Episode #41 - Client Expectations

On this episode of the podcast Julie discusses the problems that we face when client expectations do not align with the reality of a busy veterinary hospital.  We want to give excellent service to our clients, but all too often they have an unrealistic view of our capacity to please them during the course of a typical veterinary day.  Our ability to have some balance between life and work depends on our capacity to serve clients without sacrificing ourselves.  Julie gives some examples of clients that she has dealt with and how to set some boundaries to protect yourself when clients over expect. 

Check out this episode!

How Much is Reasonable?

Yesterday I received a client’s email that was as interesting as it was disturbing.

I became a life coach for veterinarians because the people in our profession are stressed out, overworked and underpaid.  They have many daily stresses that “normal” people, like our clients, do not understand.  They are peed on, pooped on, bitten, scratched, and disrespected by pets and people alike.  They are yelled at by clients that wait 30 minutes to be seen, because the person in front of them waited a week to bring in their pet that now is in an emergent situation.   Veterinarians are yelled at by people that want them to schedule a last-minute appointment 10 minutes before closing so they do not have to go to an emergency clinic on a Friday evening.  If the receptionists try to send them to an emergency clinic (the equivalent of urgent care for people) they get angry and demand to be seen.  Veterinarians stay after hours most evenings to return phone calls to clients who often either don’t answer the phone, or yell at them because they didn’t call earlier.  They have friends and family call or text on their days off asking for free advice, when the veterinarian should be spending time with their families.  Veterinaries drive into the clinic to check on pets late at night or on the weekends if clients refuse to take their pets to a more appropriate 24-hour center because you want to save them money.

Back to the interesting email.  It said, “I am extremely disappointed in your charges for service.  We are seniors living on a fixed income.”  The client then listed the three charges that he incurred for his very ill parrot when the couple visited the hospital three times in the last four months.  He listed each visit, and the charges that he paid, then listed the total.  The last line of the email said, “Please look into this and adjust payment to a reasonable amount.”

So, this begs the question, “What is a reasonable amount?” 

What should you pay for a veterinarian’s services who studied eight years in college and spent $40,000 - $50,000 per year to learn everything they need to know to treat your pet? What do veterinarians deserve to be paid in order to eat, live and have the money to pay back their $100,000s of student loan debt?  When that veterinarian attends continuing education each year, often paying for it out of pocket -- to get special training in exotic medicine, what should they charge? How much to learn to interpret the blood tests and treat the disease that they see in your parrot? 

What should the veterinary hospital charge to purchase the supplies that are used to draw and process the blood?  What should they charge for the $30,000 blood machines and $60,000 radiograph machines, that are in hospital so you can get quick results?  What about the building rent, the $500/month electric bills, and the heat and air conditioning that you enjoy when you are in our office? 

What should we charge to pay the 28 employees?  To provide their medical insurance, payroll taxes, vacation pay, sick leave, uniforms and medical training?  How much is reasonable to charge to pay the people that answer your calls, return your emails, pay bills, schedule appointments, clean the office, mow the lawn, scoop the dog poop that your pets leave in our garden?  How much is reasonable to pay the people that clean the bathrooms that are provided for you to use when you are in our office? 

How much is reasonable?

I will answer this email in a kind professional manner because I know that this person does not understand anything about veterinary medicine.  I will however ask him what he thinks is reasonable and will be very interested in his answer.

Veterinarians and the people that work for us are underpaid and overworked.   

What is a reasonable amount?  A lot more than we actually charge. 

Perhaps tomorrow, I should raise prices.

Dr. Julie Cappel

Episode #40 - The Power of Developing Focus

On this episode of the Podcast Julie talks about the power that comes from focusing your attention on a specific task.  Distraction and multi-tasking are the greatest time thieves, and learning to focus will allow you to create more in your life than you ever thought possible.  Creating a gadget free zone or a thinking chair to allow uninterrupted practice are a good first step. Then planning, scheduling and working to understand yourself better, will allow you to create better focus on your goals and achieve the massive results that you want. 

Check out this episode!

Client expectations: Are we losing our patience?

In a service business like ours there are many opportunities for failure of expectations and client disappointment.  When people call into a veterinary hospital and they are unaware of the inner workings and complexity of the profession, they may think that having a doctor call them back is as simple as us sitting at our desk just waiting to return phone calls. In reality there are days when I never even see my desk or sit in any chair. 

Expectation is defined as, “a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future” and “a belief that someone will or should achieve something.”

I think the second definition is what gets veterinarians into trouble.  Client’s belief that something should happen the way they think it should happen.

Veterinary receptionists spend their day answering calls from concerned pet parents while they try to decipher the emergent from the ordinary.  They ask questions designed to read the minds of the clients on the other end of the phone, and without seeing the pet, decide how soon they need to squeeze them into an already packed schedule.  The doctors, working 10-12 hour days, are required to see patients that are ill, provide vaccinations, perform surgery, interpret radiographs, record everything -in detail - into computer charts, approve and write prescriptions, prescribe and dispense drugs, perform blood and urine tests, and then analyze and report those tests results to the clients.  These working doctors also have families and homes that they need to attend to.  At our hospital, we currently have two nursing mothers, who have to pump and store breast milk several times a day while keeping up with everything else.

Veterinarians and their technicians do what in human medicine would be done by a small army of people, and we do it all while the client waits.  When was the last time your human doctor called you back the same day, or reported your blood test results the next day?  

Our clients are most often very appreciative of our caring kindness, but sometimes there is a disconnect between what the client expects will happen, and what actually happens.  Then they may become angry either posting an ugly online review or hit us up with a frustrated phone call.  We hate that!  We are really trying to do our very best to make everyone happy, and an angry client is not our goal.

So, what can we do to help meet our client’s expectations?

We must improve our communication about the workings of the hospital and set boundaries.  Clients may get angry when we don’t do everything exactly the way they want us to, but if we communicate our boundaries, we let them know going in, what we can handle.  Clients don’t know that we have 8 other people to call, have a big surgery waiting, or have to run and pick up our kids from school in 20 minutes.  It is our job to communicate by saying, “Ms. Richards, I have only 5 minutes tonight to give you your pet’s results, but if we need longer than 5 minutes, I would be happy to call you again tomorrow so we can discuss further.”  Clients are thrilled to hear from us and love to spend time talking about their pet, so it is up to us to communicate our boundaries, and then have the mental strength to enforce them.  If clients get angry, we can calmly tell them that we are sorry that we have not met their expectations, however we are doing our very best for their pet.   Being honest with clients is the key to protecting yourself.  We need to take a lesson from our human doctor colleagues and train our clients to respect our free time so they understand what expectations should be.

It starts with honest communication by every member of the veterinary team to set the proper expectations.  Clients expect us to provide quality care for their pets while being kind and honest.  When they have unreasonable expectations about how we should schedule our time, it is up to use to set our boundaries and then let them decide whether they want to continue to work with us or move on to another caregiver.

“Assumptions are the termites of relationships.”―Henry Winkler

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”―Bill Gates

Dr. Julie Cappel

Join me on The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast!  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-veterinary-life-coach-podcast-with-dr-julie-cappel/id1451549730

Episode #39 - You are Uniquely Worthy

On this episode of the podcast Julie coaches on self-worth and the concept of being, and feeling worthy.  Feelings of self-doubt often develop into low self esteem and will snowball into stress, inaction and depression. All of us are uniquely worthy, talented human beings. If we work to learn about ourselves we can develop thoughts that are empowering and create a unique sense of self.   Realizing that all humans are uniquely worthy is the key to understanding your self-worth and creating better self-esteem. 

Check out this episode!

Dolphins are So Smart! - What they teach us.

This week I swam with dolphins!  Not just a few dolphins, but hundreds.  The experience literally brought tears to my eyes as I watched the wild Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins swim around, under, and past me, smiling at me in their cute dolphin way.  They squeaked and squealed, as they communicated with each other and because my face was in the water, I got to hear their song.  The sound’s only competition was the sound of my breath frantically going in and out of the snorkel that I had clenched between my teeth.  It is hard to say, “wow” and “unbelievable” with a snorkel in your mouth – but I did.   I was overcome with the beauty and the uniqueness of the experience.  Tears - for real. 

 

Myself and my husband Scott, along with six other passengers were on the ocean tour off the west coast of Hawaii’s Big Island.  The captain of the boat tour, Taylor, and our guide, Victor, are twenty somethings with a wild adventurous side and a love for the ocean.  They dropped us into the water three different times into large groups of dolphins.  We were lucky to see so many and we even got to see them jump and spin above the water. Two of the men in the group had Go-Pro cameras, so I hope to get some of the video from them.  At one point a helicopter circled overhead warning us of a large shark nearby, so we were asked to quickly swim to the boat. I did!

What life lessons did I take away from the dolphins?  (You know I love life lessons…)

Live in the moment!  Dolphins just live.  They take each moment and experience as it comes.  They do not stress and worry about time.  They don’t regret, blame or berate themselves.  They just live.  We spend so much of our time regretting what happened yesterday and worrying about what will happen tomorrow, that we miss what is happening right now.   What do we need to experience and learn in this moment?  We need to live more like dolphins.

Dolphins rely on each other.  When dolphins sleep, they only sleep with half of their brain at a time.  They have to stay half awake at all times in order to breath and monitor their surroundings, so they team up with a friend to allow the right half of their brain to sleep while their friend allows the left half of their brain to sleep.  Each relying and trusting each other for survival. We need to rely on each other and trust, like dolphins.

We spend much of our time with our faces glued to our cell phones, feeling bad about ourselves because we compare our lives to others. We don’t appreciate each moment that we are given, and we forget to enjoy life and just play.  We avoid sharing our struggles with others and don’t lean on our family and friends.   Take your lesson from the beautiful dolphins.

Live and appreciate each moment. Take care of yourself and your friends.  Remember to play.

 “You will love the ocean. It makes you feel small, but not in a bad way. Small because you realize you’re part of something bigger.” - Lauren Miracle

“There's no question dolphins are smarter than humans as they play more.” - Albert Einstein

Dr. Julie Cappel

Some Dolphin Facts: https://hawaiioceanproject.com/10-facts-about-spinner-dolphins/

Hawaiian spinners are primarily three colors. The skin on the dorsal area is a deep gray, while its sides are a lighter shade of gray. The bottom portion of the dolphin is white. The dorsal fin area has small white spots.  Because dolphins need to consciously think about breathing, when they sleep only half of their brain rests at a time. The awake half needs to tell it breathe and monitor its surroundings.  Though the dolphins primarily breathe through their blowholes, Hawaiian spinners have developed a method of breathing without surfacing from the water. They blow a bubble when near the water surface and then quickly draw breath from it. Dolphins are so smart!  When spinning, the dolphins can make up to seven complete rotations in the air! Though no one knows for sure, it’s believed the dolphins spin for the following reasons:

·      To clean their bodies of parasites (this is the most common assumption)

·      For courting members of the opposite sex

·      To communicate with other dolphins

·      For fun!

And they did spin!