Charles: Client experience is fast becoming a key driver of long-term growth for law firms that want to deliver real value, build lasting client relationships, and stand out in the market. On today's episode of the Passle CMO Series Podcast, I'm joined by Vanessa Crocetto, who recently became Butzel’s first Chief Experience Officer, reflecting the firm's commitment to driving exceptional client service and sustainable growth as a mid-size firm. After more than a decade of leading marketing and business development at Butzel, Vanessa now focuses on how clients experience the firm day to day. We talk about where client experience meets marketing and BD, how culture shows up in those moments, and the work she is doing in turn to turn client insights into action.

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Charles: Welcome to the podcast, Vanessa. 

Vanessa: Thank you for having me, Charles. 

Charles: And one of the most exciting things when I reached out to you about doing this podcast was your new job title, CXO is it?

Vanessa: Yes. 

Charles: Yeah. So that's what peaked our interest and some of what we're gonna be diving into today is all around client experience. So, you started your career outside of the legal industry and have spent more than a decade leading the marketing and BD at Butzel before moving into this new role. What moments along that journey have most shaped how you approach clients today and that client experience?

Vanessa: So I think because my previous experience before I joined the legal industry was actually in politics, which man am I glad I'm not in that space anymore. My ongoing joke is that after working with politicians, working with lawyers is surprisingly refreshing, and has definitely proven to be true. But I think one of the valuable lessons that I learned during my political career was the importance of listening to your constituents. And as law firms, we get reelected every quarter, every year, every cycle, by the clients that we serve. And so I think one of the biggest takeaways that I've learned in my previous career, you know, back in my twenties, was the importance of listening to your clients, to your constituency, to the people who are putting you in your position, to the people you are serving. I think a lot of times it's easy to focus on the task at hand, rather than the people behind the task. So I think the more we're able to focus on the human side of things, the better. 

Charles: Yeah. I mean, that makes sense and it's brilliant that you've drawn those comparisons to your constituencies, your constituents being very similar to your clients and them essentially reelecting you when they come back to you for work. I think that's a real interesting take. So at Butzel, obviously you've been overseeing the marketing and BD for some time, but when did you sort of first see that client experience was the natural step beyond that, and how did that opportunity take shape at the firm? 

Vanessa: Sure. So like you said, I've been with the firm 12 years now doing marketing and business development, and really in the business development space is kind of where you get to talk to clients, affinity partners, all of those people the most. You know, I often say that as the marketing and business development department, we are service providers to service providers. You know, we're working with the attorneys to fulfill some of their wishlist but we also have to have our other ear pointed towards the clients. What has become very apparent to me through all of the studies, all of the research, and just the anecdotal conversations, we know that a lot of times 50% of clients are not necessarily happy or have any loyalty to the firm that they're working with. Of course, we all like to think that our clients are different, that our firm is different, that our experience is different, but I think that if we keep that factor kind of in the back of our minds, it really makes you kind of push towards that next goal. So, as I'm thinking about this and thinking of how we're gonna differentiate ourselves in a very crowded market, how are we gonna be that different firm? We, about three years ago, had a new president step into his role, and our previous president was wonderful and was the perfect person for that time period. As culture is kind of shifting in Detroit and the world as a whole, we're seeing more tech, we're seeing more AI, we're seeing more of a need to innovate. 

And our new president, Paul, he's a young guy and he's pushing us to stay ahead of that innovation curve and that's something that is uncomfortable, it's a disruptor. But as we were pushing towards that, I was also kind of at a pivotal role in my life where I had two kids. Two kids in, you know, three years, and it really became a, kind of, pivotal point for me where it's like, okay, I could probably stay doing the same things we've always been doing, and that would be fine. You know, I'd keep my job, I'd have a good paycheck, and so on and so forth. But, for me to spend eight plus hours away from my kids every day, I feel strongly that it has to be something that sets me on fire, that keeps me motivated, something that I can be very proud of. And so we started having these conversations about what does the next stage of my career look like? What does the next stage of Butzel look like? And very much with the support of Paul and the rest of the board of directors, we moved into this client experience kind of area. 

Paul's very big on the book, ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’, and if you haven't read it, I strongly urge everyone to read it. It's just a fascinating story to listen to. But if you can think outside the box a little bit, there are tons of parallels that can be drawn between any service industry and the restaurant experience in that book. So, we've kind of built it on a lot of those concepts and it's just felt like the natural next step is to, you know, kind of capitalize on that concept of you might not, our clients might not remember the contents of a brief that's written, but they're always going to remember the way we made them feel during that process. So that's been the basis for it. 

Charles: Yeah, it sounds like you're at a really exciting time for, well, both personally and at the firm and just sort of riding a really good wave. And in terms of, I guess, the ideal scenario, if you think about the perfect law firm, where should client experience sit alongside marketing and BD as a function, and what are firms getting wrong when they almost treat it as two separate sides of a coin?

Vanessa: I mean, I think I'm probably too new to be critical as far as what firms are getting wrong. Maybe ask me again in a year or two and I'll tell you what we got wrong and what we've gotten right. 

Charles: Yeah. 

Vaness: But I think relative to client experience sitting alongside marketing and business development, it's just the natural spot for it. You know, when you think of marketing and business development side by side, it's maybe two sides of the same coin, but they're vastly different. You know, the marketing side of things, for me in my department at least, it's the much more creative side, it's the much more, kind of, shoot for the moon and see what we can come up with creatively using thought leadership words, all of those things to differentiate ourselves. And then on the business development side, it's more analytical, it's more data driven. It's more how do we really kind of infiltrate different markets? How do we be those disruptors? So, I think the reason that it works really well in our firm to keep them kind of all in the same department is A, because there are no silos in the, what I'll call administrative departments at Butzel. I mean, I work side by side with our CFO, with our COO, with our CIO. 

I mean the four of us are thick as thieves and so it's constantly connection and really collaborating a lot. But then take it within my department that I lead, I have the best managers in the world. I mean, my Business Development Manager is so thoughtful about things that I never even think of, and my Marketing Manager is a very thorough, very kind of analytical person, which is maybe a little bit strange for marketing, but they're both just like second to none. And so for me to be able to pass down the marketing and business development core functions, which are pretty well established to them to handle, and then I can kind of be this creative person that says, how are we going to serve our clients? How are we gonna reach our clients? Okay, here's my idea. Now you ladies tell me how we execute it. It's just natural. It just makes sense. So that's how I would say it's worked for us and it's kind of really taken shape within our department. 

Charles: Yeah. Well, it sounds like you've got a fantastic team behind you and around you. You mentioned earlier about the role that culture plays in this, and I guess culture comes up a lot when people talk about client experience. What does a genuinely client-centered culture look like in practice?

Vanessa: Now this is a question that I can actually answer in telling you what firms do wrong. Before I came to Butzel, I worked for a law firm network that served firms all over the world that were a hundred attorneys or less. And I had the opportunity to sit in law firms all over the world to see how they service their clients and to see how they treat each other. Because I have that perspective, I can confidently say that Butzel is the most humane and supportive law firm I have ever worked in, and that's so paramount to this experience. The culture has to be one of support and trust. You know, our tagline is trust always. You have to trust your coworkers. You have to trust your leadership. You really have to have trust in your clients that they're telling you everything you need to know, and they have to have trust in you. So, if it's not all built on trust, none of it's gonna work. And I know a lot of places, you know, especially law firms, we like to say we're different. Our culture is different. I can unequivocally say that ours really is. If we didn't have this supportive culture, if we didn't have this culture where all of us are treated as professionals with the same amount of value, whether it's a legal assistant or the highest ranking equity shareholder, we all receive the same level of dignity and respect, and that has to be a backbone of something like this working. Otherwise, it's just gonna continue to be another, you know, kind of CMO is what we see as our worst nightmare, which is when marketing is treated as a request fulfillment center. It has to be treated as a strategic partnership and I am very lucky to say that I have that at Butzel. 

Charles: That's fantastic to hear. As you've stepped into the CXO role, did you have to unlearn anything from your time as CMO, or were there any instincts that you maybe had to push to one side? 

Vanessa: Definitely had to become a little bit more self-aware. I never really thought of myself as someone who micromanaged a project or a process. And one of the charges that I was given is, listen, you're already so busy and we're not gonna add more staff at this time, so how do you make this work? And the answer seemed easy to me, it's okay, I'm gonna unload some of these bigger strategic projects that I'm doing on my managers and my coordinators and my specialists, and give them some more skin in the game. And I realized pretty quickly that maybe what I was doing wasn't necessarily micromanaging, but I was definitely more of a safety net than I needed to be. So, before we announced this role, there was a good three to six month period where we did a lot of trial by fire, I'll say. And I would assign a project. I'd say you run with it, I have faith in you, you can do it. 

Most of the time they could, you know, it was wonderful and everything turned out great. There were a few times where we had some bumps along the road and we had to, kind of, have those growing pains, we had to have those lessons, and I had to let the mistakes happen without saying, you know what, I'll just jump in and do it, because there was not time to do that. And so I have had to practice what I preach in the trust aspect, and I've had to just trust my team is gonna get the job done, and that has not been as natural an instinct for me as I thought it would be, but it's been great. And gosh, I respect my team so much more than I ever thought was even possible, and I respected the hell out of them before. So now it's like I know how capable they are and I have definitely unlearned the micromanaging that I never thought I was doing.

Charles: It sounds like you've figured out some cool things there and I was just thinking about what you said before we hit record on this podcast. We were talking about how we both played sport to a high level, maybe that's some of your sporting mindset coming through that win or learn, sort of approach. You don't always win every basketball game, but you learn from it. So yeah, I can see how that's been effective. 

Vanessa: Yeah, definitely.

Charles: In terms of client experience initiatives that you are working on right now, what have you got going on and are there any sort of early signal that tell you they're having a good impact or some early successes you are seeing?

Vanessa: Well, one of the projects that I absolutely love, that I've actually been doing for three years now and has kind of led into this role, it was really our first outside the box thing. And it was not an idea of my own, I actually took this idea from one of my peers who is in a North Carolina firm. She's a marketing professional there, and I've just learned so much from her. We call it our ‘esteemed client summit’. We bring in 10 of our clients that are high value in one way or another, maybe it's revenue, maybe it's potential growth, maybe it's just the insight that they provide, and we take them away for a couple days and it's a think tank. It's first class. It's a wonderful event. It's a lot of relationship building. But it's also time that I get with just them, their attorney relationships are at the event too, but I also pull them away for some time with just me and I get to grill them and the information that they share with me is so valuable and the time together, it's really just such a big part of keeping those relationships strong and building that loyalty that we know really has a hard time existing in the legal field. So that's my, that's my most fun one. 

This year as CXO, I am gearing up for a client feedback program and doing it very differently than we've ever done it before. So, previously we start with a digital survey, and then we have a third party vendor interview them. And then, you know, hopefully if we can figure it out, we go and visit them. And it starts out, you know, you've got 10 or 12 clients that you're working with, and then by the end of it, you're lucky if you can get FaceTime with two of them. I just realized that's too much time. It's too much time for the clients, it's too much time in hours. So we're just going straight for it this year. The CEO Paul and I are just gonna go and visit these clients, have one hour of their time. I've gotten some really good advice from other people that have had the CXO role for a few years at other bigger firms and they've said, don't waste your time with all of the prep work, just go. Just go and meet the client. So I'm really excited to do that too, and really kind of get time with the clients on their turf and learn about their businesses, learn about what keeps 'em up at night, learn about what we're doing well, and also learn where we're missing the mark. 

Charles: Yeah, that seems like a brilliant approach, a no messing around approach. I can't help, again, draw a comparison to the sporting days that we talked about earlier where it is one thing that athletes are good at. They're very coachable, they're pretty happy going out there and asking for feedback. To see you bring that to life in a law firm saying, look, come on, tell us where we can improve, and making the effort to go out and collect that, rather than shying away from it, sounds like a really productive way of doing things. 

Vanessa: Yeah. It's funny you say that because I've actually hired a couple people on my team that maybe they don't have, I guess, higher education pedigree of other applicants. But if I see on their resume that they've played a college sport, I will always bump that resume to the top because you know they're coachable, you know they're team players, you know that they can see something beyond themselves. And so pro tip, if you're hiring and somebody has a sporting background, give 'em a chance.

Charles: Yeah, that's great to hear. I'm sure some of my former colleagues as well that are moving into the world of work will love to hear something like that as well. So, we're now gonna take a moment to just go into the quick fire round to ask a few questions where we can find out a bit more about you, so you don't need to overthink it too much. The first one I've got on my list is what are you currently listening to? This could be music, podcast, audiobook. 

Vanessa: There are two things that I'm listening to. The one is a podcast called ‘The Toast’. It is two like 30 something sister influencers who are completely absurd and you know, they're, it's just all about pop culture and the world is heavy right now, and I just like to listen to it and giggle. And I recommend that everybody have one of those. I listen to that every day. The second thing that I'm listening to again, is a book called ‘The Activator’. I'm sure a lot of us in the law firm marketing space and marketing for any service industry have listened to it, but I'm listening to it again because we're doing it as the book club at our firm and our president and I are presenting on it so I feel like I gotta brush up on it.

Charles: Brill. And what's the best piece of advice you've ever received? 

Vanessa: This one is sometimes polarizing, but I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it anyways. I am a practicing Catholic faith-based person, and the best piece of advice that I have ever been given was actually by my dad, and he just said, do every bit of work that you're doing as if you're working unto the Lord himself.

Charles: Wonderful. That sounds like a great approach to take. My next question is, what's a book or resource that you recommend to anyone in your field? I feel like we might have touched on this already, actually. 

Vanessa: Yeah. We've touched on a couple. We've talked about ‘Unreasonable Hospitality’, that one's kind of newish.

Charles: Yeah. 

Vanessa: This Activator one is really good. But the other one that I always recommend to people that I think sometimes is lost, but gosh, I probably give away 20 copies a year, is Carnegie's ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’. 

Charles: Oh, I'm so glad you said that.

Vanessa: It's so basic.

Charles: It's like the fundamentals. I always give the caveat, some parts may be outdated 'cause it was written some time ago, but the general sort of themes I think. Yeah. It's funny you say that because I've got three younger siblings who have all left university in the last, sort of, three years or last couple of years and when they've been looking for their jobs and asked for advice, I said, read this book, it will give you a good, sort of, well-rounded approach to things. But yeah, I always say, take some of the things with a pinch of salt 'cause it was written in a different time.

Vanessa: It was. It was. But the basics of it remain the same and I think I reread it probably every other year. You know, it's just, it's a good grounding point.

Charles: Yeah. Fantastic. What's your favorite way to unwind after a busy day? 

Vanessa: My favorite part of every day, I have a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old, and I don't get to unwind until I get that 1-year-old in bed because he is spicy and he's tough. But my three-year-old is just the sweetest kid in the world and my favorite thing at the end of the day is climbing in bed with him, reading him a couple books. He's really into the little blue truck right now, so reading a couple of those and just, you know, hanging out with him. 

Charles: Ah, fantastic. What's your favorite place to visit and why? 

Vanessa: Gosh, I feel like I have to say Northern Michigan because if you haven't been, you have to go. There's nothing more, there's nothing more beautiful than Northern Michigan in the summer. But, my truly favorite place to visit has honestly become Naples, Florida. I got married during the pandemic and we couldn't travel anywhere, so our honeymoon ended up being in the free state of Florida and we ended up in Naples, and we go back every, twice a year probably we go back, we take our kids. The people are lovely. It's a beautiful town and we just have a good time there. So it's just, it's become sentimental for us. 

Charles: Wonderful. Now, we're gonna wrap things up the same way we wrap up all of our podcasts, and that's by asking you for your one key takeaway. So, I guess for you, this could be anything for marketing, CMO leaders that are shifting into more of that sort of client experience role. What's the one piece of advice you would give and maybe what they should stop doing? 

Vanessa: One piece of advice is to go for it. I think that the CXO role is still, it's new to law firms. In my research, you only really find the big firms do it. If you're a middle market firm like we are, we are a hundred, like about 170 attorneys. You know, we're not a Magic Circle firm, we're not one of the big several thousand attorney firms, or even several hundred, but go for it because I think that the middle market firms are the place where this can be a real differentiator. Get your ducks in a row. Talk to your leadership. Make sure you know how you wanna do it, but just, just go for it.

Charles: Brill. Well, I think that's a fantastic way to end the podcast. We've touched on quite a lot. It's been a brilliant theme to explore and I think nothing really demonstrates a firm's dedication to client experience than appointing someone whose role is client experience officer. So, big kudos to Butzel for doing that. But thanks again for coming on and sharing your insights and I wish you smiles and success for 2026. 

Vanessa: Thank you, Charles. This has been really fun. 

Charlie: You can follow the Passle CMO Series Podcast on your preferred podcast platform. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.