Good evening and welcome to tonight's webinar, kindly sponsored by Tails.com. I'm delighted you're able to join us.

On this webinar. I'm sure many of you have joined us previously, but for those of you who haven't, I'll just go through the housekeeping. First of all, we encourage you, to take part in our poll questions that will be taking place throughout the webinar.

And also, we do encourage you that when you, if you have any questions throughout the webinar, if you type them in the Q&A box, which you can find at the bottom of the screen, if you just type, click on Q&A, type it in there, and then at the end of the webinar, we'll then, pose the questions to Amy, who's our speaker this evening. The poll questions, they were at the right time. I will launch them and it should pop up in front of you, and they're all multiple choice.

So just click the, answer that is relevant to you. No right or wrong ones, and also, you can obviously it will all count towards your CPD as well. If you do have any difficulties this evening, then my colleague Peter is on hand.

You can get a hold of Peter either by going to the chat box and clicking typing in your issue there. Alternatively, you can email office at the webinar vet.com, and Peter will be on hand to answer your, queries that way as well.

It's great to see. We've already got a few people join, who've joined us from across the world. So we've got, Cheryl from, Portugal, and we've also got Australia joined as well.

So truly international webinar this evening. Right, so on to tonight's webinar entitled Client Connections. As I just mentioned, I'm delighted that we're joined by Amy Henson.

Amy has been a qualified RVN for over 10 years, spending most of it this time in both the charity sector and specialist veterinary centres. With her industry leading expertise in animal nutrition and dog owner education, notable career highlights include her role in the PDSA's Pet Check Mobile veterinary unit and Petitt Club, setting up weight management clinics in several veterinary practises in the UK. So without further ado, I'm delighted to hand over to Amy and I'll speak to you all later.

Thank you for that, Rich. Right. Good evening, everyone.

Welcome to the webinar about like connections. I've kind of chosen to do this topic. I now work with Intails.

I'm a customer experience team leader, specialising in nutrition, but it really goes back a long way from there. So you can see there, I've spent a lot of time actually within the clinical environment, within the community, and within education, and I've been with for 3.5 years.

And I absolutely love talking to our customers. I love understanding, you know, where they need the help and how we can make lives better, sort of for them and for us. And I've just included a quote there at the bottom from Maya Angelou, who's an American poet singer, diarist, civil rights activist, and I think it really does sum up, sum up the customer experience and what our clients, our customers think of.

And it's that I've learned that people will forget what you've said, people will forget what you did, but people will never ever forget how you make them feel. And I'm sure we can all think of experiences ourselves. Well, we probably can't remember the exact ins and outs of what went on.

But we know that it was a really happy experience, or hopefully not, but sometimes if it was a really bad one and you just kind of want to leave it there. So this evening hopefully we're going to cover a little bit about Being customer led and if clients are at the heart of what you actually do, the importance of them, especially as we kind of all get in it because of the animals, but actually they do tend to come with humans attached. Looking at some of the more common scenarios and understanding actually what client motivations go on behind there, and then actually looking at communication, the art of active listening and problem solving.

And then finally going back and looking at sort of the bigger picture again and how you guys can maybe use data to actually help you improve sort of what you can offer customers and actually how you can offer each other and support each other as staff members as well. And say any questions as we go through, please just drop them in a little box and hopefully we'll have some time at the end. Cool, right, kick things off.

I thought we talk a little bit about sort of customer led and what it means to us, particularly at tails. And when we were founded, we were founded on 4 central values, and for us the biggest of which is always going to be customer led. We always want to have our customers at part of what we do.

And that's not just our clients, the people who are actually paying for the food, but it's actually the dogs themselves. We want to know how they're doing, what they like, what they dislike, and it's something that we keep in the forefront of whatever decision it might be we make as a company, is how is that going to impact the customer? What's it going to do to them and their experience with us?

And therefore, is that a right decision to make? Is it not? And always thinking back to to what they mean.

And one of the big questions we often get asked is how do we know we're actually being customer led? And the short answer is data. And that can sound a really, really scary thing in this day and age, because when we say data, people think we're capturing, you know, credit card details or tracking cookies on your computer.

I'm sure most of you are fed up of clicking the accept button now when you go on to any website to say, we're collecting cookies. Are you OK with that? But actually it's looking at all sorts of different things as well.

It's looking at where our customers are, what they're asking for us, what they say about the food, about the delivery, about the experience, and then actually looking at is there any common ground between them, any themes and any trends. And there's lots and lots of different ways that we can do that, and it comes from different places. So most of you are probably familiar with Trustpilot and other independent review platforms.

There's, I think FIFA is another one that's out there. I know Google certainly do their own reviews as well. And you might have used it yourself when you've given feedback to another company that maybe you've used in the past, or maybe you'd use it yourself for your own practise or business, and it's a really, really useful tool.

It can also be quite a scary tool. But it can get lots and lots of information from there, particularly if you really get into sort of the analytics that go with Trustpilot as well. For us in particular, we actually look at the reasons why our customers feel like they need to get in contact with us in the first place, so we can sort of roughly categorise these numbers and we can monitor those numbers.

So if we suddenly see a spike in a particular area for a particular week or month, then we know actually there might be a problem there, maybe we need to look a bit more into it and understand what's going on. We can look at what our customers are actually doing with their orders, what foods they're adding, or even what foods they're taking away, and that gives us some idea of what's popular, what's not. It could just be that time of the year.

It might not be there, there might be again something else underlying. So let's have a look, or it might be actually our customers want something that we're not able to provide at this moment in time. Surveys, they're another really common way of finding out about what people are thinking and feeling and particularly for us because we're, we have a customer experience team, we have that sort of contact with them.

We always send out a survey after they've been in touch with us to say what they think, how did they find it. And it's quite a simple one. It's generally pretty much a thumbs up or a thumbs down.

But it can still help us get an idea of how we're doing ourselves. And that brings me to the next point as well. It's actually quality checking ourselves too.

It's all very well, knowing if our customers are liking us or if they're not. But actually it could be we're still providing a great customer experience to our clients, and they're happy with what we're doing. But are we doing it to the best of our ability?

Can we actually better? And so that's something we actually regularly do as well. We pretty much on a weekly basis, we quality check throughout all the team to see how we're doing, and we measure ourselves against the standards that we've set.

And from that then we can also use that to help improve what we do, whether that's by training or whether it's taking feedback to another team because maybe we don't necessarily understand how something's working and if we don't. There's a chance that our customers definitely won't be either and we want to get that fixed for them. I'm finally going back down to an individual basis and actually listening to what they're telling us in individual conversations as well.

If we're seeing the same things come up time and time again, then maybe that's something we want to look at, or if it's something that that's really good, why not shout about it? People are really quick to find out, point out the negatives or to find out the problems. But we're not quite so good, certainly not in Britain anyway, stiff upper lip and all that.

But we're not very good at always shouting about where we're actually going really well and what's working fantastically, and we should be better at doing that as well. So we've got all those different places that we can get information from and this list is by no means exhaustive. There's lots more other places you can look as well.

What we want to be careful with though, is that we don't look at all these things in isolation. So doing one thing or another can be great, but it really doesn't tend to give you sort of the big picture of what's going on. And just taking this picture here, it's actually my favourite one that I've discovered earlier this year.

The fish himself looks pretty worried. And so if you just look on that picture its own, you think, yeah, there's a worried fish. We don't necessarily know why.

It could be something else is going on in the background. It could just be literally that moment in time the photographers happen to catch him. So we kind of want to look at what else is going on around him.

And in this example, He's got cause to be worried in this case. You've got the shark hiding in the background. So it's a really good illustration that we want to look at the big picture.

We want to take all those things and bring them together to actually see is there a proper theme going on there? Is there a trend, or is it actually just one or two isolated incidences, and we still want to get them right for the client, but we don't necessarily have a bigger thing to worry about right then. So it's always good to look at sort of the big picture.

And that's why again, if you work maybe across different branches or you've just in big referral hospitals, so maybe lots of different teams, it's sometimes good to touch base with them to see what they're thinking and they're hearing and they're saying as well to make sure that everyone is there on the same page. So some of the realities of being customer led at tails, we've been really lucky. They say we keep them in the forefront of what we're doing.

And we're collecting all this data, all this feedback and information has come from. It's really helped influence some of our decisions that we've made, not only in the past, and I've got a couple of examples there for you, but actually what we do going into the future. So certainly when I started Tails, we didn't cater for dogs with pancreatitis, or we, we didn't cater to them very easily.

Whereas now people sign up to us and we can support that a lot more easily for customers. They can actually choose to add it themselves. And we'll create their recipes with that in mind.

And we do have the teams again, we can do a little bit more than that. We also went through a stage early on where we actually didn't cater for younger dogs, for younger puppies, and we sort of started to realise that maybe that wasn't the best idea. Our customers were telling us that wasn't the best idea because they were getting in contact.

They were getting these new puppies, and they wanted to get them onto a good diet, so they were telling us they wanted to feed our food, but we weren't offering it. Seems like quite a silly thing. But at the time, it wasn't and when we had to look into to make sure that actually if we're going to do this, how can we do it to the best of our ability.

Our treat options, we've grown them since I've started at tails, and I've just got some of the more recent ones there. So when I first started, there was a huge demand again for treats that were either hypoallergenic or didn't contain grain. So we've been able to do that and we've added new flavours sort of over the last couple of years depending on what customers have been asking for.

More recently, towards the back end of last year, we actually gave new customers a chance to sign up and use PayPal instead of entering their credit card details, which again, lots of people were asking us for. And probably the big one that we started this year is we're actually now in France as well. And again, it's because people were asking for us.

So we sort of we did our research, we looked at the big picture. And we came to France and we're growing nicely there as well, and we'll listen to what our French customers tell us too, because they do have different considerations, they have different priorities to our UK customers, which actually makes for really interesting reading as well. So that's kind of how we use data at tails and why we try and keep customers at the heart of what we do.

So I thought it's sort of take it back down more into the individual and look at clients themselves and what they mean and why they might choose us and what their motivations are, because motivation is a huge part behind customers and why they choose to do what they do. And it can be really easy to kind of lump everyone in the same boat a lot of the time. And that's something we don't always want to do.

So as I said at the beginning, Pets do come with humans attached, or if you happen to work more in livestock or wildlife, they quite often come with humans attached as well, whether it's a member of the public that sort of brought them in, or the RSPCA pets are similar, or even the vets and nurses who end up treating these animals, there are humans pretty much involved at some point. And the chance are we got into the profession because we loved animals rather than necessarily loved humans, but that doesn't get away from the fact that we probably are going to have to deal with the human side at some point as well. And customers helping clients help in lots of different ways.

The most obvious one is they do pay the bills, and that might just be as simple as they've come in for something, you hand them an invoice, they pay it. But it might also be maybe they do fundraising or donating, so they're still gaining the money to keep the doors open, to keep us supporting the animals. They tell us when we're doing well.

They also tell us when we're not doing so well, so. This quite often tends to be more people vote with their feet. So some people will, they'll send, give you a review or they'll get in contact, they'll send a complaint.

Others will simply just take their business elsewhere and they do it sort of quite silently, quite passively. They help us to grow our business by telling us what it is that they actually need from us, what they want from us. And they also help us care for our patients better, because at the end of the day, our patients don't speak our language.

And as much as we can use observation and we can run our tests and things, if they're at home with their owner monitoring them, it's their owner that we're having to rely on for them to get back in contact and to tell us, actually, you know what, Fluffy's doing really, really well now, or doing a bit better but still not great. Or very occasionally you see they're no better at all or in fact they've got worse, but they may not be able to tell us that they might be waiting for us. For the, for the humans to come and tell us about that.

So as I mentioned, clients, they're definitely not all the same. You might be familiar with the idea that was sort of demographics as it were, and you have sort of different expectations in different countries, and we all know various stereotypes, rightly or wrongly, but we are familiar with them. The trouble is Then it's important not to stereotype people because again we fall into that trap and we start to make assumptions and that can be a really dangerous road to go down.

And a couple of places then where customers may differ. Is with their expectations, you'll get some customers or clients that want absolute gold standard of care. They want you to do everything you possibly can do, or others that were going to go down the route of Dr.

Google said, or my brother's gym buddy, sister's cousin, aunt said. And they'll rely more heavily on that than what you're trying to tell them as a professional. There's a level of willingness to engage as well, a level of trust, and some of that might just come.

From their own experiences, it might be maybe they're just a little bit cautious. It might be again, they're hearing things from other sources, or they just might be way too busy to really engage with you and have like an in-depth conversation, which takes to the next point, their level of availability. It could be, you know, they could be pushed for time, maybe they work, maybe they've got children or other dependents, and they just have to fit the pet around those commitments as well.

And it's not they don't care for the pet, but they've got other responsibilities that they've kind of got to focus on as well. It could be their beliefs. I'm sure we've possibly all encounter people that hold certain religious beliefs or they hold certain food beliefs, so those that believe that grey is the absolute devil, or breed biases.

I remember not long after I started here at Tails, I had to deal with a client who was absolutely fixated on the fact that absolutely every single Sharpei that ever existed couldn't eat beef and couldn't eat grain. It was an inherited ergy particular to that breed. And trying to then have a conversation to actually kind of discuss, but actually probably quite a few of them do have sensitivities and allergies, but actually blanket statement in the breed wasn't the most helpful thing.

And we wanted to focus just on her particulars and see how we could help her . It could be our client's financial situation, and this I know can be a really, really tetchy point. Having worked in charity, I can see how easily it is to do.

But it's really important not to judge people, particularly based on their outward appearances, cos you don't know necessarily what's going on behind the scenes. And again, from personal experience within my family. I'd hate to think that that particular family member would be judged just because of the situation they found themselves in.

So it's really important to take that into account and think, you know, a customer may not want to have to pay out, but there might be different reasons behind that. Not every customer is actually planning on a big holiday. They might have other things they need to consider, you know, redundancy, another unexpected family member of the the human kind maybe.

So they're having to plan, they're having to budget in other ways. Education can often be a big part of it as well. And again, the opportunities people have had in education too is really important that we don't jump to assumptions or we find that we can communicate them in the right way for them.

And also past experiences. I think this is one that tends to be forgotten an awful lot. We don't know what necessarily has gone on in that client's life beforehand, and it could be they've had really bad experiences in the past, in the past, and now they're actually very, very nervous about coming back and engaging with us again.

And that takes you back to their willingness to engage their level of trust that they have for you. And so we might have to come in with them at a different level than we may be an older customer who's been with us, you know, donkey for years and had lots and lots of pets over the years with us. We also need to consider though that it goes both ways and clients will potentially make snap judgments about us, you know, I'm sure we've all heard the line that vets are all money grubbing, hungry, only out for themselves kind of thing, they're all driving around in BMWs and stuff.

And we know that's not true. But again, it's what they see and what their past experience has kind of shown us or shown them. And actually if you think of the people you work with as well, while we're all in it, generally speaking for the animals, so therefore, by nature, we're all pretty caring.

We might not all have the same ethics and the same way of working. So again, we could be seen as a type, but I'm sure you can think of vets and nurses, care assistants that you work with reception team that aren't anything like you, but you still find a way to work with them. And because of that, then we're all guilty.

I know so I certainly have been in the past of having clients that I think, you know, are absolute favourites and I probably would bend over backwards for to help out versus those you might want to avoid like the plague. And actually thinking about that it's probably not a good thing because it means then that we're giving a great customer service to one person and probably quite poor one to another. So we want to try and avoid making those snap judgments for them.

And I thought, just kind of give us a little bit of an example about that. I've kind of come up with a few possible clients that we we might be tempted to stereotype and again as an overriding trend, it probably is a useful thing, but we don't want to necessarily pin it on that individual person right at that moment in time. So one of the most common ones that you're probably familiar with is the supermarket mom or supermarket dad.

Quite often this type of person is gonna be really pushed for time. They could be busy running their household. So actually it might mean that coming to the vets outside of school hours isn't necessarily the best idea, or they don't want to have to come when they've got to bring the kids.

And to be honest, I certainly know some of the people I've worked with are much happier when the kids don't have to come either. Personally, I quite liked having the kids in the room. More so because kids are really honest and they tend to tell you things that parents would rather you didn't know about, such as the Friday night pizza for the overweight dog that you're trying to help get the weight off.

So looking at what's gonna work for them, you've also then potentially got your senior citizen. You might assume that maybe they are on a tighter budget, it could be their pets, their main source of companionship, they may have mobility issues themselves. So again, looking at providing a long complicated treatment plan.

That might be gold standard in our books, but it's actually gonna be working for them, are they gonna be able to commit to it. So we shouldn't want to make that decision to say they're not going to be able to, we should give them the option for that. You've then kind of got your young trendy couple.

We're finding more and more that lots of young people, young couples are opting not to have kids so early on. They're sort of more focused potentially on their careers and the pet that they choose, be it a dog, cat. Lizard, horse, whatever it might be.

Often becomes an alternative to having children, at least at that moment in time, and they're also more likely to potentially have a bit more disposable income, or at least that's what we might assume to that. And again, depending on sort of where they are, I know we all know the term millennials and things like that. It might be that we consider they're going to be more aware or they're more susceptible to any sort of popular trends that are going on, be it food trends, we know the whole debate going around about vaccinations and things like that.

So we want, we might kind of ascribe a particular thought process to them, which may or may not be accurate. And then the last one, some of you probably think I'm gonna pin this on the crazy cat ladies now, but I'm actually thinking more about sort of your professional work, your professional owner. Again, they may work long hours, so early and late appointments might be better for them.

It might be that they're more invested in their pets care, so they've got the time to do the research. They've got the pet insured to the hilt and therefore they want the option to refer everything or specialist treatment whenever possible. But again, just someone presents.

That image doesn't mean actually that's what they hold, that's what their beliefs are, that's what they hold dear to them. So we take those overarching similarities, but we also want to remember that each one's an individual and that we don't want to make assumptions because we'll probably end up making a rod for our own back and potentially causing more issues. In the long term, which is never a good thing.

So what I wanted to talk a little bit more about it's actually a little bit of psychology here and I'm definitely not an expert, but I find it a really interesting sort of subject behind there to really get into the minds of our customers and what's going on with them. So I'm gonna take you through a couple of different areas and if you want to learn more about it, if you find it really interesting, I've got some websites and slide at the end. So again, if you want to sort of start off having a bit more of a, a bit more of a no, they're probably some good places to start.

So first off, I want you to think about a common scenario that you most often see in work. This one is particularly one we obviously see at tails.com, but it could easily be applied to where's my medication if they're waiting for repeat prescription or potentially maybe they are getting their food from you, maybe their dog's on a prescription diet and they want to know where it is.

So on the surface of it again, where's my food? It sounds pretty obvious, pretty simple statement there. But the reason behind asking could be very different, and depending on what that sort of reason is, what that motivation is, could really influence us, the solution that we're going to offer to that customer.

So taking this example here, 3 of the most common reasons you might be asked this question. Is potentially they're just curious. It might be they should be able to see it online when it's due, but they can't for whatever reason, maybe their internet's down, maybe they're just not that tech savvy.

So they're just looking for a bit of reassurance actually, and that's all they want, and that's fine. Maybe they're actually going away, so they want to make sure the food's going to arrive before they come, or before they go, I should say. And it could be maybe the dog's coming with them or maybe actually the dog's going into kennels, going to stay with a friend, and they just want to make sure their dogs can have food and their friend, the kennels, don't need to worry about getting food in for the dog.

It could actually be a simple, they've actually run out of their food as well. And maybe their dog can't have anything else, maybe they are on that prescription diet, so actually popping down and finding out what's in the supermarket or even cooking some, you know, chicken and rice. Isn't going to be the best option for them, and they're worried about their dog.

So you can see that those have got three very different sort of motivations behind them, and to offer them all the same solution probably isn't going to go down too well. And you could definitely make an argument there about sort of poor planning. But as I mentioned in the previous section, we don't know what else is going on in that customer's life.

We, they could have other things going on, maybe they've been ill, maybe they're having to look after another dependent who's been ill, so their focus has been elsewhere. I'm sure we've all been there at some point or another where we sort of suddenly realised that we have run out of food or we've run out of medication or flea treatment or the dog was due its vaccines, you know, a month ago. It happens, so it's understanding that for our customer.

So again, letting them know where it's going to be there versus it's gonna be here at this time or actually would it be easier if I got it sent to this address for you instead? Or is there an alternative that maybe they can feed in the meantime, so we've got some different options for them. Another common scenario that I came across particularly in practise, is around the case of vaccinations.

I lost count the amount of times I've had this conversation in practise, and I'm sure some of you will be in the same boat as well, where you've gone in, you've got a cute little puppy in front of you, and you've asked, have they, you know, they vaccinated, have they been booked in? And you kind of just get a deadpan look and the word no. And again, think about why they haven't done that is there could be lots of different options.

It could be they just hadn't thought about it. Maybe it's their first puppy, maybe not quite done the research they should have done, or there's been lots of other things going on about it and they just haven't clocked to check that vaccination status. It could be that they're scared.

And that could be for lots of different reasons. I'm sure we've all seen all the scare stories that are out there, the misinformation and things that's going on. It could be that they're under the impression that they don't need vaccinations, you know, again, I've come across a customer who was absolutely adamant that their particular breed of dog was naturally immune.

So again, that was a nice fun conversation, but that's what it was, it was a conversation with the customer. And there could be some financial concerns as well. It could be as simple as I can't afford it right now.

Again, if we want to look through them all, we're probably not going to take quite the same approach to each of these clients as we would to something else, because they've all got, there was a slightly different motivations behind it, and we want to understand those motivations to trigger them, to get them engaged. And ideally, we want to get them on board and we want to get those vaccinations booked in. And we're gonna come back to this example a bit later on in the Presentation.

So if we go back to sort of the different motivations and why we think customers want to do that, it can really help us build a better solution for them and a better relationship. And we've touched on some of these already, so things like belief, whether it's religious, whether it's ethical, whether it's moral, lifestyle choices. So some examples are, I'm a vegetarian, so is my dog, or I really want to feed them organic higher welfare produce where I know where the protein sources have come from.

And that's absolutely fine. You can have a chat around that with them. It could be they're under pressure from friends, family, social media, I get, oh, don't get her neutered, she's gonna make a great mum, definitely one I've heard way too many times over the course of my career.

It could be financial, as I mentioned earlier, customers could be facing a change in circumstance, it could be the redundancy, new family member, things like that. And all of a sudden what they were aware of and they were able to afford a week ago, 2 weeks ago, a month or two ago, suddenly they can't afford it anymore and they're having to rethink about how they're going to provide the best for their pet, but also the best for their family within their sort of budget they've got. It could be that they're feeling guilty or they're in denial, so maybe they do know deep down that something isn't right, but they may be delayed acting on it, though they're not wanting to admit that pets are getting old.

That's what I see quite a lot of, particularly when even just swapping over to a senior diet, admitting your pet needs a senior diet is admitting they're getting old and they're possibly not going to be with us for much longer. And let's face it, nobody wants to think about that. Or it could be knowing things like, your dog isn't been walked enough, so you've given a few extra treats instead of taking them out for a walk or playing with them, because we all know food equals love.

It doesn't, so nobody starts panicking. But a lot of owners will, that's how they'll associate it in their mind. Grief could often be a huge motivator for people and people act differently when they're grieving as well and Most of us are pretty much capable of making really poor decisions when they're in that state.

And it might be a decision that in any other circumstance, in any other frame of mind, we possibly wouldn't make it. But in that moment, in that time, grief is kind of doing all the talking. And you may be familiar with the idea of their seven stages of grief, grief denial, being two of the big ones.

But you also get anger within that and depression, which can also be seen as a sense of helplessness. So if you ask a client a question and you kind of get the shrug answer, it's like. I don't know, and it's quite vague.

That can be a sign of it as well. So it's important for those customers to understand what's going on and that also if they need help, is knowing that there's help and support out there, including the Blue Cross, they've got a really good support system for. Clients who may be experiencing grief as a result of or bereavement as a result of losing their pet.

Past experiences, I'm not going to dwell on too much because we have talked about it a little bit, but it will often dictate what we choose to do in the future. And again, I think sure we can all think of an example where we've disliked something enough that we've never gone back there, be it a meal, a product that we've bought or something like that. Or we've loved it enough that now we're committed, you know, vocalist members of them and we shout the praises from the rooftops.

And again, so for our clients that can be part and part of it for as well. There could be other external pressures going on. It doesn't have to be one particular thing.

It may not be redundancy, it may not be grief, but it can be just lots of little things that just don't quite go to plan. And I've certainly been there myself, where I've just had days where I've just got out of bed on the wrong side of the, I got out of bed on the wrong side. And the toaster is burnt.

I've run out of milk for the tea, the traffic's been really been bad on the way into work. You've ended up being late to drop off the kids, you've been late into work, even though you've left early, then the computer system goes down and it just goes on and on. And it only takes one small thing.

Then again, on any other day probably isn't a big deal. But on that particular day is just enough to tip you over the edge, is that straw to break the camel's back kind of thing. And for some people, it's actually the stress of making a decision.

They're just totally indecisive and actually giving them loads of options. It's just so overwhelming. They almost become paralysed and they can't make a decision from that.

And then actually for them, a motivation might be, I can't choose, I don't know what I'm doing. So you literally, they just walk away from the situation rather than necessarily addressing it. And I think kids in a sweet shop, or even me in a sweet shop, to be honest, is a huge example of that.

It's like sticking them in the middle of a sweet shop, they can choose one thing. You've got 100 different sweets. What are you gonna choose?

You don't know, and that can become really overwhelming as well. And if you've ever had to deal with toddlers in a similar situation, quite often all that happens is they start bawling their eyes out and crying and it just gets all too much for them. And for adults that can still be a thing, although hopefully they're not quite having a temp tantrum.

In your reception room. And it's important to remember that these things can affect us as staff as much as it can affect our clients. So our clients could be having a fantastic day.

But if we're feeling any one of these things or combination, it could achieve how we deal with the client as well, and we really don't want to do that. I should just point out though, that we've never ever an excuse for any offensive or threatening behaviour, if we can help it. So just because I'm having a bad day, you can still be polite, you can still be professional about it.

So it's just worth bearing that in mind as well. So going back to the example we had about the vaccinations and bear, let's have a little look about these in a bit more detail. So the first one, hadn't thought about it.

It could be that there's some external pressures going on. Maybe the customer is meant to book them in, but they get distracted. There's just so much going on with them.

Maybe they do feel a little bit guilty that they didn't know there were benefits to vaccinations, or they haven't got around to it and it gets to a point where you leave something so long, you actually feel a bit embarrassed about them going in and getting it sorted. But actually still needs to be done, or maybe you do it to avoid looking like a bad pet owner. And again, the stress of making an actual decision, although I would argue that when it comes to vaccinations, it's possibly a no brainer.

But again, depending on what beliefs and things they're holding, maybe actually it's gonna be a much harder decision for them to make. What about if they're scared So underlying that could be their beliefs. They believe that X, Y, and Z might happen if they do vaccinate.

Again, we've heard the human scare stories where vaccination leads to autism, totally disproved now, but some people still cling to that belief. It might be that there's pressure from other people, so lots of going going back to that missing information or maybe someone else has had a bad experience. So therefore they're sort of pushing their beliefs onto somebody else and saying, oh, you don't wanna do that, you don't want to do that.

Again, it could be guilt and grief. These two could go hand in hand, potentially, maybe a previous pet was very, very unlucky and they did have one of the rare bad side effects potentially where they've reacted really badly. Or maybe they 14 year old has developed a sarcoma or similar around the vaccination site and they're making those connections there.

And again, that ties in with them being a past experience that they're clinging to. The fact that Cost believes he doesn't need them. And maybe maybe it's because they've been told they've already had them and they're told in that whatever breed you want to choose, doesn't need vaccinations.

They don't believe in them. They're just a money making scam. There are lots of different ideas in there for them.

And again, coming back to that, that stress of making decision, if they just can't decide whether to vaccinate or not or to get find out if they have been. They just walk away And the final one, I can't afford it right now. Definitely the biggest behind one behind that is gonna be financial concerns.

But it could be that customers don't understand the value in that, the fact that actually it's not just that you're gonna jab their pet and off they go. They're actually gonna get a full health check at that point. They're gonna have a weight check, they're gonna be able to have a follow-up appointment potentially with the vet nurse, depending on how your systems work.

It might be actually they think they're more expensive than what they actually are as well. Or it could be that they have got it budgeted and something's just happened, it means it's not there for them, the money is not there at the moment. And actually can't afford it.

It may not always be financially. It could be the customers actually time for as well, which links back into they just hadn't thought about it because they've got so much else going on in their mind. And it could well be a combination of these all as well.

And that's why it's really important to have some great conversations with our customers. And this is kind of where that next step comes into now is how we can actually help the customers and how we can understand what those motivations are for that individual. So, most of you, I'm thinking of possibly familiar with this chart.

And if I was to remind you, it's the 73855 rule, and that's based around sort of communication, and that only 7% comes from the words that we speak, 38% comes from our tone of voice, and 55% sort of comes from our body language. So it's those verbal versus those nonverbal cues. And that can be a real useful thing when you're talking to customers and to understand what it is they want, particularly if they're kind of there in front of you.

It becomes a little bit harder on the phone because you don't have the body language and it gets even harder when it's written communication, when it's potentially an email or something like that because you then lose the tone of voice as well. The trouble with that is that they can be sometimes misleading. I certainly know in my experience that accents, individual mannerisms, and a whole host of individual quirks.

Really lead me to misinterpreting the situation. I actually used to get told off loads in school for being a doodler, particularly by my German teacher, and she just used to constantly think I wasn't listening. And it wasn't, I wasn't listening.

I was, I was a bit of fidgeter. So for me, just doodling on a bit of paper actually helped me focus a lot more. Wasn't doing anything in particular.

I just needed something to do with my hands, and that really helped me focus. But she totally translated that as I wasn't listening and I was messing about in her classes. Unfortunately it did mean I went to give up German as soon as I possibly could.

But That's what can happen when you then start to, you take things exactly as they are. And again, I think depending where you are in the world to where you are in. Even of the UK, local phrases, local colloquialisms can be taken the wrong way as well, or just not understood.

You know, I'm sure we've all spoken to customers who said something. One of my team members, she works up in Glasgow. So she kind of just calls everyone love out of habit because that's kind of how she speaks normally.

And some people are actually fine with that, others feel like it's actually been way too personal. And that's not what she, that's not her intention. Oh, it's understanding those different things.

So it's really useful to have the verbal cues, but it's also important to try and read the nonverbal cues as well. And there's some other tools that can help us with this. So one of these tools is absolutely fascinating.

It's called transactional analysis, and I'm gonna go out on a limb here that most of you probably aren't actually familiar with that term in itself. But if I was to talk to you about the parent child, adult relationships or ego states. Hopefully that will start ringing some bells because that's the foundation of transactional analysis.

It came from a gentleman called Eric Byrne. Either 50s or 60s, I believe, but certainly before my time, . But it's a really interesting topic topic because it looks at different ego states that people are in.

And how we react to them, and some of it will become from what we've experienced, and some of it comes from what we've learned, what we've been taught as we grow up. But the underlying sort of idea is that we always want to be in this adult mindset, because at this point, we're being non-judgmental, we're interested in what's happening around us. We tend to be more reality-based.

So again, we're seeing that bigger picture. And we're quietly confident, we're not sort of in people's faces and shouting around. And most of the interactions we have, we want to be in the adult mindset and we want to bring the person we're speaking to or talking to or communicating with into that mindset as well.

What tends to happen though, is that we react to the person we're speaking to. So if they're in a parent mindset or ego state, we're automatically gonna go into the child and vice versa. And if we stay at those opposing ones, again, that's where communication tends to break down and we get those poor experiences coming up.

And we can actually break down child and parent into two different ego states as well. So with the parent, you can either be controlling or you could be nurturing. And if you've ever caught yourself thinking I sound just like my mother or father or cationing teacher, the chances are you're probably in that adult state or that parent state in some way, shape or form.

Whereas the child, you can either be adapted or free, and this tends to experience draw on our experiences from childhood, whether it's dropping like a teenager or whether you're feeling particularly sort of playful and curious, you just want to learn about the world. And it's important to remember that everyone can be in any one of these states at any one time. It's not sort of relegated to just one particular area.

We can all experience them for ourselves, but what we want to do is try to get back into that adult mindset. And one of the ways we can do that. Is through the OK corral.

And it's just building on to transactional analysis as well, but it helps us get into the adult state. And the way we can look at that is there are 4 different areas. There's the area where You're not feeling particularly great, but you're assuming that the client, the person you're speaking to is OK.

Trouble is, when you're on this date. You're not particularly engaged, you may be looking to get that interaction over with as quickly as possible, give the client what they want, and move on. The client is likely to have a great service, but is it a good service for the business?

So a common scenario might just be that kind of idea where I'm just not having a good day. I just need to get it done, go home, put my feet up and tap out. You then got the scenario where You, I'm feeling OK?

But I'm making the assumption then that the client, the person I'm speaking to, is that they're not OK. And what happens in this scenario is that you're engaged, but you run the risk of looking down on the client because you've started to make assumptions about them making those snap judgments. And what can lead that can lead to is potential for frustration.

As it can feel like the customer isn't on the same page as you, but you might not be at that point where you're willing to engage them or try and communicate in any other way, that kind of, why aren't you listening to me? Why aren't you doing what I'm telling you to do sort of situation, which is never a great place to be in. The third one there is that I'm not OK, but you're not OK either.

So this is actually really quite a negative one. You're not particularly engaged, you're assuming your client, the person you're speaking to, isn't engaged. So actually you both tend to be rushing through that conversation, that interaction.

Again, there could be another level of exasperation, you're repeating yourself, and often there's no room for. Miseful solution because you kind of come to loggerheads or you're both so disengaged, it's kind of in, out, jobs done. So unfortunately, that leads to really, really negative experience and it leads to neither party feeling particularly happy either.

The state we want to be in. And that's the state that's gonna put us in that nice adult frame of mind is the fact that I'm OK, but I know that you're OK as well. I know that you're doing OK.

And at this point then. It's the best place to be, because you can assume that you're all working towards the same goal, you're able to listen clearly to the information coming back from the client and it feels more like a genuine interaction and this helps to build. Better trust, better relationships.

And if you go into a situation with that frame of mind that you're OK and you're assuming the client's OK, even if they're not, you're going to bring them back to that adult mindset so much quicker as well, and you're gonna help sort of stay there too. Trouble is, it doesn't necessarily come overnight. It does take a little bit of practise, but if you're familiar with the phrase fake it until you make it, that's pretty much where this comes from to a degree.

This is the mental equivalent of it. So if you're not necessarily feeling there or you previously had a bad interaction. That particular client, you just want to start afresh, put that aside, is, you know what, I'm OK, you're OK.

This is going to be a great interaction. And the more you do that, the more it becomes habit and it becomes ingrained. But like on a physical level, if you ever pick up the phone and you can tell the difference between someone who genuinely cares and someone who doesn't, and a lot of that comes from the fact that they're smiling at the end of the phone on their side, it comes across in their voice and you sort of already start to build those foundations there.

So, sort of following on from that, I have got a link at the end of this, but if you want to learn a little bit more about looking into sort of how you react, your general level of day to day positivity, I put a link in at the end of the session to Barbara Fredrickson's site and she specialises in psychology, but particularly in positive thinking and monitoring it over time. It's a really great one to do short one, take 2 minutes each day, just quickly fill in the survey, and it gives you your overall positivity over time. And then it gives you an idea of how often you're in this I'm OK, you're OK mindset.

Just slight disclaimer, if you do go onto the site for the first time. It does look like it's focusing on romantic relationships, but I promise you the tool section is really useful bit, and that's the bit you kind of probably want to look at a bit more. Although by all means, if you do want to look at the romantic relationship side of things as well, be my guest.

So yeah, so as I was saying, we want to be in that I'm OK, you're OK mindset. So we take all that information together, it can easily be put down there into for sort of the easy steps. The first two we focus on the issue.

So you want to look, you want to identify what the issue is. So where's my food? You want to understand why it matters.

Well, I'm about to run out. I'm just curious or I have run out. And then the next two or more on actually what you can do from there, what the solution is.

So you've number 3, you've listened to the customer, you now know what it is they want to happen, but you also know what it is that you can offer them. Do you find you get to that point where actually, you know what, I understand what you want. I know what I can do, so I can offer you option A, option B, which is gonna work for you based on what you've told me.

And from that then you now know exactly what needs to be done for that particular customer. And it's kind of a 5th point, kind of snuck it in there, is actually check that the customers are happy with that agreement as well that everyone actually understands what's going on and it's quietly happily laid out by Julie and Peter as well. So again, if we want to go back to our vaccination example with there, we can put some of these steps into practise.

So the first reason, or the first motivation is that there isn't vaccinated, why not? We hadn't thought about it. We kind of already know the motivations.

So what is it that we can do about that? What the issue is, is the customer client just keeps forgetting to book the appointment or they can't find a suitable time to do it during the week. Why it matters because they've got a lot going on right now.

The work may be working full time, they can't get the childminder. And what they want to happen is they want to be able to book an appointment that works for them. You know when you can offer those appointments.

So let's get them booked in at a time that hopefully suits them. And if you've got a reminder service, that's probably a bonus as well. And this is where it comes back to actually understanding what the bigger picture is, is actually do most of your clients want evening appointments?

Do they want a weekend, a Saturday morning appointment? Or actually, are they all quite happy having sort of standard office hours, 9 to 5 type setup? What works for them?

The sort of second motivation we had was the fact that they're scared. So it could be that the issue is the customs wide that vaccinations will do more harm than good. Why does it matter?

Well, again, maybe the client recently lost a pet to a tumour and has been reading online about how this can be linked to vaccinations and the vets like to over vaccinate pets, etc. So what they want to happen is they want to be reassured they're making the right choice for their pets. And potentially really understand what happened to their previous pet as well.

That may not be you can help with that because it may not be in your practise, but maybe it isn't they just need someone to talk them through it again and help them understand. And you know what you can offer, you know that you can offer a vaccination appointment. It might be for this particular customer, maybe actually do need a double appointment because they just need that extra level of hand holding for them.

And you know what needs to be done. You need to give them space to talk through all their concerns, provide that reassurance for them. And maybe if you can give them some reliable independent sources of information as well.

And again check they're happy and get them booked in. It could be that they believe that he doesn't need them. So again, the issue is possibly slightly harder, but for argument's sake, let's believe that their breed doesn't need to have vaccinations.

They're naturally immune after they've had their puppy, of course. Why it matters? Well, it matters because the customer's potentially been given misinformation, and the customer's scared of over vaccinating, but we know it matters not just to that individual dog, but from that herd immunity as well to make sure that all our pets are safe and protected.

So again, what do they want to happen? It's a bit similar maybe to I'm scared, so they actually want that level of reassurance for them. And again, maybe offering this customer tighter testing, maybe that's a better option for them in that initial moment in time.

But being sure to cover all the pros and cons with them. And what needs to be done then is again maybe some further resources to their concern or booking that appointment, be it for vaccinations, or be it for tighter testing if that's something that is gonna make them feel better about making that decision for them. And then finally, I can't afford it right now.

Fairly simple. What's the issue? Cos?

Why does it matter? We've talked about it enough, customers on that type of tighter budget. Or does paying for vaccinations mean that they genuinely can't afford something else at this moment in time?

So what they want to happen is a cost effective solution and what you can offer them is you know what vaccination or care packages you have to offer at your practise. And it might be that actually you do have an option that will work for them. I know some practises are now going for sort of the lifetime vaccination costs, one-off costs.

Others have sort of health plan type things where they can pay a certain amount each month or each quarter, and that includes various different things. It's actually can be quite beneficial for them as well. So talking through what's going to work for those and what you can do.

And then again agreeing what's gonna work? Can you get them booked in? And then that's gonna help your customers as well.

So you can see a lot of it probably does revolve around conversations, but it also means that we can understand what's going on on customers and we can offer them the right solution for them. So final one, deep breath, if you're with me still, brilliant, because I know it's awful lot to try and listen to, but let's you know how we can actually help those clients and we're gonna go back to that bigger picture, what we can do as a team, as a business to help our customers and vice versa. So we talked about this one already, it's where you can actually start gathering that data from.

So Trustpilot review platforms, why they're getting in contact. Certainly for us we've got a customer experience team. If you work in bigger practises or you work in multi practises, maybe you have a customer experience team or a central place which coordinates all the feedback.

Do you actually look at how many customers take you up on different promotions that you, that you're running and things like that? Surveys, quality checking, what they're actually telling us in individual conversations. You could also consider having focus groups, actually talking to a small group of customers.

Do you have a suggestion box, both for your clients and for your staff? And a really interesting one here as well is actually exit interviews. So a lot of this is focused around what our clients are telling us, not so much about what our our staff are telling us, and surveys can be a great way for that.

The suggestion box we mentioned can be an exit interviews. Do we ever ask people when they've left practise why they've left? Because it might be they've gone to a new job, but what's driven them to make that choice is there something that we can learn from there as well, particularly if you're maybe going through a bit of a high staff turnover point.

So the other way you could potentially look at it as well, particularly if you want to focus around your customer, your client or your customers, is think about what the customer journey looks like, where do they interact with you, where you can maybe improve better. So that first contact, your first impression, so is it Window? Is it the website?

Is it a phone call? Is it social media? What is it?

Do we do anything before they even walk through the door? What does our waiting room look like? What do our consult rooms look like?

How do they run? With the first appointment, is there any sort of follow up or if they're coming in for weight clinics or a stay, maybe we send them home, we'll see them back in 5 days. But how many of us maybe give the customers a phone call 24 hours later just to see how they're doing?

And do we engage them anywhere else, social media, newsletters, open days, all these different things are all influencing our customers and their decisions with us. So, my first survey that I'd love to ask for you guys is how many people actually ask their clients for feedback. Quite a nice simple one, yes or no?

There we are. I've just launched the poll. So, as, Amy says, nice and simple, yes or no, do you currently ask your clients for feedback?

Also, while you're answering that, don't forget, we will have a couple of minutes at the end to ask Amy some questions. I know one's already come in, but if you have any others, then please do pop them in the Q and A box. OK, we'll end that there.

So, of those who've responded, 56% have said yes, they currently ask for feedback and 44% have said no. But that's actually really great to see that so many people do ask for feedback over that over 50%. And that's a huge thing because I know certainly early on when I started in practise.

Asking your clients for feedback wasn't a done thing at all. It's in fact, it's quite terrifying, and I know some practises now, it can still be a bit nerve-wracking and a bit wary as well. So my next question is, particularly for those of you who do ask your clients for feedback, is how do you ask for it, where do you get it from?

You know, you can choose as many of these as you sort of want, or if not, what is the big one that you tend to use more than anything else. Sorry, forgot to put myself on mute. So I've just launched it.

There you go. So how do you get client feedback? I'd say just select one of those.

You may select, you may obviously do more than one of those options, but if you can just sort of give an indication of which one you do most common, that'd be great. I can see many of you still haven't answered yet, so come on. OK, and I'll end the pole in there.

So, how do you get client feedback? 15% have said via independent review platforms. 15% again it said general surveys.

8% of said targeted surveys, 12% of said suggestion box. 38% have said general interaction but nothing formal, and 12% have said another way. Cool, that's actually really interesting.

It's nicely there is a variety out there, but it's definitely worth thinking about if you do tend to do one thing over the other, is there other ways you can combine other feedback, particularly if we're doing the general interaction as well, because numbers talk, it's as simple as that. If you know you've got a gut feeling, if you know your customers are saying a particular thing, if you get the numbers to back it up, it's much more it's much easier to effect change as a result. So it might be worth having a bit of a think around that area.

So I touched on quickly about stuff and I can see time's definitely slipping away from us, . But just thinking about the information that your staff can give as well is I've already mentioned exit interviews, but actually getting candidate feedback as well, if maybe you have had quite a few people for the role. And do you ever ask them how they actually found the interview experience because it could be you've had some great candidates and they turned the role down.

Why have they? Does anyone ever ask that question? And it's definitely something that we started doing at tails, and that can help you build up your experience as well and it can really help you then bring in good stuff into the practise as well.

Rather than sort of missing out on other ones, especially if you know, particularly vet nurses and support staff, definitely you're in much more of a demand. So you want to get good stuff coming through your doors. You've obviously got the more informal way, so staff meetings because they can come a bit of a free for all, and you want to make sure that sort of the big personalities aren't overshadowing those that might be more quieter and they like to go away and reflect maybe.

One to one's a really good thing, but they, I know in practise it can be really hard to fit them in when it's busy. So suggestion boxes as well can be really great, but it's only if the suggestions are actually realistic and useful, and anything that raises hopefully gets actioned. Otherwise, it can just be a bit of a box where voices tend to go, or it can become a bit of a bitch fest as well, where people, all they do is moan, they argue, bit like staff meetings, but slightly more passive.

So you want to make sure that it's going to be a useful tool for your practise. And then on the formal side, you've got things like reviews. Some practises are really good and they'll do yearly reviews, but this is where then the informal one to ones could be quite useful because you're just constantly touching base and it's not a case of you have a chat once a year and then 12 months later you have another chat and you really can't remember what you guys discussed the year before.

And engagement surveys as well, possibly not so useful if you're a small practise, but if you're much bigger again, multi-practice place, engagement reviews can be really great, and we started doing them again at the tails and we do them every 6 months and stuff. They're totally anonymous, which is why they work with bigger teams, but they're a great way of finding out as a company, what you're doing well at, what you need to improve on, and maybe where you need to put a bit more support and things in there. So I really say don't be scared of them.

They're a great way to get people involved and get people engaged as well. So one final thing I want to talk about, to kind of bring it all together, that we've talked about customers, what their motivations are, how we communicate with them. We also touched a little bit about how a staff we comm communicate and how we can feed back.

But one of the big pieces that, again, it's where things, a lot of things can fall down is we're not very good at completing the circle. We get the information, we hand it back. But then we don't follow up.

We don't know what happens from it and it just goes into the effort somewhere, may be actioned, maybe dies, we don't really know. Actually really closing off those feedback loops and actually listening, agreeing on the action. Potentially taking that action.

Well then feeding it back to see how it's going. One way that can look at is something a bit like this is so you identify the issue through any of those means we talked about in terms of gathering data. We identify what the opportunities are for success, and if they don't relate to us, can we give that information to another team who we work with?

Decide on what the next action is, who needs to be involved and set that timeline. Keep your staff, keep your clients updated and be clear with expectations and you can do this on a grand scale. So as a business to your clients or it works on an individual basis as well.

You may talk to a customer or a client in consult, and you know there's a couple of steps that maybe need to go on after that and how you can set those expectations for them and how you can action it. Take those actions, roll it out. Monitor it if it's over a particular period of time and it's affecting multiple people and then it's really important to review and feedback whether it's gone well, brilliantly, if it's not going so well, don't be afraid to admit it.

Don't be afraid to say, you know what, it hasn't worked, because you still learn something from it and it sets you up then to improve the next time round and you can take learnings from it. So, it was a bit of a whistle stop tour, I totally appreciate, but if anyone is interested in any further reading or interested interest, these are some good places to start, as I say. There's a couple of bits on active listening, transaction analysis, there's that positivity tool that you can use.

And if anyone does need any support when it comes to bereavement and stuff, I've just included a few links there because I know it's such a big thing, it can impact people in so many different ways. Right, I'm gonna take a little breath now and if anyone has got questions, please let us know. Brilliant.

Thank you very much for that, Amy, and as you say, take a while and, breathe there. Lots and lots and lots of valuable information all, crammed into an hour. So, really well done on that, Amy.

And Amy was, I like a little secret, and Amy was worrying at the beginning that she wasn't gonna be able to make it like last till 45 minutes, so more than enough information there, Amy, . As I said, time for a couple of questions a little bit over, but I'm sure people have got a couple of questions, so I'll come to them shortly. There will also be a short survey that will pop up at the end of this.

As I say, Tails.com have kindly sponsored this webinar. So please do take time to provide your feedback on the survey that will be appearing in your web browser.

So, First question is coming from Andre and he was saying. You know, in terms of, obviously, in, you get 10 minutes for a consultation. So in terms of being able to capture some of that information, I think rather than the feedback information, understanding what makes your client tick, what type of client are you dealing with, how can you, how can you do it so you can treat the, the, the, the animal, but then at the same time gather some of that information to build up the picture of the client as well.

That's a great question. And if you are in those time sort of captured, consults, it can be really, really hard, you know, because you've got 10 minutes to try and examine the animal, get some answers from the customer, write up notes, to make your diagnosis or next steps. So some of it might be what it can come from when you maybe they actually book in.

It's something that maybe your nursing team or your supports and reception team can help a little bit more on. It's obviously not always going to be appropriate to ask the question, but it might just be. They can ask the question why, or it might be looking at other ways to get people engaged to actually get it through your nursing consults where maybe you have got a little bit more flexible, maybe your nurses can have slightly more time in their consults.

Again, doesn't always happen. I've certainly worked with myself in practise where again I've had the 10 minutes. But I've also found that as a nurse, I've probably been under slightly less pressure.

I've been able to have slightly more relaxed conversations with my, customers and understand them a bit more. And it might be that you start a conversation and it might be you don't do it all in the 10 minutes, but if you know they're coming back for a follow-up appointment, that might be the opportunity to do it at that point as well. And sometimes it might just be identifying very quickly and that's where snap judgments can happen, but it's important that we don't do it all in one go.

So it might be that actually, let's take finance because it's an easy one to make assumptions on. I don't think this customer's gonna go for the gold standard treatment plan that I want. But actually, let's offer it anyway and then they, you can go down to that silver and bronze and it's working with them, or asking maybe a simple question is, are you able to medicate him?

Are you able to give tablets? Because if that customer turns around and tells you they can't. Actually, is giving them tablets going to be the best option, then is there a different course of action you maybe want to take?

So it's not focusing on everything because you're absolutely right it's got the plan in, it's try to pick out what's going to be the most pertinent at that moment in time to help you understand the customer and get to that solution. No problem. That's great.

Thank you very much. Hopefully, that's giving you some ideas there, Andre. .

So one question from me really is how you record this information. So when you're obviously getting feedback from your clients, whether it's through a survey that you're conducting yourself, or it could just be sort of anecdotal information that, in a nurse clinic, they picked up on that. How do you then collate it to make sure that, you know, a locum vet is aware of that circumstance, to pass on that information because it might be that you deal with them quite often, but then obviously, you're not always there, sometimes the, your bosses do let you have the odd day off and stuff.

So when they, if they come in, how do you ensure that that information is passed on and is available for other people to see? That's a great question. And in practise, if you're talking about the individual client, that can be a little bit harder because obviously you do have GDPR concerns within that as well and what you can and can't record.

I think it's, it's being careful, it's knowing what's important or even letting the customer know that they've got the freedom to bring it up to remind somebody else that maybe they do need help. Maybe it is bringing the cat carrier in from the car kind of thing that actually they can come in and they can ask for that help and almost put some of the power back into the customer's hands that they, they can ask, they can talk to you as much as anything. There are some notes that obviously you probably can keep and it might be that your system has a way of sort of flagging particular customers that needed support.

Example I've had is one of my old clients, she's was deaf. But obviously GDPR, we can't record that on her notes anywhere. But what we could record is, and because she'd said it to us, is she prefers written communication, so you can sort of manage it that way a little bit.

Or it might be if you know that the client's coming in a day or two beforehand and you know you're not going to be there. Just brief the person that you're who might be taking over from you anyway. Again, it's not a foolproof solution, but it is it is potentially a way of working for them.

Yeah, thank you very much. Another one, obviously, you know, one of the things that stan'sts do come out is, the amount of data led research, type that you do. And I know Sean, most people know Sean who's done a webinar previously on data insights into nutrition, etc.

So, but for people, you know, I'm just thinking of the, about 44% who said they don't currently undertake any sort of feedback, survey, etc. I know you've got how to get started, but what would you say is maybe the one most critical bit of information feedback they can obtain if they just started in one place? If they want to start in one place.

I'd say If you want to start general, you want to just kind of just start understanding what your customers think. I if you've got the facility and there are lots of different apps out there now that will help you integrate that in and be able to do that without having to invest loads of money and stuff, is if you can do a simple survey. Is what do you think of the practise or even starting out with new clients is, why did you join us?

Why did you choose us? And it might be you get some very simple answers, like, you're around the corner, you're the cheapest. But then you start that with your customers or your clients that you know you've had for years and are regulars, and it's like, why are you still with us?

And what that difference is, because it might be that your cost or your location got them in, but that's not necessarily what's going to keep them, so. I'd say, initially if you've kind of never delved into that area before, it's kind of keep it quite general. There's lots of great examples out there, and you can use that to sort of start your processes.

And if you don't want to go as far as actually committing to sending out a server or anything like that, it's just that simple. Have a suggestion box on reception, just give customers the option to tell you what they think of you. And it might take a little bit of a while, it might take a bit of time.

But most people are more than happy to actually tell you what they think. And the key is listening to them and feeding back as well. Fantastic, thank you very much.

We've got just one more question. Now, this one we might have to take offline. I know from your experience of running, weight management clinics, etc.

That you probably have some sort of insight, but at the same time, it might be one we just take offline. So I'll read it out and then you can decide how you want to take it. So Eleanor's, this is actually a question about a patient of theirs.

It's an entire female husky, and they're struggling to keep weight on her. She's super fussy, no medical problems. Bloods are fine.

Any advice. So as I say, it's more of a nutrition diet one, rather than focusing on actual sort of client connections, but just wondering if you've got a short answer to that or whether it's something you want me to pass Eleanor's details on to you and you can take it offline. I think definitely pass her details and we can certainly have a further chat, but my, my first gut would be.

If if you haven't already taken an absolute, not medical history, but a lot, almost a lifestyle history of what's, what's going on with that dog, what's the family environment like? What, what are they feeding, when are they feeding, and things like that, and really understanding what's going on in that dog's life as well, because that can have such an impact too. OK, no problems.

So that'd be the short answer, but yeah, I'm more than happy to have a further chat. Brilliant. So what we'll do, Eleanor, we'll pass your details on to Amy and the team, and then you can pick up that way and take that forward.

OK, so I think it's 9:15, so I think we'll call it a day. So just a couple of thank yous. Thank you to obviously all yourselves for joining us on this webinar.

Hopefully, you found it really useful. I know there has been a lot of information. This webinar has been recorded, and it's gonna be available on the webinar that website, for you to access, if you want to go over any aspects, and that'll be available within the next 24 to 48 hours.

Thank you to my colleague Peter, who's been behind the scenes, just making sure everything has been running smoothly. So thank you very much because touch wood, it's all gone very smoothly. And then last but not least, obviously, thank you to Amy, for having such a fantastic, webinar for us and hopefully it's giving you some really good insights.

And obviously, you know, and yeah, the very final thank you, of course, is details.com, for the continued, sponsorship they do of these webinars, both of the nurse programme. And also of, a wide range of other webinars they've done for us.

And if you have missed any of the other webinars, tails.com have done, once again, if you go to the webinar that website, click on sponsors, search for tails.com, and they're all listed there for you to be able to access.

So please do take time because Amy's a great speaker and Sean, Comack who we've had before, is also a fantastic speaker and he's actually won an award recently for being one of our top presenters. So definitely worth checking out. So, Thank you very much to everyone.

Wishing you all a pleasant evening and if I don't welcome on our webinar, soon, have a great Christmas and New Year. Good night.