The Professional Services Client Journey Report: 2025 Reveals What’s Costing Your Business?

Table of contents:

• How Does Your Firm Measure Up When A Potential Client Gets In Touch?
• How Much Revenue Are Professional Services Firms Leaving On The Table?
• Why This Report Matters for Professional Services Firms
• How Much Could Missed Enquiries Be Costing You?
• How Has Client Satisfaction Changed Over Time?
• What’s Inside the 2025 Professional Services Client Journey Report?

How Does Your Firm Measure Up When a Potential Client Gets in Touch?

In professional services, where competition is fierce and trust is everything, your firm’s ability to deliver a positive first impression can make or break a deal. And yet, new research reveals that many professional services firms are still getting this crucial moment wrong.

Our latest Professional Services Client Journey Report uncovers a worrying trend. Despite growing awareness of client experience (CX) as a key differentiator, many firms across legal, accountancy, property and financial services fail to respond quickly, professionally, or at all to new business enquiries. And it’s costing them big!

How Much Revenue Are Professional Services Firms Leaving On The Table?

Our market study in partnership with Moneypenny, the UK’s leading outsourced communications provider, shows that professional services firms lose millions yearly due to poor enquiry handling.

We mystery-shopped 219 firms across the UK, conducting 430 enquiries via phone, email, and live chat. The goal? Assessing how well these firms handle new enquiries is often the first real test of a firm’s service, speed, and professionalism.

The results? Only 6.5% of firms delivered an ‘exceptional experience’. Worse still, 135 enquiries met less than 40% of the potential client’s needs.

Are you making it easy for clients to work with you, or are you giving them a reason to walk away?

Why This Report Matters for Professional Services Firms

In a world where CX now outweighs price as the key brand differentiator, the stakes have never been higher for professional services firms. Whether you’re a solicitor, accountant, financial adviser, or surveyor, your prospects judge you when they submit a web form or pick up the phone.

Here’s what our 2025 Professional Services Client Journey Report reveals:

• At the enquiry stage, the average Net Promoter Score (NPS) across all firms was -44. What does this mean? It means more detractors than promoters, meaning clients are more likely to leave or discourage others from using your service.

• Phone enquiries were more successful than web enquiries, with an overall score of 66% compared to 45% for online enquiries. Yet many firms are pushing clients towards digital contact forms, where they’re less likely to get a prompt or helpful response.

• Follow-ups are failing: Only 13% of firms followed up on the initial enquiry. That’s 87% of leads left waiting!

Our findings should be a wake-up call for professional services firms. But the good news? Fixing these issues is simpler than you think—and the return can be huge.

In professional services, where expertise and trust are paramount, the human connection is at the heart of enquiry handling. Firms prioritising personal interactions, mainly via the telephone, often see higher engagement and conversion rates.

Jess Pritchard, Head of Corporate Sector at Moneypenny, confirms: “Clients typically receive more knowledgeable and reassuring responses over the telephone, reinforcing trust in a firm’s expertise.” By consistently delivering a positive first impression, firms also protect their reputations.

However, Jess highlights a crucial element in the enquiry process where companies often let themselves down. “Many businesses fall short when it comes to follow-ups,” she explains. She adds, “Without a structured lead handling process, firms risk losing potentially valuable new business from prospects.”

How Much Could Missed Enquiries Be Costing You?

Every lost client represents lost revenue for firms that rely on new enquiries for growth. But how much revenue are professional services firms leaving on the table?

Let’s break it down. Using our formula:

A firm scoring less than 80% on our report criteria is 30% less likely to convert the opportunity.

For a legal firm, the average lost opportunity is £4,000 per client. Multiply that by the number of missed enquiries in our sample, and you get £1.34 million in lost revenue annually per firm for every 100 enquiries per month.

For accountancy? £1.1 million.

For financial services? £756,000.

For property firms? £1.22 million.

Can your firm afford to keep missing these opportunities?

Jonathan Winchester, Founder and CEO of insight6, highlights the impact of failing to measure the whole client journey. “Firms waste valuable resources when they don’t measure and optimise the Client Experience at every stage,” he says. Jonathan believes that squeezed marketing budgets and pressure on profits are causing firms to miss out. “Too many firms lose opportunities and revenue simply because they don’t fully understand how potential clients engage with their business,” he explains.

How Has Client Satisfaction Changed Over Time?

Net Promotor Score (NPS) is a key metric for measuring the Client Experience (CX). Specifically, how likely clients are to recommend a firm on a scale of 0 to 10. Clients are categorised into detractors (0-6), passives (7-8), and promoters (9-10) to generate a score between -100 and +100. 

The insight6 study focuses solely on the critical enquiry stage, where potential clients decide whether to engage with a firm or walk away. The NPS for enquiry handling across the professional services firms assessed is 44, a 2-point drop since the Customer Experience Specialist’s last professional services market study in 2021. 

The table below compares Net Promotor Scores (NPS) measuring the enquiry stage experience from insight6’s 2021 and 2025 market studies.

What’s Inside the 2025 Professional Services Client Journey Report?

We’re not just highlighting the problems—we’re showing you the way forward. The report reveals:

• How your sector is performing
• Where firms fall short (and where they shine)
• Sector-specific NPS for phone and web at the enquiry stage
• A side-by-side comparison with top-performing insight6 clients
• Six Ways to Improve Enquiry Handling and Build Revenue

Whether you lead a growing law firm or manage a busy accountancy practice, this report gives you the evidence and insight you need to improve your client experience.

At insight6, we believe an exceptional Client Experience (CX) is more than good service—it’s a critical business driver. Firms prioritising CX build trust, secure more clients, and grow sustainably. Those who don’t risk losing business before they even recognise the opportunity exists.

Our 2025 Report doesn’t just highlight where firms are failing—it provides a practical roadmap for improvement. If your firm wants to stand out, the insights inside will help you turn your enquiry handling into a competitive edge. Download your free copy today!

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