I was not surprised to read that the results of the Legal Services Consumer Panel’s mystery-shopping investigation into wills indicating varying quality among qualified and unqualified providers. Sadly, it seems the good-quality samples do not generate the same media coverage as those below standard – as is best practice in mystery shopping. Given this sort of coverage, is it any wonder that the profession is nervous about mystery shopping?

Qualifications and training are rarely the only drivers of quality of service. There are many factors to take into account, not least the attitude of the individual fee-earner. Who was it that first said 'hire for attitude, train for skill'?

An individual’s personality and attitude will play a vital role in how well they listen to a client, and understand their needs, concerns and long-term objectives before translating that into the draft legal document. An individual’s attitude to the use of plain English will affect how user-friendly the document is.

Mystery shopping is an ideal way of assessing these very subjective, but important, attributes of service – as well as of testing legal expertise.

While the sample of 101 wills was not large, it has clearly been a useful exercise in identifying common problems across a range of providers. I imagine that it has also identified some shining examples of good practice, but sadly these have not been hitting the headlines.

Another vital step in driving quality is setting desired minimum and target standards. Mystery-shopping techniques used mainly in other industries allow you to develop very sophisticated scoring matrices which may be used to drive forward every aspect of service.

Sadly, whenever I mention mystery shopping it often gets a less than enthusiastic reception. Some fee-earners see it as a waste of their time. Others are fearful of negative results and how they will be handled.

The results of mystery shopping activities should be used as a carrot rather than a stick - and a small number of forward-looking law firms have woken up to this. Recognise and reward those who do well - but have a quiet word and provide coaching for those with scope for improvement.

This is certainly how it is used in many consumer organisations, who do much more than pay lip service to the importance of quality control. How can you maintain or improve quality if you never really measure it?

Consider the Michelin star system for restaurants. Hotels or restaurants that wish to be recognised for quality actively volunteer to be mystery-shopped. I wonder if many law firms would be interested in such a programme!

Sue Bramall is director of Berners Marketing and former head of business development at Pinsent Masons