.