Hello and good evening and welcome to this April edition of our practise management webinar series, and thank you very much to our sponsors, Saint Francis Group as usual, Maryauce Bergen, Eat Legal Limited, Employment law and employment Health, and of course good friends at Simply Health Professionals, and on that note, we're very fortunate this evening to have with us Steve Holman from Simply Health Professionals, covering tonight's webinar, dealing with complaints and how to position, asking for the bill, a very pertinent and no doubt useful, Excis. Now Steve is, a very experienced trainer. He's had over 10 years in the training field, a number of years at relationship manager and financial services, truly qualified for this webinar.
Anyway, Steve started training career at Barclays, moved to Simply Health. He's managed learning and development at the call centre and for the field sales staff there. Personally, I've seen Steve in action.
He's very, very good with his training, and he, and he's taken the Simply Health team to some really interesting places with the training. So in 2013, Steve became the training manager for the whole of the Simply Health professional vet team and he's spoken at corporate events conferences, London Vet show, VRA. And that's Biv Zen veterinary Marketing Group.
So we welcome Steve. Steve will probably tell us a little bit about some of these bespoke courses as well, and he may even introduce his six year old healthy bulldog Fitzroy, I'm told. So Steve, welcome, thank you very much for being with us and, dealing with complaints and how to position asking for the bill.
Thank you, Alan. Thank you so, good evening, everybody. Thank you for that introduction.
Just to let you know that we've had a couple of slight technical difficulties today, so I'm gonna be asking Alan to, flick through the presentation because, I don't have the capability. So I do apologise if you hear me say click or move on occasionally. So, we'll, we'll get cracking, and I think we're gonna have, an opportunity for you to ask questions as we go through, but I will, look to field all of the questions at the end.
We'd be looking at about 45 minutes to 40 minutes, giving us 15 to 20 minutes at the end, for questions. So Alan, we can pop on to the next slide please. So the aims of er the session this evening, I'm gonna be touching on a little bit around communication styles and how er communication can help with dealing with er complaints and .
Particularly when positioning the bill. One of the, I never really had any formal training on dealing with complaints. I was very much thrown into the deep end in the financial services arena, going to visit, unhappy clients, face to face, and, the idea of reframing a complaint and seeing it as an opportunity was something that always used to make me smile.
But for me personally, that was how I used to look to deal with a complaint. I often felt quite nervous about going to see a client if they had a complaint. And so in my head, I used to just look at it as an opportunity, which used to help me deal with, my own nervousness of being in that situation.
When it comes to asking for money, I'm gonna sort of talk a little bit around how I see the difference between, cost and value. I'm not, you know, I've never actually worked in a vet practise myself, but I am a, a pet owner. And I'm gonna sort of talk a little bit about what it's like for me as a pet owner to, really sort of come to terms with what the relationship is between how much I'm paying for my veterinary care and what it actually is worth to me.
And, also, finally, we're gonna have a little chat around, when you position the bill, it's important to actually not consider what the client may or may not do. It's actually best to just present it and then deal with their reaction. So we're gonna have a little chat around that as well.
So, perhaps we can move on to the next slide please, Anne? So, this slide is particularly, really around communication. This is a very well known, study which is often used in call centres actually.
And, it's often referred to as visual, vocal, verbal. What this slide is actually suggesting is that when we are, communicating with people, those people read us through these figures that you see, in front of you. So the suggestion is, is that when you're talking with somebody, when you're having a conversation, 55% of the, the messages that you're giving off is actually through your body language.
So, body language can mean quite a few things. It's, eye contact, it's, are you open or closed body language. I often talk about this in sessions with vet practises and many people.
Perception is that folding your arms would be considered closed body language, which is interesting because when I'm actually relaxed and engaged, my natural default position of comfort is actually to cross my arms. So it's interesting, whenever I deliver training, I always make a conscious effort to not fold my arms. So for me personally, I don't see that as a closed body language, but.
The key thing around body language is, it's always not, people say it's not what you say, it's how you say it. And, you know, if your words do not reflect your body language, then people will generally read your body language over what you're saying. So you can be saying all of the right things, but if your body doesn't reflect what it is you're saying, then that's sort of a, an, an incongruent position where people aren't really too sure, .
So it's really important to focus on the body language. The, this particular model suggests that 38% of how we communicate is actually through our pitch and our pace and our tone. So, 55% is through the body language, 38% is actually through, how we are talking.
. So again, that's often quite interesting because we often focus on the words that we use. And the words that we use are very important, but if the words that we use aren't backed up with a, a positive tone of voice and a positive body language, then those words will be lost. So, whenever we are conversing with our pet owners, whether they be complaining, whether we're positioning the bill, it's really important that our body language and our tone is reflecting the words that we're using.
So it's very. Easy, well, actually, actually it's very difficult to lie with your body language. So if you perhaps feel that, a bill is quite expensive, is you have to really make sure that you don't give that away in your body language, and that's something that we're really gonna talk about a little bit later.
This is quite a, a, a well used, model. One of the big things er about this model though is that it's, it was designed in the late 70s and it was really around face to face communication. More and more, of sort of customer facing, interactions within vet practises these days is actually over the phone or even through, email, and more and more practises are are engaging more with their clients through social media.
So, if we can move on to the question, please, Alan. So I guess my answer my question to you guys is is if 55% of our communication is visual and it's through our body language, if we are doing more and more communication over the phone, we actually lose 55% of our communication. So my question is really, what would you estimate is the percentage of vocal, and what would you estimate is the percentage of verbal when it comes to telephone communication?
OK Steve, we've got a fair few answers. I think 1 or 2 more coming in. If anyone still vote.
I'll just close the voting in a few, a few seconds. OK, I've come in, I'll share those results, Steve. Yep.
OK, yeah, so, interesting, yeah, so, 69%, are suggesting that, the vocal is 70%, that's absolutely, correct. So, 70% of your communication over the telephone, isn't necessarily the words that you're using, it's how you are using it. I guess a good example of that is, .
If you've ever, phoned a, I don't know, phoned a call centre, and, you can really tell if the person on the other phone is engaged or not. It's difficult to really put your finger on why. Is it because of they're slumped in their chair?
Is it because they're, there's lots of noise going on in the background? But it's interesting how, the, the pitch and the pace and the engagement can really come through just with the, the tone of voice. But it does mean that, .
So the vocal is very important, but the verbal takes on a lot more meaning over the telephone, so you have to be really careful with the the language, and er I often speak in the training sessions around about what we call neutral language. I think . You know, I know certainly myself, when I first started getting involved with dealing with complaints, I often found it quite difficult to say no.
So I often used to use what I call neutral language, words like I'll try, or possibly, or I'll see what we can do, maybe. And what I tended to find is when I use that language, the, the customer would take that to mean what they wanted it to mean and . So I learned very quickly to sort of really steer away from that neutral language and, and actually, and to say no, but in, in a nice way and that was always a lot more positive because the client knew exactly where they were standing.
We can move on to slide 6 please. So when it comes to this idea of sort of visual, vocal and verbal, so the model was really designed, around face to face, but technology has certainly moved on, considerably now. So over the telephone, we lose all the opportunity to observe the body language.
So the vocal tone takes on significant more importance. More and more communication, I guess, is happening, through email and text. So that means it all comes down to, the verbal.
And, you know, how many of you have, sent a text. And somebody's rung you very quickly afterwards and said, blimey, are you OK? You know, you don't seem very happy.
And yet it's just a simple text message. How many times have you misinterpreted a text message as somebody being a bit stroppy, when actually it's just quite short. One of the examples that I share is when my, my dog was attacked about 3 or 4 years ago and was bitten by, over in my local park, and, .
It was all fine. The woman paid for the, you know, said she'd pay for the, the vet bills, and, I popped her, the vet bill through her door, and sure enough, a couple of weeks later, she, she dropped a card through our door, and it was actually addressed, from her dog, Wylie, to my dog, Fitzroy. And she actually wrote it saying, you know, dear Fitzroy, I'm really sorry I bit you.
Mummy says she's gonna keep me on the lead again. And you know, I promise, you know, I, I, I won't bite you the next time I see you, particularly as it is I cost mummy 268 pounds in vet's bills. I took that and read it.
I thought what an amazing, lovely thing to do. And . You know, so I showed it er to my partner, I said, look at this, we've got this lovely note and er she went oh.
Bitch, she's having a go at us. And I was like, what do you mean? She goes, Well, she's talking about the money.
She didn't have to mention the money. That's sort of real, real passive aggressive. And I don't really know what her intention was, because I've never seen a woman since.
But the interesting thing is, is how I thought it was absolutely lovely and my partner thought it was absolutely awful. I never, I never will get to the bottom of it, but the interesting thing is, it's interesting how the written word with no vocal or no visual can be interpreted in so many different ways. And .
So that's really what I wanted to sort of, think about, you know, if we are doing more and more correspondence through social media, and, sort of tweeting and through Facebook and those sorts of things, we really need to be careful around, how we use, the verbal. And, which does really sort of lead on to, how we deal with, with complaints and positioning the bill. So I'm gonna sort of move on a little bit to.
Complaints now and sort of step away a bit from communication, one of the things, That I used to get quite nervous about was when people used to say to me, Steve, can you go and see this client, they've got a complaint. And that used to straight away in my head, I used to sort of draw all sorts of things, like how are they gonna shout at me, are they gonna be rude? And it used to make me feel quite anxious, a little bit nervous.
And I think, coming back to the visual, vocal, verbal, I think my body language probably reflected that when I went to visit them. And so, what I used to actually do was think to myself, well, actually, what's the difference between somebody complaining. And somebody just having a query.
You know, with a customer service background and a sales background, if, if somebody says, Steve, can you properly see this client, they, they've got a couple of questions, they've got a query. I'm absolutely fine with it. Straight on the phone, straight round, really comfortable, more than happy to help, ask them lots of questions, find out, find out what the issue is, and look to, resolve it.
And yet if somebody says, Steve, can you go and see this person who've got a complaint, used to make me feel quite nervous. So we can just move on, Alan. So what I used to do, I used to think to myself, well, a query, generally, is somebody wanting a little bit more information, they don't understand what they've got, they don't understand the situation they're in, and often it's a request for help.
And I thought to myself, well, actually, a complaint is actually the same thing. I'm not really much of a complainer myself, but, you know. The last time I was at, at an airport and my plane was, sort of cancelled and I didn't know how to get home, I thought, actually, what am I looking for here?
Yes, I was very upset, I'm at the desk, but what I'm looking for is help. How am I gonna get home and give me some information. So that's how I now deal with complaints.
I don't feel or think of them as complaints. I think this customer, they need some help, but I'm gonna go and help them. We can just, move on.
So, yeah, so I don't see complaints as an issue. I see them more as, you know, an opportunity to deliver sort of customer service excellence. If we look at this, quote here, from Bill Gates, you, you know, your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning, which, often used to make me laugh cos when I was stood in front of an unhappy customer and they were shouting at me, I didn't really feel like I was learning very much.
I think that came straight out of a manual. But, it is true that we, you know, generally we tend to have, sort of three different types of unhappy clients. The ones that we tend to remember, the ones that stick in our heads are the aggressive ones.
You know, they're the ones who often need to vent, perhaps like to perform. They like to make sure they've got an audience around them. But at least you know where you stand, with the aggressive ones.
The passive, they're actually quite interesting because I guess I'd probably put myself in the passive. I'm not one to, cause a scene, but if I'm unhappy, I probably wouldn't say a lot about it, but I would just walk out the door and you'd probably never see me again. I'm not one to shout about it on social media, but I think, you know, the passive, unhappy client is perhaps, the one that's most dangerous.
You don't really know that you've upset them, and yet they're quite happily, tell everybody. The best type of unhappy client, of course, is the constructive one. They're the ones who will sort of say they've got an issue, say they've got a problem.
And we'll actually present it and give you an opportunity to help. . So these perhaps are the are the three main types of unhappy customers.
And certainly, I guess we tend to remember the. Aggressive ones, we can move on, OK, so in terms of if you're thinking about, a client who is complaining or if you're concerned that you've, you've got to give some information, some news to a client, which could result in them being unhappy, you can start to sort of think about putting some positive language, in, in what you're saying, . You know, it's interesting the this idea of .
Saying something positive if somebody's unhappy. You, you know, we're very fortunate that, you know, I always used to deal with people face to face. One of the benefits of being in the veterinary industry is that between you and I, you know, you may not like me very much, but, but standing between us is something usually small, fluffy and furry.
And, so, you know, generally, I know certainly for me, if you say something nice about my pet. Then, that means that I'm gonna like you a lot more. So, we may not like each other, but if you make a compliment about my pet, then that's gonna help me feel a little bit more positive about you.
. Alter the pace. Now this is actually quite interesting. Reduce your own rate of speech.
Generally, as people, we do tend to, mirror and match each other. So if somebody's unhappy and they're sort of speaking quite loud, they tend to speak quite fast, your natural reaction is to speak louder and faster. And you back backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards until you end up shouting loudly and speaking very quickly.
So if you can, you know, reduce the pace, it may feel a little bit like you're talking really, really slowly at first. But what that, and if you can lower the tone as well. Just drop that down a little bit, then generally what you'll find is, people will, quiet their own voice to be able to hear you.
And so you get the, a more of a gradual reduction. It's something that I had to probably work on and, do something like that consciously, because my natural reaction was to speak over the top of other people, but, . Speak a little bit slower, er, reduce the volume, and what you'll find is, you know, that can actually bring the people who are complaining down a little bit.
One of the key things for me, With myself is actually thinking, am I getting a little bit upset? If somebody is complaining, it's, it's very easy to sort of take it personally. So it's important that you sort of identify what your trigger points are, you know, if you find yourself getting a little bit wound up, a little bit upset, that's when you need, need to take a bit of a time out, .
One of the things I always used to do was, say to people, right, I really want to capture everything that you're saying, it's really important I get this down. I'm just gonna go and get a pen and paper. Now there could have been a pen and paper right in front of me, but I used to just step away.
Maybe go out the back, just get 30 seconds, 60 seconds to take a deep breath, refocus, and then I'd come back with my pen and paper. And one of the things I would then do is say, right, I'm gonna write down everything that you say, so let me know what the problem is. And one of the benefits of that is that they then slow down because I'm trying to, to write down what they're saying, which can often take the steam out of those who are perhaps more aggressive complainers.
The idea of venting, . I think it depends where you are and what they're saying, but, I was often in favour of letting customers sort of blow themselves out, if that's, I don't know if that's a good use of, terminology. But, I often used to say, well, actually, nothing used to wind me up more than, than somebody speaking over the top of me or interrupting me.
Sometimes it's best to let them go. And, let, let them have their say, and it's really important that you don't react to that. Let them have their say.
Let them get it off their chest, and it's important that you don't vent. When it comes to confrontation and complaining, it's really important not to see it as a competition. I know that, if I had a, was complaining and perhaps had a little bit of an argument with somebody in a practise, and as a pet owner, I felt that I lost that argument.
I would probably feel a little bit hesitant about going back into that practise. And certainly where I live, there's about 5 vet practises in the, you know, in about a 3 mile radius from my house. So actually, do you know what, I might be just as keen just to go to a different practise altogether because I feel a little bit embarrassed about going in, shooting my mouth off and being sort of shot down.
So it's important that when you are having confrontation or dealing with a client that's unhappy, not to view it as a competition, that you are in the business of being trusted advisors. You know, you need people to return over and over again, and it's OK for them to be unhappy. But you know, ask yourselves, how many times have you been unhappy and complained, and somebody's listened, done their best to resolve it.
How did that make you feel about that business? So it's really important that you, you don't try and win, if that's, OK. So you need to aim for a win-win situation.
You may have to give a little, they may need to give, give a little. If you aim for a win-lose where you win and they lose. That isn't gonna necessarily get them back into the practise for you.
So, we can move on to the next slide, so, . So calming down, complaining clients, you know, generally, in my experience, . And, you know, whenever I've been unhappy, I'm looking for help.
Even if you can't solve the issue, can't solve the problem, what I'm looking for is for somebody to say, do you know what, I'm listening, I'm gonna see what I can do. I'm gonna try and help you out. And that to me is really important.
Even if they can't solve the entire problem, if I believe you're making genuine effort on my behalf, then I'm gonna be far less hostile towards you. Not always possible, but choices. You know, if you can offer choices, to somebody who's unhappy, that can be absolutely fantastic fantastic, you know, I appreciate this is the situation, this is what we need to do.
However, you know, we can go down this route, we can go down that route. And if you can give people choices, if, if the practise that you work in allows you to do that, that can be fantastic. One practise I was in, and I was running this particular session, the practise manager told me that, a client was really rude to them.
They had an ongoing, complaint, an ongoing issue, and no matter what they did, the client wasn't happy. And then eventually, in the last port of call, the practise manager said, look, what is it that you want? And the client said, you know what, I just want you to acknowledge that you've made a mistake and apologise.
They didn't, they didn't care about refunds, they didn't care about money off discounts, gestures of goodwill. All they wanted was, do you know what, just acknowledge you've made a mistake. And it's interesting, you know, that they, that, that I've heard that, because I have seen that before.
Sometimes all we want is for you to just acknowledge that, that we're unhappy. You know, something I'll come on to a bit later, you know, us pet owners, you know, our, when our pets are ill or sick, we become very different types of people. We're not the normal person that you might see in the street.
Sometimes all we want is for you to, is for us to feel that you understand. And that show that empathy. And for me, that's, that's a great way of, calming down some of your clients.
We can move on to the next slide. So this is a, a model, it's called the OK Corral. And I think this one is actually can be used for first line management as well as, dealing with complaints.
But in the top left, I am not OK, you are OK. The one down position. What this is saying is, this is where you're dealing with the client, they're unhappy, and either you decide to say, do you know what?
I'm gonna cave in, have that money off, or maybe you go to somebody else in, in, in the practise, and they say, do you know what, let's keep them quiet, let's give them what they want. So that means that you're not OK, but the client is OK, and that's a one down position for you. And that can set a precedent, because there's a real likelihood that that client will, when they come in again, will think, well, actually, if I shout, and if I kick off, eventually, I'm gonna get what I want.
So that's not a good position to be in. The next position, I am OK, you are not OK. That's where, you know, you, as somebody who works in the practise may win the argument.
You know, you may turn around and say, no, everything you said is wrong, it's factually incorrect. We sent you this letter it was sent on this day. You know, you feel great, you've won, mini fist, fist pump moment for you.
But the client's very unhappy, and that's the get rid of. The angry position. So this is where the client may think, you know what, I've been embarrassed there, so I may not come back.
So what you're looking for is the top right, I'm OK, you're OK. And what you're looking for there is, OK, you may have to have a concession, they may have to have a concession. You reach a point where both clients, where you and the client are in agreement, and then what you'll have is that client will return.
That's the position where you need to be in. So, you know, it's a, I know it's a very simple model, but it's one that, certainly does work very well. We can go on to the next slide then, please.
So, I just want to talk a little bit now around this idea of, sort of finances and cost. People often say to me, you know, vet bills are expensive. Well, what does expensive mean?
The picture on the left is, my dog, 5.5 years ago, just been diagnosed with steroid responsive meningitis. He was at a small animal hospital in Bristol.
The bill for that particular treatment came to 5200 pounds. Couple of months later, he got an abscess that needed to be flushed out. He went back to Langford in Bristol.
He was in for another 6 or 7 days. That bill came to 4000 pounds something. So, you know, 5 years ago, best part of 9000 pounds, I was insured, but I had to pay a lot of it out of my own pocket.
You know, some might say, wow, that's a phenomenal vet bill, that's a huge amount of money. But you look at the pictures on the right hand, the middle and the right hand side, those pictures were taken about a month ago. So he's now 6 1/2.
And you know, once I've finished this webinar, I'm gonna go downstairs, have a cup of tea, and that dog's gonna jump up on my lap, nusle into my neck, and I'm gonna have a big cuddle with him. And do you know what, every, all the stresses and strains of this week and Easter and driving around will just completely melt away. And you know, that, that 9000 pounds that I spent 5 years ago.
Has resulted in me getting an extra 5 years out of my dog. And as far as I'm concerned, if someone said to me 5 years ago, Give me 9000 pounds, and we will guarantee you another 5.5 years with your dog, I would have snapped their hands off.
So I guess it just goes to show sometimes that you really need to appreciate that, yes, 9000 pounds is a huge cost, but the value, well, actually, for me, that's absolutely priceless. Absolutely priceless that I've had the best six years. With my dog following that illness, off the back of that 9000 pounds.
And I guess sometimes as a pet owner. If somebody in a practise can help me join the docks there and say, yes, this is a lot of money, but what you will get as a result of it is, you know, this morning I woke up and I, at 6 o'clock in the morning and I took the dog down the beach, and I'm sat there on the beach in the pouring rain at 6:30 watching him splashing around in the sea, and I'm thinking, do you know what, that's worth every penny. And to me, that's where the value comes in against the cost.
And we can move on to the next slide. So cost versus value, you know, what is the difference, you know, what is the difference between cost and value? It's quite difficult, I think.
So I've had a, a stab. You know, for me, cost is price, it's set. You know, this is based on the production of the goods and the processes, that you have to, sell and promote to your pet owners, .
You know, you, you buy the products in, you put a markup, you sell them on, that's where the cost comes in, and the cost is based on the cost of running the practise, the staff, etc. I know that most people sometimes get a little bit uncomfortable about this when I've been in practises, but, and a lot of people I speak to in practise, they get into your industry because of the love of animals. You know, they're passionate about animal welfare, they want to do what's right.
However, one thing you should not forget is that, you know, we are in a business and you are in a business, and if you don't make a profit, if you don't bring in enough money. Then, you know, that business will fail. And actually, what will your active client base do then, if you as a practise are no longer there.
So it is important that you do appreciate that you have to make money, you know, we're all in business to make money ultimately, I appreciate that may not be the reason why you're in the business or you join the business, but if we don't make money, the businesses will close, and then what will your pet owners do. So I think it's really important to understand that actually, You know, it's it, that there is a cost, you know, is it expensive? Well, possibly not.
Let's move on to the, the next slide. So, yeah, for me. You know, cost is set, you can't control that.
Market forces drive the cost. You know, you may put your prices up every now and again because of market forces, inflation, bills have gone up, etc. .
Can you, as people who work in practises help me as a pet owner to really appreciate where the value is in the cost. You know, I've already sort of given the example of my own pet. I'm gonna use one outside of the vet industry there around my cleaner.
I've got a dog walker. And, she comes round to walk the dog while I'm away. I'm away from home 2 or 3 nights a week, usually.
And, I used to get home on a Friday night and I used to spend my Saturday mornings cleaning the house, you know, hoovering, cleaning the bathrooms, mopping the floors. And, and then I used to jump in the car and, drive to the supermarket, do me a big shop. And before I know it, it's about 1 o'clock Saturday afternoon.
And half the weekend's gone. And my dog walker was like, Well, actually, for 20 quid, I'll clean the house for you, Steve. You know, I'll mop the floors, I'll clean the bathroom, I'll do the dusting, and I'll whip round with the hoover.
And I thought, blimey, 20 quid. And then she suggested about using online internet shopping. So, I joined Sainsbury's, it cost me £70 a year.
And, now I get home on a Friday night, Saturday morning, my shopping gets delivered between 8 and 9. I've got a spotlessly clean house. The shopping's all put away, and at 9 o'clock Saturday morning, I'm sat there and I've got the whole weekend with no chores.
I don't think anybody would ever sort of sit there and think, well, I, I wish I spent more and more of my time cleaning the house and doing the shopping. You know, my weekends in our field we're going to the beach. I'm middle aged, I'm going through my middle age crisis.
I'm trying to learn to surf. So my weekends involve falling off the surfboard in the Whitterings. And, I get to do that because I've got this cleaner that cost me £20.
So again, the cost of that cleaner is 20 pounds, but the value and the worth of that is very significant. So can you help people appreciate, yes, you know, as a pet owner, I believe that vet costs are high. But what's the value, what's the worth?
Can you really explain that to people? And that may help when you're positioning the bill. We can move on next slide, please.
So managing expectations for me is so vital. When I worked in sales, that was the buzzword, manage expectations, manage expectations. As a pet owner, you know, until I started working in the in the industry, and actually I have to say, even now I'm in the industry, I have absolutely no idea how much veterinary care really costs.
I really don't. I've absolutely no idea. You know, I'm a child of the NHS.
I've never paid anything for human health. I have no. You know, understanding of what veterinary bills cost, how they're made up.
So it's really important that you manage my expectations. I mentioned about my dog having, getting meningitis, he was in the hospital for 10 days. So me being me, you know, that particular bill was £5200.
So my assumption was that that, that, it costs £500 a day. For veterinary care. So, of course, when I, I booked him in for his neutering, I didn't ask the price.
They just said, drop him off at, you know, 8:30 in the morning, and, we'll give you a ring about lunchtime to let you know how it's gone. And, then, you can come and pick him up about 34 o'clock, assuming everything's going well. So my partner said to me, how much does it cost in neutering, and I said, Well, I don't know, I didn't ask, but, well, we know that it's 500 pounds a day.
That's what they charge in vet practises. There's gonna be a vet, there's gonna be a nurse, there's gonna be some food, so, oh, I don't know, it's probably gonna cost about 700 pounds. Probably quite a lot of you wish that I was, registered at your practise now, no doubt, but .
So when they actually phoned me to say, yeah, it's all been done, I said oh by the way, I forgot to ask, how much is it? And the girl on the end of the phone paused, and I was like, oh God, it's gonna be 1000 pounds. I don't actually know what the amount was, because once you said 100 and something, I nearly fell off my chair.
So I guess that's a good example. It's unusual, I guess, for people to expect to pay more. But actually, how many of your clients would expect that a new trim was, is 30, 40 pounds?
Because we have absolutely no idea. So, you know, you only get a short time with us in your practise, it's really important that you can explain and educate to me at every opportunity. You know, when I, when my dog had the meningitis, they really took the time to explain what was happening, why it was happening, and the costs involved.
So I knew at every stage. How much was was being paid, right, Mr. Holman, it's 2000 pounds now, we're gonna do this, it's gonna cost 1.
Are you happy for us to proceed? Yes, do it, . So I, when they told me the final bill was £5200 it didn't come as a shock.
So it's really important you can manage expectations. And I've put a little question mark at the, at the bottom there around the difference between an estimate and a quote. I think we all know the difference between an estimate and a quote.
You know, an estimate is, you know, it's not set. This is what we think the price is likely to be. It's gonna be around this figure, whereas a quote is, this is how much it's gonna cost.
One thing that I would say as a pet owner is. If you give me a figure, that's the figure I expect. I don't necessarily hear estimate and quote.
If you say to me it's gonna cost roughly 600 pounds, then that's my assumption. You may say estimate. But I will hear 600 pounds.
If I then turn up and you charge me £720 I'm gonna be very unhappy. So, just be really careful, do absolutely everything that you can, you know, put it in writing, send it an email, explain that this is not the final price. We don't know what the final price will be until we, you know, carry out the procedure, but we estimate that it will be, you know, if you can maybe give some guidelines, it will be somewhere between 100 pounds and 300 pounds.
You know, is it possible to do that? It's all about managing my expectations, because if I hear a figure, that's what I expect to pay regardless of whether you're saying, whether it's an estimate or a quote. Can we move on to the next slide.
So, delivery of the bill, I often ask people how they hand the bill over and, you know, what do they say to people when they're delivering the bill, and . 3 or 4 people have actually said, well, it depends if it's expensive or not. And I think it's quite an interesting concept because, you know, what is expensive.
You know, a good example is, you know, you know, for me, I thought a neutering was gonna cost £700. You know, whereas this girl on the end of the phone, she was a bit nervous about telling me it was 190 odd pounds. Different people have different perception of what expensive is.
So, what I would say is that you don't really know what situation that client is in. They didn't know that my previous vet bill experience was the best part of 9000 pounds. So, you know, my vet practise can tell me anything, as long as it's it's less than 9000 pounds, I think I'm quid in.
So it's really important that, you know, you don't deliver the message any differently, you know, on what you think is expensive. You know, it's really important, just tell me what the price is. Because if you do feel that it's expensive, I said earlier about the visual, vocal and verbal, it's really difficult to lie with your body language.
And if you're telling me this price, and I can see that when you deliver that price to me that you're nervous, I will think blimey, you think that's expensive. Are you ripping me off here, this is a lot of money. So, you know, be really careful, you know, don't think about what people.
Might say, don't think I'm gonna hand them this, this bill, and they're gonna be really upset, they're gonna shout at me, they're gonna moan. You know, don't worry about what they might say. You know, what you need to do is just deliver the bill.
Tell me what the cost is, you know, no emotion, here you go, here's the amount of money, and then pause, and then you deal with the response, whatever that response is. And you know, yes, it's OK to have fun and, and have a laugh. You know, but is it appropriate to be saying to people, I hope you're sitting down, here's the bill?
I mean, if you know them, that's fine. I don't know. Another thing to stress as well is, is our perception of wealth, and wealth and value don't necessarily correlate.
You know, I wouldn't put myself in the wealthy category, but I would happily spend whatever it costs on my dog, because I can see the value. There may be some very, very wealthy people who would bulk at the idea of spending 20 pounds on their pet. So, you know, it's, it's what that pet means to that individual, and that is where the indication of value comes from.
So, you know, if I walk in in my, you know, in, in very expensive designer gear and a flash car, that doesn't mean to say that I've got, that I see my vet bill as expensive or not. So. You know, don't prejudge people, just give me the bill, neutral language and deal with the response.
Don't think about what they may or may not say. We can move on to the next slide. This one's quite an interesting one for me, coming from outside of the industry, particularly working in finance, where, people are quite happily tell you how much you're paying, and it's all about money, money, money.
It's interesting how many times sort of people almost seem a little bit apologetic sometimes about the price or the cost of veterinary care. And it's. I don't think it's, it's wearing wearing me up, but I do find it a little bit disconcerting that people seem apologetic.
What I would say is, you know, from my perspective, you know, I love my dog more than anything. It's, you know, it cost me £9000 but he's been saved, and I've had an amazing life with him. You know, so people shouldn't apologise for charging me that amount of money, you know, never apologise for it, you know.
You, you study, you spend years of training to deliver the best. You know, and therefore you have to, you have to charge for that service. You know, it's, you, you know, somebody once said to me when I worked in finance, you know, that I needed to charge a fee to my clients for, for processing their finance.
And I said, well, what sort of fee should I charge? And they said, charge them what you think you're worth. And, you know, the amount of, and so I used to charge people based on how much work I was gonna put into it.
This is a big deal, it's gonna take me a long time. I'm gonna charge you a lot more. Small deal.
I can get it done very quickly, I won't charge you as much. And, you know, have a real professional pride in what it is that you're doing, you know, vet practises, you know, gold standard products, best in class protocols. I can't get the things that you provide anywhere else.
I have to go to you, and if I'm gonna have the best. Then you should charge for the best. And, you know, if I want the cheapest, I'll go for the cheapest.
You know, I can go and get off the shelf products over the counter if I want, but if I want the best from a trusted supplier who's gonna educate me on how to use these products, who's gonna give me all of the education that I need to look after my pet, then I'm more than willing to pay for that. So don't be at all. You know, embarrassed around, oh, this is a lot of money, this is expensive.
You know, it is what it is because of what you do, you know, it, and so really do start, you know, and promote that when you're handing over your bill. And if we can move on to the next slide, please. So dos and do nots, I spoke to a few people around, some do's and do nots, and these are the sorts of things we came up with.
Of course, smile when you're handing over the bill, be positive. You know, sound very positive, and here's your bill. This is a, estimates, well, you know, manage your expectations, I think that's where we're coming from there, make sure you manage your expectations.
When you give me the bill, it shouldn't be a surprise, it really shouldn't. One of the things that I found invaluable was that somebody explained to me a real layperson of all of the work that had gone into that huge vet bill. They actually had about 3 or 4 pages, took me through everything, all the tests, the labs.
Everybody involved. You know, if you can explain it to me, that's great. It doesn't mean that I'm gonna be happy about the huge bill, but at least I can appreciate what's gone into it.
You know, where possible, explain the positive outcomes of the treatment. You know, as a result of what we've done, Steve, you can take your dog down the beach. So in the sun, when the sun comes up on a sunny morning, on the weekend, you can go down the beach on a Saturday morning.
That's what this means to you. Give eye contact when giving news. You know, if you look at the floor, if you're looking at the desk, if you're avoiding eye contact, as far as I'm concerned, that seems to me that you might be, thinking this is quite expensive.
So don't apologise. You know, don't necessarily fall into justifying the bill, you know, just explain what it is and explain what was done. We've mentioned about the prejudge, don't mumble.
Sorry, I, sorry, you can move on to the next, next bit. Don't mumble. You know, if you, if you whisper the bill, it doesn't make it any smaller.
The bill is the bill. If you say it loudly, if you say it quietly, it's still the same amount. If you write it down and put it on a piece of paper and push it over the counter, it's still gonna be the same amount.
So, you know, just, just say what it is. You know, don't gasp or act surprise when you see the bill. And like you say, goodness me, that's a lot of cash.
It isn't really an encouraging statement when somebody's handing you the bill. And certainly don't do this sucking the air through the teeth when you look at it. So that's some simple do's and do nots.
I'm just gonna sort of finish up, on the, the next slide. This is, some sort of high level. Sort of methods, I won't go through them all.
We've covered a few of them, . But one, you know, sort of 3rd 1 down, attack the problem, not the person, start with a compliment. You know, if somebody's complaining to you and they're not very happy, .
You know, you've chosen an industry where you're customer facing, you know, when my dog was ill, you know, my behaviours in the vet practise were very different to how they are when I pop in for a, a chat and to pick up some fleeing worm and to have his booster. So, you know, it's not about having a go at me. Deal with the issue that that that's causing me some problems, and that can really help, .
And so yeah that's, that's the the main bits I wanted to go through. I'm conscious of the time, so it's just moving on, so I'll I'll, I'll wrap it up there. So over to you for any questions that may have come out.
Steve, thanks very much. That was really good coverage of really quite a a sensitive subject for a lot of people, and I don't think any of us as vets or nurses or receptionists are immune to that problem, and it's nice that you sort of covered a bit of the psychology behind it as well. It's not a competition, but our, Holding the sheepdog Dudley, well, he had Por cable shunt as a puppy, so he was 120 before he was 6 months old.
So I think a few of us have had those problems. And like I said, it was out of my hands in those days, and, more than happy to pay the money for a much loved pet. Now we've had a couple of.
Comments come through, Howard's actually made a couple of things, maybe you want to just comment on these, just encourage anyone else listening, can you just go to the question box if you hover your mouse over the bottom, the Q and A box will come up, just pop them in there and Steve will be more than happy to cover these. So first one is but here's, here's sort of on the, the, probably that last slide you were talking about, what happens if you've kindly reminded a client re outstanding balances and payment and they ignore you, avoid your calls, etc. What point do you go down the legal route?
Mhm. Well, that's a, a, a good question. I think it's for me it would be, I, I would take a very professional approach at that point and you know.
For me, it's, you know, face to face where possible, calling, email, if you've exhausted all of the, possibilities of, of getting in front of them, then, then I think I'll, I'll have a, a, a process of, you know, we, we will contact you 3 times, and if on that 3rd time we can't get through, we'll then go down. That process, it's difficult, I guess it depends how well you know people, depends each practise will probably have their own processes and methods. But for me, when I was sort of chasing money, if you like, or dealing with complaints, it was a, it was a face to face.
I'd follow it up with a, with a call, still no response, it would be, sending something electronically and, you know, and then it would be, right, let's let's go down a, a more. A a different route, so to speak, so that's how I would do it. OK, thanks for that, just from my experience, I think the important thing about that is have a very clear process of how you would deal with that sort of thing.
One of the, one of the things that we've learnt from debt collectors is that most veterinary practises send their bad debt, and I do mean bad debt, not just like that. To the to the legal routes too late, and the debt collectors would complain that if it's over 120 days, they're probably the chances of collecting it are probably 0. So I would have a fairly robust invoicing process.
Cash at the time would be a good start, followed by, an invoice as they leave and certainly a reminder weekly at least. And then if we by 28, 36 days you've not had a response, I would certainly suggest you you sort of move things on very quickly. But the important thing is be very clear with your clients what the process is, be very clear with your staff what the process is and follow it.
It's probably the key thing, . Another comment here, and I, I think you nicely covered this when you spoke between wealth and value, the value aspect, can work for clients who have sufficient income and, pet pet insurance, but for those who don't have that much disposable income, they'll find it harder to justify what is a gigantic chunk of their annual income despite loving their pets very much, which is a fairly valid comment. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know, totally agree, and I think that's where, you know, where possible, and again it's not always possible, is, is, is this, this idea of choice, options, choice, you know, what, what can we do, you know, is there anything that we can put in place, but I think also, again, it does come back to the managing expectations piece as well, .
You know, this, this is the sort of cost that these things are are going to be. Is it possible, to give me different prices for different levels of care, for example, so that at least I can, you know, I've, I've got that available to me, again. Probably one more more for the the guys on the clinical side, but certainly that's how I would.
Would view it and so that was something that was discussed in my situation actually so you know we've got this route we can go down that route, but actually as you've got insurance, you know, why don't we go and do everything possible, so, wherever possible choice I think is really important and . And that and that's, and I think also because you don't want to upset people around their sort of financial. Situation as well and make any assumptions, so.
Yeah, that's what I would do with that one. OK, thanks for that. I, I think it, it goes quite the nub of the whole thing, and I think here's the, the classic situation of us pre-judging our clients around what they earn and what they own, and making prejudgments on that.
So that's one side of it, but of course there are people who just don't have that amount of money available. So I think a couple of things come out of that for us, number one, If you're making the best recommendations, it costs what it costs, and you can't do anything about that. As long as the practise has been fair and reasonable in their pricing structure, and it's consistent, it costs what it costs, and that's what you have to present to the client.
Now, if they can't afford that, that must mean you have to, review the treatment options to lessen the options. What we often do is do the same treatment, but just drop the cost, and because that serves nobody. The other thing of course is obviously simply health, they provide preventative healthcare schemes, and that can help lower the cost and spread the cost.
So that's one way of helping people on, on that side of it. Insurance is the other for clinical work, but of course there's also now things like carefree Credit and other such things, BAMA and others who provide loan facilities for legitimate people, and I think it's Important for practises to make sure they do provide a range of payment options. But the key thing that we, we talked to vets about is there's 2, well, there's 4 problems in the consultant.
2 of them are, one is there's a clinical problem, and that's the vet's issue. The vet has the obligation to solve the clinical problem. That clinical problem then incurs a cost problem, and that is entirely the clients.
But I just see vets constantly saying, well, give me that problem as well, and I'll help fix that as well. And I think that's where the line needs to be drawn. The vet sorts out the, the, the, the clinical and compliance and the compassion problem, but the cost is 100% the client's problem.
Not being blunt about it, but that's probably a view on that. So yes, thank you, another comment here . Someone's just said, can someone get a copy of these slides, but they will be, this presentation will be available on the webinar that site if people want to see it again, if they're going to the practise management section, it will be available there, but maybe that leads us on, Steve, if people want any more information perhaps, or any other, ideas, is there anything you can offer?
Well, yeah, if everybody's is sort of interested and wants to know a little bit more, they can go to our website, which will, . And that that will actually allow them to just, just losing the volume there a bit. Oh sorry, yeah, no, no, they, they can go to our, our website and I've got a a page there where they can view all of the training courses and the that that I can do and it's also got, an inbox where they can just drop a query or a question and I will then contact them and have a chat with them around their specific requirements.
So that would be the website is pethealth plans.co.uk.
And from there they'll be able to select the training page and there's a whole list of courses and they'll be able to contact me directly through that and my telephone number's there as well and there's also an inbox for our team, so, that, you know, people want to know a little bit more and are interested, I'm more than happy to to field any questions and I'll, I'll give them a call. Excellent. OK, just waiting to see if any more questions come through.
I, I'd like that section when you sort of made the difference between cost and value, little saying we've got is cost is what you pay, but value is what you get, and which is exactly what I say about, Fitzroy there, Terrier, . Yeah, just to be, just my, my story, this is really intriguing stuff for me, because I think this whole thing of paying the bills, getting people to pay, and then facing clients who are a bit resistant, it goes to the whole nub of the veterinary profession and some of its problems and sort of psychology around how we are such compassionate individuals, and this money problem just seems to get into the way of us having the things we need, and you must come across this all the time in your training. Yeah.
My, my son has an Airbnb house. He's a builder, so he's, he's renovated a little chapel. He's waiting to sell it, but he's got an Airbnb and last night, he had some clients go in there, and they went in, and unfortunately, the cleaner hadn't been in, so it was still in the state the previous people had left it.
So you can imagine the sort of, response that he got to that. Now, we just happen to live closer to that house than he does, and this is 10 o'clock last night. So I had to bundle up some sheets and pillows and, all sorts of bits and cutlery, etc.
And jump in the car and trundle over. And because I had to face this client. And You know, and sort of as you get is this guy just an idiot, is he complaining for no reason?
Has he got a legitimate problem? And everything you mentioned at the beginning there. Was true, this was, is this an opportunity, what, it got worse in that this guy and his wife had just got married the day before.
And they, and his, her parents were over from overseas, and they, he, they were taking them round England to show them bits of England, they'd never been doing. And this is where they ended up. So it was just a complete disaster, in terms of that sort of PR.
Now my son has to deal with that, but I was at the front line. The bit you said about the pace and the tone and peppering the conversation with positive language, I just realised as you were saying that, that, that worked remarkably, I didn't do it consciously, but it, it was happening, and I'm sure we can resolve to fix this and you know I have my son's complete commitment, we'll do this, I can appreciate everything you're saying here. And the other interesting thing, it was getting a little bit, he was getting a little bit irate.
And I said, Tell you what, take me around and show me all the things you're concerned about, and I'll photograph them and send them to him. So he said, 00, OK. And so the pair of them got quite chatty then as they walked me around the house and told me about their wedding and everything else.
And we I'm not sure we parted the best of friends, but we certainly resolved the situation a lot better. So I think that pace, the tone, the positive language, positive intention, I suppose is what you want to call it, is really, and, and the acknowledgement piece as well. So I think that that's, that was a, a brilliant sort of, safety net of how to deal with those things, and it is, is sort of just, as you say, finding the opportunity in every one of these to, to do something better for people.
So on that note, Steve, so thank you very much, that was a really good coverage. I enjoyed that a lot. We've got a few, no more comments come through, but if people are interested, could you just give us that website address again?
Absolutely. So it's www.pethealth plans.co.uk and they can click on the training tab, and that will take them to my page and you'll be able to see me and the team and they'll be able to request any information or future queries.
Brilliant. OK, thank you very much. So thank you, particularly to Simply Health Professions for sponsoring this, along with 8 Legal and Saint Francis buying Group as well.
This, we will be back again in a month, with the next of our series. I hopefully maybe see some of you at BSAVA at the end of the week. Those that are not, hopefully see you in a month.
Steve, once again, thank you very much. No problem, thank you very much, everybody, thank you.
