The £1 million leak: How to stop losing your warmest leads in 2026

Every enquiry is a potential client. Yet research across professional services firms shows that many enquiries are missed, delayed or poorly handled, costing organisations significant revenue and valuable client relationships.

In this video, Moneypenny’s Client Experience Consultant Darren Stott joins Jonathan Winchester, CEO of insight6, to explore why enquiry handling is one of the most overlooked drivers of client experience and business growth.

Drawing on research involving hundreds of mystery enquiries across legal, finance, property and accountancy firms, the discussion reveals how gaps at the enquiry stage could be costing organisations more than £1 million in lost revenue each year. These insights come from The insight6 Professional Client Journey Report​, which investigates how firms handle new enquiries across multiple professional services sectors.

What you will learn from this conversation

• Why the enquiry stage is a critical moment in the client journey
• How poor enquiry handling can lead to lost revenue and missed opportunities
• Why measuring client experience is the first step to improving it
• How empathy, clarity and speed influence client decisions
• Practical ways to improve enquiry handling across phone, web and digital channels

Watch the full conversation to discover the hidden gaps in enquiry handling and the practical steps firms can take to turn more enquiries into clients.

Read the full transcript

Jonathan:
I'm Jonathan Winchester. I'm the chief executive of insight6. We work with hundreds of firms across the UK to improve their customer experience. We have 25 experts on the ground who are helping our clients to measure and improve their team's performance. And it all started for me when I was 18, when I went to Harrods, and I learned everything about customer service in those days, at Harrods.

And then going to Australia and building up a big business over there and measuring customer experience across Australia, New Zealand, and then bringing that back to the UK 20 years ago.

Darren:
I’m Darren Stott, I'm a client experience consultant here at Moneypenny, helping Moneypenny and our clients provide better client experiences working as an advisory to our clients.

Prior to joining Moneypenny in December of ‘25, I was working in the legal sector, I've worked in the travel sector. Predominantly, the majority of my career has been client focused, client centric, helping organizations design and service their clients better.

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Jonathan:
So this is ‘The Truth About Enquiry Handling’ in the professional sector, and we've actually run this report every two years over the last six years. We go out to firms that we don't work with and we measure how they handle new enquiries into their firms. We look at four different sectors, we look at legal, accountancy, property and finance and we would run around about 450 online and phone and after-hour enquiries into those firms to identify exactly how they're handling [enquiries], and then because we benchmarked two years before, we can see how they're improving, generally.

Darren:
In the report you identified at the enquiry stage that firms- this is a question I've wanted to ask you; you've identified that they’re losing, I think, on average of about 1 million pounds a year in lost revenue at that enquiry stage.

This is where that report was focused. Do you think do you think it is a million? Do you think it's more or...?

Jonathan:
You can't- I mean, you know, each firm must measure to find out what it is. We've said anything with scores less than 80%, you are instantly starting to lose revenues.

And we know that a high proportion of enquiries were not even responded to. So just put a value on that to start with. Now some firms might say to us “well, we don't get those types of enquiries,” but all the enquiries that we place are the top 20 classic enquiries branded for that firm. So it's not like they’re enquiries they never deal with, these are good, chunky enquiries, you know? So, yeah, it’s about getting the response and then, actually, wowing the customer to get them to want to use you.

Darren:
I think I’m like you; I think it's understated and I think even the, you know, let's call it the million - what else would you have got? If you've got that client, what other work would you have got from them and who would they recommend your services to?

So I think it's really - it's quite astounding, really.

Jonathan:
Well and it must be so frustrating for the marketing arm of the business because they bring all those people to the door and then it falls by the wayside and, if you look at marketing, and you look at CX. the two are going to become one. Marketing is going to extend to the end of the experience more and CX is going to extend to earlier in the experience, because they are actually exactly the same thing. Yeah. And it's, you know, the famous quote: ‘I don't know which half of our marketing works but half of it does’. You know? It's exactly the same and if you can bring them to the door, but if you're not converting, then there isn’t- you do more damage than good, actually. Yeah. How many more people will you tell how poor that experience is? You’re exactly right.

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Jonathan:
Well the definition of the CX gap, and why some firms are pulling ahead, is that they understand that the CX, the Customer eXperience, for their firm starts way before someone makes that phone call. It's about, browsing, the look of the website, the look and feel, it’s then making the call and right through to the follow up, right to the end of the experience. The invoicing, the referrals, and it is the full journey and firms that are stuck with the customer service type mindset are only looking really at that binary middle piece, which is when they start talking to their potential client, and it's only those who are looking at a wider piece that really have started to really make a difference.

Darren:
Yeah, and building on that, I think it's about, it's about listening, you know, to the feedback that you're getting from clients and acting upon it. You're not ignoring it, treating it as the gold dust that it is. Because through that process, as you said, right at the very beginning, when you're online and you're researching the organization, they're setting the expectations then, you know? And so then, are you meeting those expectations throughout that journey, throughout that client experience?

So the firms where the gap is, there’s firms are recognizing that we should ask, we should measure, and everything that we've talked about, you know, the emotional drivers etc.. But we should ask and listen and act on what is happening, what the clients are telling us.

Jonathan:
And, again, those firms who are doing well with it, when they get negative feedback, that's the gift. It is, isn’t it?

It's the gift. It’s not 'are we going to get defensive and make reasons as to why that didn't happen?’ It's an absolute gift. And then times that by 24 that's the size of the problem you got. Yeah. And what an opportunity to turn it around? Yeah. You know?

Darren:
It is - it's like CX gold dust or client experience gold dust.

I think when, you know, you ignore complaints you peril, you you embrace them. Yeah. And help them improve the service you provide.

Jonathan:
And if they get a consistently similar complaint it's really good, you can have a really nice solution in place that just wows the customer even more and their expectation goes [up].

Darren:
I think the other thing that, again, some of the gap is that when firms are getting that feedback, you know, “you told us this, we did this,” I think if you give that feedback to clients they’re like “oh, right, they're listening to it!” You listened! You know?

Jonathan:
Yeah, simple as that.

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Darren:
I think it is. I think it is widening. I think, a lot of firms, the firms that are pushing the boundaries and working hard to improve their client experience, are recognizing how that's core to their organization’s growth and development. And, encouragingly, as we've been speaking to legal firms here and some of the firms that I’ve been speaking to since I joined Moneypenny, I'm seeing a shift, towards relationships, trust, consistency in the legal sector in particular.

And having worked in the legal sector for a while, I think that, you know, I think they're starting to realize they need to shift the bar, and I think, based on that, on the report, you can see there MPS has improved over the last five years, the legal sector at the enquiry stage. So I think maybe there is a shift there in the legal sector.

But yes, I think the gap is definitely widening.

Jonathan:
Yeah, I absolutely agree. Firms where the leader gets it and they understand CX and understand the importance of relationships are definitely marching ahead as opposed to those who don't. And in that particular report, they were firms that, as far as we know, don't really measure very much. And therefore the gap, which was sort of minus 40% on the Net Promoter score, opposed to firms who do measure, e.g. clients of Moneypenny and insight6, were plus 20%.

So the gap is definitely going to get bigger and it will be a problem because, unless you're focused on your CX and you’re focussed on the relationship, the loyalty, customers will get more and more needy and it will become a real issue.

—

Jonathan:
So the research project looked at over 200 professional firms in the legal sector, finance, property and accountancy, and we put 450 enquiries into those firms.

And so this is all at the new enquiry stage. And my personal view is, when we go into firms and we coach and we train, there's just a total lack of awareness about what actually happens at the coalface. And we always say, you know, we often say to business leaders, when you go home tonight, bring your own answerphone, see what happens, you know? And, so often, they'll ring us up and they'll say “it doesn't go anywhere! It's not being picked up! It's not...” you know. So there is a- people just don't measure it, and until you measure, you don't have- if you don't have the data you can't manage it, you know? So I think there's an absolute, need for- the reason why people aren't aware is they're just not measuring enough to know.

And probably people say “yeah, we handle enquiries really well,” that's probably what they say to the leadership team. But you don’t know until you measure it and there's a gap.

Darren:
I agree. And I often refer to it as either the unseen client experience, you know, like I think, as you say, it's often not being measured and not, you know, it's not finding its way up to the organization leadership, not finding its way in terms of solutions.

And it continues and continues and continues. And I often use this example of someone who like, you know, again, in the legal sector, they'll contact the potential legal firm about a contentious wills and probate matter, they'll contact them on a Sunday evening at 8:00 and then at 8:01 the following morning they get an automated response, and then at 2:00 on the Tuesday afternoon, a fee-earner will get in touch. At that point in the client's moved on the, you know, the email- the automated email didn't provide any clarity, didn't provide anything about what was going to happen next and who is owning the enquiry or anything like that. So the client was in a like a void, if you like, and they had decided to go somewhere else and that's what they did.

So as far as the firm was concerned, there were checks and balances in place and that sort of invisible delay, I think is absolutely what your report highlighted: that they just- they just go, you know? People are people. We are all so, you know, impatient for a response, which is, you know, firms have to recognize that, you know, that people want a pretty instant response to their query.

And they want clarity as well, I think, you know? It's not just an automated response, they want more than that.

Jonathan:
And then, once they start talking to the team member, that being personalized and not, you know, not just a cut-and-paste response. Yeah. Giving away loads of information for free and then not going through and having a follow up to actually identify if that is actually helpful in any way.

And, you know, we always say - especially on web enquiries for anyone - ‘pick up the phone’, you know? Just talk to people because... Move it from transactional to personal and that- and that's what makes the biggest difference. Yeah, agreed.

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Darren:
So, Jonathan, I noticed in the in the overall report, the Net Promoter score in the two reports dropped from, I think, 42 to 44. Yeah. So what do you think's behind that?

Jonathan:
Yeah, I think it's more a case of nothing's improved.

I mean it's such a- it's a small amount. But, again, it would be firms who are not focused on CX in any way: they're not measuring the enquiries coming in, they're not looking at how they're converting those enquiries. And we know that when firms start measuring, we know that that NPS score rises quite quickly. Yeah. You know, as we, you know, consumers, they want they want quick response. They want it now and if not, they've got another friend called AI, and if they're not going to go to a system, they're going to go into AI and pick up the responses there. Yeah. So there's even more pressure on firms now to actually bring in sort of a human touch.

Darren:
And I think the other thing that your report highlights is that that enquiry stage is one of those moments of truth for, for a client, you know, in terms of like enquiry or onboarding or, you know, pricing information or whatever.

And what I think is happening is a lot of organizations are not recognizing those moments of truth, and understanding what's important to the client at that moment in time and clarity and transparency and reassurance, etc.. You know? So I think that's- so, I think of it like it's dropped, but it's just stagnating, isn't it?

The firms aren't doing, you know, or organizations aren't doing anything about that, that moment of truth and providing-

Jonathan:
And journey mapping is a great way of resolving that, isn’t it? It's a great way of mapping the journey, finding out, you know, how we feel, how the customer is going to feel, how the team members are going to feel, and then put in suitable measures to improve it.

Darren:
Yeah.

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Jonathan:
So the lack of follow up is a consistent across all professional firms. The number one reason is that team members who are very technically minded - the trained sisters, accountants, whatever - see is as they don’t want to be pushy.

So they don't want to push the selling angle of, you know, of the business. And there are some very easy techniques that they can put in place to prevent them from feeling like that. So, for example, if they get an enquiry, if they speak - pick up the phone - speak to the potential client and say, “I want to send you some information, can I give you a call next Tuesday at 4:00?”

Put it in the diary and then diarise it yourself and ring them at one minute to four the next week, you then don't have to put yourself under pressure to feel you're making a cold call, or a warm call, and feel uncomfortable making that call. So a lot of it is cultural. You know? In every firm, in every firm, there will be someone who does it and guess what? They’re the biggest fee-earner in the business. You know? Those who go, “oh, we don't do that!” You know, “we're not pushy salespeople!” Well, they are salespeople. You are! Everybody’s a salesperson. But you just need to give yourself a really nice process to use that makes you feel comfortable to do it. And you've got to have a tracking system. You’ve got to have a system to know, if you’re department manager, enquiries in: which of those enquiries we actually want as our business: some you might not want, you’ve still got a handle those with respect, though. But those that come in that we want, how are we tracking, how much follow up’s being done... and I will guarantee that if you follow up on an enquiry, your opposition won't be doing that. So you have a much better chance of getting that business in the first place.

Darren:
Building on your points, Jonathan, and adding to them, I think again, for me it comes back to some of the unseen client experience - they’re not measuring, not tracking, if you like, what's happening and disjointed processes in the organization, disjointed digital processes in particular, you know? In property, in particular sales and letting, sometimes disjointed, different telephone numbers, etc. and no ownership, I think you talked a bit about that there as well, and I think often the firms or the organizations see a process, rather than the client experience, and just want to- and, just often that process, it just disappears into a black hole and no one's actually owning it and following through, so I think that- I think a lot of those things are playing into that, like zero percentage follow up.

Jonathan:
Yeah, there's a very good thing we do. When you sit down with a team and you ask them, let's say the receptionist, “what pressure are you under? What are you told to do?” And, generally, the response will be “get rid of a call nice and quickly.” And then we say, “well what emotional state is the customer in?” Who may have just lost a loved one, who may be trying to sell their house, who might have an account issue, and they say, “well, they're probably sad, or desperate, or needing help.” So how do the two emotions, how does that- how does that... It doesn't work! You know? So a compassionate side is really needed in order to make a great first impression.

Darren:
Yeah. I think the, the empathy the emotion- I think that it's a really good point, I think, because, I think, often organizations - you're trying to balance speed and empathy. And I think, you know, those two things aren't opposites: they've got to work together, you know, and provide that, you know, provide- not instant resolution, but immediate reassurance. I think that's for me, immediate reassurance, whatever you're dealing with, but particularly in highly emotionally charged cases like, you know, particularly in the legal sector.

Yeah, that's, I think that's really important; that immediate reassurance.

—

Darren:
Phone works better, I think. You know what I mean? I think- I think firms have got to recognize that it's not about new systems or necessarily whatever you've got to do, you’ve got to think about what is working on the phone and start to try and replicate some of that online and phone works better, I think, because it drives good behaviour, you know? It's like you're speaking to someone, you're getting immediate reassurance in a timely fashion, they’re clarifying what's going to happen next. And you feel like, you know, that that's moving in the right direction. So I think for legal firms, it's about thinking, “how can we replicate that experience online,” you know, and bring some reassurance and empathy?

And I think that's the other important thing about it as well, that whatever the response is, and it's a timely response and it's giving clarity about what's going to happen next, you've got empathy baked in. It's not added on afterwards, I think. I think that's something they’ve got to think about.

Jonathan:
There’s a- when someone rings and speaks to someone, obviously, there's a personal connection, there’s a bit more loyalty.

I often think within professional firms, online enquiries, they get lost. Conveniently at times. Or they might go, “oh, I don't fancy doing that piece of work, we'll just lose it.” And I've seen that happen! I've seen the case where, teams will-

Darren:
Why do you think that is?

Jonathan:
Too hard?

Darren:
in the ‘too difficult’ box?

Jonathan:
Yeah, too difficult. They like the easy work.

Darren:
Oh yes, I see what you mean. Yeah, selective.

Jonathan:
Selective. Yeah, “We like dealing with these calls.” I was, I was on a call the other day with a department head and she actually goes through every single enquiry and decides if they're going to take those enquiries.

And I said, “well, what's the criteria you use?” She goes, “I was just- I just have a feel for it.” And I said, “well, you almost need a balance scorecard system where actually it's not about what you feel, it’s actually practically ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and if it's a no, how do we then handle that?” Because that’s still a potential client.

Someone with your brand reputation, you've got to deal with that really well. And of course if they’re good, how are we actually going to make that journey really special? So I think the gap between the phone and web, a lot of it is, is because one, if you pick up the phone, you do have a more personal loyalty to that person and secondly, I just think web enquiries get lost. There is also an interesting stat: 4% of all enquiries into firms don't land in the firm. So, you know, we mystery shop: we put web enquiries to firms across the world and often they say, “well we never got those enquiries,” and we say, “well we sent them!”

And it's often that the website isn't working properly or they're just hitting a dead end, or it’s going to people who aren't aware of actually what I meant to be doing with it. You know, I mean, we've seen that in firms as well.

Darren:
So when they receive an enquiry-

Jonathan:
It's being sent, but they're not always receiving it because there could be a break in the system, it can be a break. Now, if it's a web form, you've got a much higher chance of getting that enquiry through, as opposed to an email; emails often go to spam and all that sort of thing.

Darren:
I was looking at a web form the other day with a legal firm and in the medical negligence space.

Jonathan:
Right.

Darren:
And it was one of the longest forms I have ever seen. And when I tested it and hit submit, I didn't get anything. I didn't get a ‘they got it’, or I was going to get a response in 24 hours or anything like that at all. And I just think- I often think the forms, like online forms are designed around process rather than around, you know, a customer conversation.

Jonathan:
And that would be a classic case that the team would have sat down in that firm and said, “what do we need? What do we need from that enquiry? We need to know these ten... and if they answer those ten questions, we’ll consider working for them!” As opposed to saying, “actually, how are we going to make this easy for the customer to start the conversation?”

Darren:
I think again, back to this sort of emotional feeling and state of the person, when they're having to fill in a form like that - particularly in the sort of medical negligence and personal injury space - you want to be talking to someone! Yes: start the initial enquiry online. But very quickly follow that up with a personal response like, you know, not automated and start to reassure them that you've got the case and you can understand, you know, [how to handle it].

Jonathan:
And you would see that in Moneypenny, with chat...

Darren:
Yeah.

Jonathan:
You know, more people moving over to chat and you know that starts out and I think…

Darren:
I think that's a that's a really good point actually. I think you know it that can kind of start to emulate some of what would normally happen over the phone. So you can bring those sort of nuances to the chat. And I think that's a really good way as well to improve your online experience.

Jonathan:
And, I suppose, AI has a massive part play here, doesn’t it?

Darren:
Yeah.

Jonathan:
So yeah that's, you know, people are going to get a lot of the answers before they even make the enquiry because they would have done, you know, a couple of minutes research on AI to-
Darren:
To triage that and, you know, start to self-triage.

Jonathan:
Yeah. Exactly.

—

Jonathan:
Well, I think the one bit of advice I would give a firm on where to start with CX is measure, just measure, you know? So, let's measure new enquiries and do it yourself if you want to: place an enquiry into your own firm and see what happens. You know? Measure your new enquiries, your existing clients - how are you measuring how they're feeling during the matter? Not at the end. At the end’s a bit too late. They've got the bill. They're upset with the bill... During the matter. I remember speaking at a Liverpool conference once and the CEO of a big firm stood up and he says “we have we got a 98% customer excellence rating.”

I said, “no, you don't.” He said, “oh, we do.” “So how many of your customers are you asking?” “We send out a questionnaire to 6% of our customers,” and I say, “what percentage give them back?” “Oh, about 2%.” “Oh, okay. So you get a 98% rating out of 1.5% of your [customers].” But it's lip service. You know, it's like we do this activity.

It says we do so we could ignore the rest, you know? So it's not until you measure properly - really measure properly. And things like surveys. So, you sent a survey out but are the questions right? Are they posed in the right way? It's the survey short so you get a good response rate? All of the key metrics into asking clients for their feedback is crucial.

And if you don't measure, you can't manage it. It’s as simple as that.

Darren:
And I agree 100%. I think, adding- building on what you said, for me it's about - yes: Net Promoter score. Yes: customer satisfaction. Yes: at the beginning. Yes: at the end. But actually there's a whole lot going on, like you said, a whole lot going on in between.

And I think the bit that you should be thinking about as a firm or organizations in between, is in measuring the emotional drivers like, were you providing clarity, were you providing confidence? You know, while you're handling my legal matter - was I confident, by the way you were handling my legal matter? And back to those sort of moments of truth where, you know, where those moments of truth are on your client journey, and if you're thinking about, “right, what are the emotional drivers in those key moments and how are we tracking against the client's expectations?” And I think if firms, if organizations start to recognize that and - you're right, it's about measuring and it's about short, sharp... Just a quick survey: “How did we do today?” “What could we have done better for you?”

So the emotional bit, I think, is often overlooked.

Jonathan:
And CX, you know, you look at- the difference between customer service and customer experience is, customer experience is three things: One, did it work, two, was it easy, and three, how does it make you feel? And now we look at how it works sometimes, we make sure things are working: the answer phone’s on.

Was it easy? We look at it half the time. How do we make people feel? We very rarely look at it and yet, that's the bit that, actually, makes the biggest difference

Darren:
I think that's the bit that - well, you know, Net Promoter Score is great and it keeps you sort of... but I think starting to measure those emotion drivers, that's the bit that will start to build trust, loyalty, and that's what will get you referrals as well, and that sort of thing.

Jonathan:
There's always a very interesting question we ask. We would say, “what would happen in your firm if you lost two of your top ten clients?” And the response would be, “well, that would be bad news for us.” Okay. “When's the last time you ask them how they felt?”

Silence. People don't do it. Client listening is crucial.

Darren:
But there are some people that are doing it, though. Encouragingly, I was on a call yesterday with a legal firm and they were talking about how, with the chief executive, they go out and meet those clients and sit down, like this, and talk to them about their experience.

It's what we were talking about right at the very beginning about that gap that’s widening: there are firms that are doing it, they're doing it

Jonathan:
You’re exactly right. You look at the return on investment and stock prices of firms that are getting close to their clients, they’re bounding on.

Darren:
Yeah, definitely. Yeah.