We Can’t Get Clients In

Clients are feeling extremely frustrated by not being able to get seen with a sick pet quickly enough for their liking and unfortunately, the front desk is taking the brunt of the client frustration. This week on the Uncharted Podcast, Stephanie Goss and Dr. Andy Roark jump headfirst into another mailbag episode. They received an email from a practice who is absolutely drowning in clients. They have 5 doctors offering care weekdays AND weekends and they still can't keep up. This practice is pleading for suggestions on not letting the constant backlash wear them down at the desk or on the phones. The team feels like this can be an amazing field to work in, but are feeling like its hard not to dread coming in when the bad calls start to outweigh the good. Let's get into this episode…

You can also listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

Do you have something that you would love Andy and Stephanie to roleplay on the podcast – a situation where you would love some examples of what someone else would say and how they would say it? If so, send us a message through the mailbag! We want to hear your challenges and would love to feature your scenario on the podcast.

Submit your questions here: unchartedvet.com/mailbag

Upcoming Events

🌟 Ready to transform your practice's approach to conflict management? Join the Uncharted team for a dynamic conflict management training program during the Hive Event in Minneapolis on June 15th & 16th! This one-day intensive workshop, led by industry experts including Andy Roark, Stephanie Goss and Maria Pirita, will equip you with the skills and tools to handle and train your team in resolving conflicts effectively. This isn't your typical lecture-based training; expect engaging, round-table discussions where you'll dive deep into real-life scenarios, developing practical strategies that can be immediately applied in your practice. It's an investment in your team's harmony and your practice's future. Secure your spot today—check out the link in the show notes for more details. See you in Minneapolis for a day of growth, learning, and fun! https://unchartedvet.com/conflict-management-hive-waitlist/

🌟 Enhance your team's client communication skills with Dr. Andy Roark's Charming the Angry Client on-demand course! Designed for the entire veterinary team, this course offers a year of access to three practical programs: Using Active Staff Training, Charming the Angry Client with essential tools for handling complaints, and Case Study Examples for interactive learning. Empower your staff to handle difficult client interactions confidently and effectively. Enroll now and transform your client service experience! https://drandyroark.com/product/charming-the-angry-client/

Upcoming events: unchartedvet.com/upcoming-events/

All Links: linktr.ee/UnchartedVet

Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss: Hey everybody. I am Stephanie Goss and this is another episode. Of the uncharted podcast. This week on the podcast, I had a great time talking through a mailbag question with Andy. We got an email about a clinic that is absolutely slammed with appointments. It's a bigger practice. They've got five plus doctors and. They're generally having multiple doctors see appointments every day, including Friday and Sunday as well. But they are just absolutely slammed. 

And the front desk is seeing constant backlash from owners who have sick pets and can't get in. They're wondering how to communicate with the owners that they're doing the best that they can. They're seeing as many patients as they can. And they do still care about their pets because we all know that pet owners, when they're worried can be very intense. 

And so they asked if we had any advice for not letting the backlash wear them down, especially when owners are taking out frustration on the team. Let's get into this.

Dr. Andy Roark: And we are back! It's me, Dr. Andy Roark, and the one and only Stephanie, when can I see you again, Goss?

Stephanie Goss: I really wanted you to sing that one for us.

Dr. Andy Roark: (singing) I, when, can I see you again? 

Yeah. I failed my personal development exercise when I took a break from improv. I took a season off, which is like, it's like four months. I needed a break. I was tired. I was just, I was doing too many things. And whenever your hobby starts to become, whenever your hobby feels just like your work feels that's a bad sign and I love improv comedy. But it was just another meeting on my calendar, you know, like at the end I was like, It's like “what's my monday look like I've got this and then I've got this thing from 7 to 9 on Monday. You know, and then Friday I've got this and then Friday night I've got a 7:30 to you know, 10 a thing” and it was just, it was another meeting. It was another public speaking engagement is what it was feeling like which is sad. But it's like boy when you start feeling that way you gotta take a break So I took a break and then I told myself I was like i'm gonna take a break from improv and i'm gonna take singing lessons because I like to sing and I'm not remotely good at it.

And then I never did it. I chickened out and now I'm going back to improv. I have been looped back into improv which I am now, I am ready to go back. I think people should feel much better about taking 3 to 6 months breaks from their hobbies. Like, I think people, I was always terrified.

I was like, if I quit my hobby, I'll never do it again. And they're like, well, if you don't ever do it again, it's because you don't care. It's because you don't want to do it anymore.

Stephanie Goss: It’s because you don't really like it. Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark: Or you're just done with it, which is, like, that's not failure. It's time to find something else. But anyway, the improv bug has bitten me again.

I am ready to get back to it. But I didn't have any, I never did my singing lessons and now I don't know if they're gonna happen. And this affects you, Goss, as much as it affects me, and I just want you to think about that.

Stephanie Goss: Okay. I'll continue to be the singer in our partnership.

Dr. Andy Roark: That’s okay. That's right. You'll be, it's funny. You're the singer who does not sing, and I am the not singer who belts it every now and then. Oh, man.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, Maria Pirita can take the singing lessons for you. She is…

Dr. Andy Roark: She’s…

Stephanie Goss: It's so funny because I love her so much. She has such a competitive spirit. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh yeah, all I have to do is say to her, I can sing better than you. And then if you said that's true, we wouldn't have to pay for her singing lessons. She would pay for her own singing lessons to make sure that everyone knew that it was true.

Stephanie Goss: Yes, it is, she is quite competitive in that way and the three of us were, where were we? Denver? Kansas City? I don't know. We were somewhere and it’s all a blur.

Dr. Andy Roark: It's amazing, like, I don't remember like, it's all a blur. It's like, buddy, we're living a Johnny Cash song these days.

Stephanie Goss: On the road again

Dr. Andy Roark: I know, we're gonna be, we're gonna be in Minneapolis in June. Like, the Muppet Show rolls on.

Stephanie Goss: It totally does. But we were somewhere, the three of us, and we went to get tacos because that's a thing. And I was singing and Maria was just like, well, I can't sing because you just have such a good voice. And she's like, I need to take singing lessons. And that's when the whole thing started.

And she, unlike you, has actually started taking singing lessons. So, I'll be curious. I'll be curious when we're together again. We'll have to, we'll have to rope her into some singing and see how she's improved.

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh man, yeah, no, I agree. Alright.

Stephanie Goss: How's it going, Andy? How's it going, Andy Roark?

Dr. Andy Roark: It's great. It's great. Well, we've been, we're busy. We, as we're recording this, we recently did the Practice Manager Summit and it was awesome. It was awesome. It was the biggest Practice Manager Summit we've ever done. The feedback on it was phenomenal. Just phenomenal. It was really outstanding. And so you and I are just gonna, I think, uh, basking in the afterglow 

Stephanie Goss: And then we've got, yeah. Medical Director Summit coming, like, at the end of May, and I'm super excited about that. The summits have been great, and I love getting together different groups of practice leaders, you know, like we had done our Practice Management Summit earlier this year, and we're gonna have the Medical Directors Summit happening, and that, I'm excited about that, because it's fun to bring together, um, people who are in the same position, but in all different types of practice, private, corporate, big, small, ER, general practice, all of the things. So I'm really looking forward to that, but you're not wrong. We are busy bees, busy bees.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, it's funny, you know, remember when you're in your 20s and people are like, We're gonna go to this bar and then we're going to this club, and then we're gonna go dancing and you were like, yeah! And then you were in your 30s and they're like, We're gonna go to this bar and you're like yeah!

And then we're gonna go this club and you're like, ooh! And then we're gonna go dancing and you're like, oh, that's, we're starting to get close to that. I'm just like, oh! Young party Andy is like, oh, this is, I'm excited about all of these things. I'm just gonna, I'm gonna need a nap between each one of them, or this is not gonna happen.

But that's where I am.

Stephanie Goss: We've hit that, we've hit that.

Dr. Andy Roark: Exactly. Alright, let's do this mailbag question.

Stephanie Goss: Okay, let's do it. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Let’s do this thing.

Stephanie Goss: Okay. So I'm excited about this one because we got a question about the front desk. So it's from a clinic who is just absolutely slammed with appointments and they are a bigger hospital. They've got or I guess medium sized they've got five doctors And so generally they've got two to three doctors seeing appointments every day.

They see appointments on Saturday and Sunday. They book their entire schedule full. They also offer drop offs. They've got same day appointments books you know, same day slots saved and then they're taking a few emergencies on top of a fully booked schedule and so they're struggling. This is from a CSR who is struggling because they feel like every day there are owners who are frustrated because they have a sick pet and they can't get in for a week and a half or two weeks and you know that the answer is you know, we, here's what we can do, or when they've hit the tipping point already in the day by the time the owners call, they, are having to say you know, we can refer you to the local emergency hospital. so their question was kind of twofold. One is they were looking for some advice on how to say the thing, right? From the two of us like how do we tell owners that we're Doing our best to get as many patients in and we care about their pets. And this is what we can do for you, right? Like how do we frame that in a way that goes over better than it's currently going over and they wanted to know if we had any advice for not letting the constant frustration and anger and upset, which is understandable from their perspective, but how do they not let that get to them?

Because they are feeling like, you know, this is a great field to work in. And there are several of the CSR team that are just really struggling with feeling like, I don't want to come in. And I especially don't want to be on the phones when I know that I'm going to have to tell people, “Sorry, we can't see you.”

And then they're going to be frustrated. And so I thought this was a great set of questions to work through.

Dr. Andy Roark: I love this. There's a lot going on here. And so I want to get right to work on this. Now, the first thing that we have to do just for us, you and me in this podcast, but then also at the clinic, this is two problems. And if you keep them as one problem, it's going to be a big tentacled monster. Yeah. You can't get your hands around.

And so we got to split them into two. So we have a problem with getting the client seen and we have a problem of dealing with the backlash. And I think that's important because. And I don't think that's what they were saying when they wrote, but you could read this as “How do we tell clients that we're unable to take care of them, or that we're unable to help them again and again?”

That's like, well, the first thing would be see, is there a way that we can help them? And then we don't have to tell them that we can't help them. And so anyway well, let's get into that. So the first thing is getting clients seen. And the second thing is dealing with black backlash. So, the headspace, we always start with headspace.

I'm going to say a thing, Stephanie Goss you have heard me say so many times, but here it goes. Do you want to guess what it is?

Stephanie Goss: I have an idea, but let's see if I'm right. Go ahead.

Dr. Andy Roark: All right. If you're surprised by something again, and again, at some point, it's not a surprise, it's your business—

Stephanie Goss: It’s your business model.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yes, and if, surprise, we have pet owners walking in with sick pets or calling with sick pets again and again at some point. Not seeing pets is your business model.

And like you you cannot act surprised anymore. And again, I'm not coming down on this writer. Like I get it. I really do get it, but you got to see that this is a problem. And so not seeing pets, it really is a problem. Not seeing sick pets, not seeing pets in pain. That is a problem. And again, I am not coming down on this person at all.

I know this pain and this struggle, but let me just lay out why this is a problem is. If you deal with people who have, who are motivated by purpose, and purpose is helping pets in need, and we're taking in happy puppies and kittens, but we're turning away dogs that have pus coming out of their ear, that's a values problem for a lot of people.

And that, that can be, that can really, be hard on the team if they stop and they look at it. Also, from a client perspective, you know, one of the things that we teach in Uncharted is that trust is the cornerstone of our business. We are a relationship business and everything we do should be around building and maintaining trust. And turning people away when they feel like they're in need That's hard to recover from a trust standpoint It is hard to get someone to trust you and then when they're like my dog has torn his dew cloth and there's blood everywhere and it's terrible and he's in pain and he won't start licking you're like, oh, well, yeah, how about next week?

How about next week like that's not the messaging of a trustworthy Like confidant and advisor. And again, I have, I've been on the other side of this, so please don't think I'm coming down on and saying, oh, people are dropping the ball but I think we have to own what a problem this is when it happens.

And so anyway, if you're surprised by something again and again, at some point, You can't be surprised by it anymore. It's your business model. And then two, not being able to see people, it is a really, it is a significant problem. And so we have to start there and lay those things down.

And then we can go into the systems of getting them seen, or we can go into the approach for not taking it personally from a headspace standpoint. Do you have a preference? What do you want to talk about headspace first? Do you want to talk about headspace for Getting into the problem or getting into the reaction to the problem.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, I think, I think I have one more thing to add to, your perspective about it's, if you, if it happens over and over again, it's your business model. And I feel like As someone who started at the front desk, as a former CSR, I feel this person's pain for two reasons. One is, to your point, the pain of, when this happens, you've been there and it hurts.

Like it, everybody gets here at some point. You get super busy, whether it's because somebody's out sick or because you're just overwhelmed with clients. Everybody goes through this. And I think the second piece of the headspace here is, for me, is about recognizing what you actually can control as a CSR because when I hear you say, you know when it happens over and again, it's your business model and having been the employee of someone who could do something about that and being the person who couldn't do something about that on my own in the moment.

I think the headspace piece for me for the CSR is to recognize the wisdom in your headspace advice is, it's obviously, but I think it's really applicable for the people who can make decisions in the practice. And so I think from a CSR perspective, like recognizing what is actually in your control, and it might not be in your control to change the business model. It is absolutely in your control to advocate for change in the business model.

And so don't think that just because you can't make the change that you don't have the capacity to, lead change, lead, lead people to change. I think that is one of the things to remember: you can always lead from the middle of the pack. It does not have to be by title.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. I think that's totally fair And I'm really glad you said it too. When I say it's your business model, the CSR is like it’s not my business model.

Stephanie Goss: It’s not mine. 

Dr. Andy Roark: And I do agree with that and that is very fair. So, okay, so I just Jumped right into looking at the problem holistically.

You're right. I think framing up from the point of CSR is important So here's headspace. I think for our CSR a person who's writing in is one. I would say I would write down on a post it note in a place that I could see at the words. It's not personal. Which is this, you know, these people are mad like they are mad There's no way that you can tell them you're worried about your personal life pet and we are not going to see your pet for a couple of days and not have them get mad.

They are going to get mad. And if you internalize the idea that they are mad at you and they are talking to you and they will try to make you feel bad because they want you to figure out how to get them in. And so they are pointing this at you, but they're not mad at you. They are mad at the hospital.

They are mad at the situation. They are mad at whatever. Whatever, higher power. Yeah, life, whatever. Like, they are mad. Why is my pet sick? Why is my pet injured? Why do pets die? You know, like that, all of that is anger and frustration. They're mad at themselves because they wish they'd possibly come in earlier.

They feel guilty because, you know, they, took the dog to the dog park and they knew that sometimes things don't go well when they, whatever, like, there's a million things for them to feel mad or angry about,

They're pointing all those things at you, and that's not fair, and you can't take it personally.

Stephanie Goss: And I think we have to remember how strong of a how strong of a reaction fear is, because one of the things that's really easy to forget working in the veterinary profession is, we know what emergencies truly are, and we know what is truly not necessarily an emergency, and we know the things that can wait, but to the average pet owner, and I've really been reminded of this, past week, because I've been visiting my parents, and they have a new newer to them puppy, and, you know, I've been having some conversations with my mom, and it's really It's really easy for me to look at the dog and be like, Oh, I know the course here.

Like, I know, I can just look at this situation after 20 years in vet med and say like, I know these things that you need to do. And I, she was just like, super taken aback at what I said because to her it seemed really extreme. To me it seems like, oh, this is just the next thing that needs to happen. And I think it's really easy for us to forget how much pet owners can get fearful.

And to your point, if a pet tore their dewclaw and they're bleeding all over the house, like it, I could totally imagine where that would be really scary to an owner, especially potentially a first time pet owner. And when we're dealing with frustrated people all day long, it's really easy for us to lose that empathy.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I completely agree. So I think that's, I think that's important to file away. One of the things that helps me, honestly, is this idea that we seek in the clinical side. And so, you've heard me say before, people are simple animals. And I, that's, it's not about how smart you are. We're all simple animals.

And so a lot of things that we know about pets really translates very well to people. And when we have a German Shepherd that comes into the practice and it's pulling on its leash and snarling and barking its head off and, you know, lunging at people. If you look at that dog as a bad dog or a mean dog, you're going to be less happy, you're going to be less empathetic, you're going to be less effective than if you look at that dog as a terrified pet.

Like that is, that dog is terrified. And again, I'm still not sticking my hand in there. But, that perspective means a lot. If you can change that perspective when you deal with pet owners. It can help you be empathetic, but also not internalize what they're sending your way as much.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah.

Dr. Andy Roark: Remember that you are the messenger. You are the messenger. It's not your policies. You know, you are conveying to them the realities of their situation. You are not deciding that they cannot come in, right? You are just, you're simply conveying the truth of the matter. This is a place where sometimes not remembering that our power is limited makes us feel terrible.

Because if you feel like you are the one who's deciding they can't come in, that feels awful. But it's not your decision. You are simply communicating the status of the situation. And so hopefully that can help you say, I am the messenger. Even if they don't believe you or hear that, you are the messenger.

And that can make it easier to not take these things personally. Remember the old saying that hurt people, hurt people. And when you get angry people, it's because they're hurt. And when they say nasty things to you, this is a hurt person, a scared person who is trying to hurt you. The last part of this I think I would say from a headspace is, and this is just general advice for anybody who's dealing with emotional clients in the vet practices, and just sort of bear with me because some people might not like this advice, but I truly believe it deeply.

You need to be careful about rumination. Like, we need to be very intentional about our feelings, and we should be very careful about sitting in our feelings. And there's just more and more research that's coming out that's talking about depression and anxiety. And just living in our feelings and ruminating in our feelings without a specific intention and in not a thoughtful way, it's not good for us.

And so this, if you're having these conversations again and again, if you need permission, I'm giving it to you now. You don't have to ruminate on these thoughts. You can do your best, you can try hard, you can empathize, you should know that this is a hard job and you're not doing it wrong. It's just a hard job.

You should insist on letting it go as best you can at the end of the day. That does not mean you don't care. It doesn't mean you're a good person or you're not a good person. It means that you have taken on a wellness strategy that's going to keep you in the game and keep you doing your best and allowing you to be happy.

Doing what is an unquestionably hard job. And so, don't ruminate. Insist on letting it go. Just do it, and it does not mean you don't care. It is, this is you putting your oxygen mask on yourself. Insist also on holding the trophy. That's the other thing I would say. I'll flip it around and so that may sound hypocritical as I say, let it go unless it's good and hold on to it.

And people say, well, that's not fair. Andy, if I'm going to let it go, I have to let it all go. No, you don't. And here's why it's called negativity bias is that we are wired to hold on to and remember the negative things that happened to us. That is a survival strategy that is hardwired into our stone age brain and you are going to hold on to negativity, like actively trying to let it go is not going to make, it's not going to make it happen, but if you don't try to let it go, it's going to be a lot worse.

And so you need to refuse rumination, try to let it go and actively circle back at the end of the day and think about all the people that you helped, all of the people who are happy and kind, all of the people who made their, who had their lives made better because of you today, because that does not register in our minds and you need to balance the scales.

And so I, from a headspace standpoint, those are the big things that I would say up front, just, in getting your head right.

Stephanie Goss: One of the things that you can do, and this is something that you can totally suggest from the team, if you have, especially if you're a team that has you know, huddles at the beginning and end of the day, one of the things that I used to do with my team was, what was one thing? That went, that we, went well or that we made us happy today.

And what's one thing that we want to be better tomorrow? It wasn't about what was one thing that went bad, right? It was very forward facing intentionally about, I can't fix what happened today and maybe I dealt with a bunch of angry clients and I'm putting it into a forward facing way so that I can walk out the door and say, you know what, I'm going to leave this negative stuff here and leave it at the door.

I'm not going to take it home to ruminate on it because tomorrow I want to, you know, try harder to get more clients in or I want to you know, help one more angry person or frustrated person. And it can be really hard to do and it can feel kind of. I guess, silly. I had team members say this is really stupid when we first started doing it.

But I will tell you to, if you persist, like, it really does change the way that you think about things.

Dr. Andy Roark: I agree. I agree. You're talking to a guy who has pushed through eye rolls from many teams. Like, I'm like, I don't care. I'm, and like, I have literally told my people or told people I work with, they're like, this is silly. I'm like, well, you do it. You're doing it for me because I want to do it. And I want you to do it with me. And so you're doing it for me.

Stephanie Goss:  Eye rolling has no effect on Andy Roark. He has a very strong badass wife, two teenage daughters, and me. So…

Dr. Andy Roark: They all roll their eyes at me all the time.

Stephanie Goss: You're pretty much immune at this point.

Dr. Andy Roark: I have, I've had lots of eye rolls at me, and I don't feel 'em anymore, but that's it. But yeah, it doesn't, the worst thing is if you roll your eyes at me and I take that ass a challenge, it's like, oh, you think that's awkward? Let me dance while we do this. Like I will take it to 11. All right. So listen, 

Stephanie Goss: Let’s talk about systems.

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh yeah. So just for systems from a head point, from a headspace standpoint I want to get myself into a good, productive place of thinking about what's possible, right? I don't, and again, I think, I thought you, I honestly, I think you did most of my systems work when you talked about, hey, this person is CSR, they can advocate, but they can't make those decisions.

And so I think from a system standpoint, the headspace is just because we've always done something one way doesn't mean we have to keep doing it that way. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that we take for granted or take as fact. And we put ourselves into the box. And so thinking outside the box, for example, and this may sound silly, but for a lot of people, the idea of not booking first come first serve, seems like, like that's, it's like saying gravity doesn't exist, like, if that's, what you've always known is, the phone rings, you ask them when they want to come in, and you put them there, the idea that you would not do that and be like, well, this person called first, but they're getting booked two weeks out, and this other person called three days ago, and they're getting seen today, that seems unfair or whatever, and you, look, just, we're going to unpack some stuff here, but just believe me when I say, There may be things that you were just assuming have to be that don't have to be.

So anyway, keep an open mind. Let's look for opportunities and ways to do things better. We can do this without criticizing the past. You know, again, these are things that we can advocate for and, we can have an open mind about trying to think creatively about how I help people while not undermining the team or creating chaos and havoc that the people in the back are going to have to deal with.

Stephanie Goss: And I think I agree with what you are saying a hundred percent. And I think the one thing I would add from a headspace perspective is, I think remembering how much power you do have as a team member and what I will say, just from a headspace perspective is I've been a manager for a really long time. And I was a csr for a really long time and I can tell you that there is a night and day like different planets system difference in how you present systems to the rest of the team.

And so what I mean by that is as a CSR, not that this writer sounded negative. I don't want it to come out that way because they did not. They did not. They sounded very positive in the way they were asking their questions. And I know what it's like to be a CSR team. That's like, we can't help clients. We need to fix this.

That sounds very different than, Hey, we're, we really, want our clients to feel seen and heard, and when they feel like they can't get in for two weeks, and they have a sick pet, they're expressing frustration day after day, over and over again with the front desk. We have some suggestions for ways that we could improve this.

Would it work if…. those two things feel night and day different, and so I think from a headspace perspective, holding on to that, and making sure that when you do bring ideas to the team or to your practice owner or the practice leader make sure to lead with the thing they care about which is getting patients seen and getting clients taken care of because I promise you your practice owner cares about that.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Alright, let's take a break here and then we'll come back and do action steps.

Stephanie Goss: Perfect.

Hey guys, do you wish that your team was better at handling conflict management? Are you a leader, a medical director, a practice manager, a practice owner and associate vet that wants to not only be able to handle conflict really well in your team, but also to have the tools to train your people so that they have these conversations more gracefully with each other. 

Would you like to work at a place where we're. We're not sniping at each other. We're getting along and communicating effectively. Guys, we can make that happen for you. I and the Uncharted team will be at the hive event in Minneapolis is June 15th and 16th. We are having one day. Conflict management training program. 

So it will be, my team will be there. It is through Uncharted. And so it is going to be one day of working with me and Stephanie Goss and Maria Pirita and we will be breaking down workshops on conflict management and you can drop in. You can get a day, you can spend the other day at the Hive conference. 

It is going to be an absolutely fantastic time. Guys. Ah, I'm going to put a link in the show notes, head over there, check it out, grab your spot. This is not a sit and be lectured at. This is round table workshop discussion format where you get your hands dirty. You get down to the weeds. We talk about what these tactics look like in our teams, in our practices. 

And we walk away at the end of the day with real skills to change the culture. In our practice guys, this is an investment in yourself is an investment in your team. It is an investment in your happiness and in your workplace. Do not miss the opportunity. It may not come around again. This is a great chance to work with us and to really stretch and expand your mind. 

And I promise you're gonna have a great time, gang again, June 15th and 16th in Minneapolis. Hope to see you there. Let's get back into this episode. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Alright, so action steps. What do we do here? And again, I'm going to try my best to talk about this at a hospital level, but then also very much for this CSR. So let's start with the not feeling so beat up after delivering hard messaging, right? So I've got I've got a, I've got a couple things here.

The ones that come immediately to me, I am. Again, it's just sort of covering your basis but I am a believer in having a stated patient client rights and responsibilities agreement. And so again, I see these at the human hospital whenever I have to go there or take a family member there or whatever.

These have become a, a, a part of human medicine. And it basically says, You will get seen, you will get heard. And also, We do not tolerate abusive or foul language. You will be asked to leave. You know, we, will We do have the right to not provide service to people who are treating our staff In abu in abusive way, including raising their voices.

Blah blah blah. And, It's a bummer to have that, but I do think that it's, I think it's a good thing. I think it raises awareness to people about the fact that these things do happen to vet professionals. And then also when someone does it, it gives you a nice clean way to give them feedback as a client and say, Hey, you violated this policy.

It is stated as on our website. It is in our lobby. You know, whatever but this is a policy we have and you did violate these and we're not going to be able to see you anymore.

And it's just, I have a very low tolerance of people abusing the staff and, but one of the awkwardnesses has been in the past is if someone is abusive, it's like, how do you tell them that they were abusive and how do you bring this up?

It's a whole lot easier if you lay down some ground rules at the beginning and and you can have them sign it as part of their new client. Forms and just I wouldn't make a big deal about it, but it is there but once that has been down you can come back and say this is our policy and You use profanity and raised your voice at one of our staff members and that is a violation of our abuse policy And we're as a result, you know This is your one warning or we're not gonna be able to give you services anymore And that is just a way of protecting your staff now I did say here at the beginning, we were talking about people who can't get their pets in and their pets are sick or things like [00:32:00] that.

I try to give grace and recognize people are being human at the same time, abuse, is abuse.

Stephanie Goss: Yes.

Dr. Andy Roark: I don't tend, I tend to give people grace if they raise their voice because they're really mad. And it's like, I've been really mad before. I understand that emotion. So but anyway, state, stated abuse policy.

I hate it, but I do think it's probably good. Best practices for for general practice and emergency and urgent care vet clinics today is you should have something. If you want angry client training, I have the Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client course on my website. It's at DrAndyRoark.

com and it is broken up into modules and it is meant for teams to take. But if you are like, how do we say these things? things. And how do we handle people who are mad? That is a resource that is on demand that you can have. It goes into a lot of detail. It's got a lot of examples and things to train on.

So we can link that up in the show notes and you can take a look at it. but the thing in there that I'm going to call out right now, [00:33:00] beyond, the interpersonal part of how do you talk to these people. You should have, especially if people are getting mad about the same things, you should have an escalation plan in place.

And that is a request to management to say, when I get these calls and people get angry because of this, what do I do with them? Because me sitting on the phone and just taking it, that doesn't feel good. Good. is the plan and you and I've talked about this before. Do we have a mailbox that we can send them to and say, I understand I'm going to transfer you over to this mailbox and it's for our, you know, our management team and you can give the feedback there.

Is that okay? But something to give to them. Is it to transfer them to the practice manager? Is it to, you know, what do we do to have the medical director call them back? Again, there's no right answer. It depends on your practice and what you want to do, but there's got to be a parachute pull for the front desk to say, look, I've, I have played all my cards.

I have told this person all the stuff and they continue to be angry and they are not happy and they are not satisfied. Okay. Where does this conversation go from here? And in order to protect our front desk, we have to give them tools and pathways to send these clients down so they can be received by people who have more decision making abilities.

Do you agree? 

Stephanie Goss: I don't know. It's, because, and I'll say why, I, it's a tricky, I think it's a tricky double edged sword because I have absolutely watched members of the team when there is a path, take that as the path of least resistance. And instead of trying to make the clients feel heard and do their job, the basic part of the job and the steps leading up to that, the response can just be.

I understand, let me put you through to your manager or let me pull that button. And so I think your point about giving them the tools is really important and I think part of it is our jobs as managers is to train the team to understand what pieces their job and what actually truly unacceptable behavior looks like so that they can see it, they can smell it, they.

They know it's coming, right? So that I would absolutely expect if a client is actually, like, yelling at you, or if there's profanity, things like that, like, I want them to know what those items are, and I want them to understand what constitute repetitive behavior. And so I think from the CSR perspective, something you can start doing today is is just get a notebook and start jotting down the call, what the concern was, and how it manifested. Did they raise their voice? Did they use profanity? Did they say, this is  unacceptable, I want to talk to your manager? What were the things that you are seeing? And just start to keep a log for yourself. and what the result was, like couldn't get them in for two weeks, didn't have an opening for three weeks for whatever it is, because I will tell you that Even leaders and managers and practice owners who are not data driven people cannot argue, well, they still can, but can't argue with things in black and white.

There are some people who will just argue for the sake of arguing, but if you are able to present to them, hey, this is what is happening, and you can make them see it and hear it. And they can see the quantity with which it's happening. It's far easier for a manager to say, Oh, okay, this is not just coming from one person at the front desk.

This is the team as a whole. And this is a volume. This is not just one off incident here, a one off incident there. And so I don't want to put the. Onus for dealing with the problem back on the CSRs because I think the managers do absolutely have to play a role here and It's also I think really important to make sure that the team has the tools to be empowered to do the job because as a CSR I never would have wanted to just pass someone off to my manager.

Like I did all of the things and I have absolutely worked with team members who didn't feel comfortable or just didn't Want to do that and so they would hit that button far faster and as the manager Who has struggled with team members who don't understand the difference in those things having a clear plan of this is how you ask for help I absolutely agree with you on that.

I think it's a, I think it's a fine line between giving them the tools and Teaching them and enabling them to deal with problems themselves and giving them an out button, then I could get on, then I could get on board with you. But I think there are also a lot of people who for a variety of reasons, would probably just use the ripcord if that was all you gave them.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I think that's fair. I can see that. It's always a balance, right, of supporting people but not to the point that you end up just handling things that they should be able to handle. Yeah, I, path of least resistance is something to pay attention to. So, yeah. No, I think that's, I think that's fair.

So, yeah. I think, well, when you put it that way, it seems like the Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client course really is the best solution here because it does give people the skills to have these conversations affect, you're

Stephanie Goss: I did not intentionally do that because you don't need more people to tell you how amazing you are when they take your course. 

Dr. Andy Roark: It's a good 

Stephanie Goss: Your head is already too big.

Dr. Andy Roark: It's really a good course, very, like hundreds of people have said so.

Stephanie Goss: I did not intentionally do that. Okay. So what other action steps do we have besides giving them a clear path for angry clients?

Dr. Andy Roark: So, I mean, quite, honestly, it's, there's not much you can do with the front desk other than know what your options are as far as scheduling, are there things that you can do? Because here I will tell you, I have seen people get in a lot of trouble for freestyling and then the, Technicians are the people in the back or the doctors.

They're like, What is this random client doing here? And you can be really trapped in the middle. And so it's hard because you don't have the ability to change those systems. And so knowing what resources you do have, asking continuously, What do I do in these situations? I think that is good.

The big thing is remember not to take it personally. Remember that you are the messenger training for the front desk on, dealing with angry people effectively. All that stuff is important. It is very hard to deal with angry people when they're angry about a specific thing and you don't have any ability to help them in that thing. A lot of times it's just weathering the storm, trying to make them feel heard, trying to make them feel seen. But at some point, if my dog is bleeding everywhere and at the end of our call, my dog is still bleeding everywhere and I don't, and I don't have any How am I supposed to get off that call feeling really good?

that's just really hard. So anyway, there is the personal part, the boundary part, the not taking a personal part, but that's about it for the action steps for me in that regard. The rest of it really comes, from systems, you know,

Stephanie Goss: I agree. That's when I read this. I was like, ooh I have so many ideas for how you actually Solve the problem of not the problem of letting it sit with you, but the problem of we can't get clients in So I think that this is the part where the CSRs might not be able to choose to make the change but they can absolutely choose to suggest the change. So I'm excited to talk about this part.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, totally. So, so, I agree. So, we need to think about this because having sick pets come in and not get seen, that's really damaging in a lot of ways. It's damaging to the culture. It's damaging to the employees. It's damaging to the trust we're trying to build with pet owners.

It's damaging to the pets that are not getting treated. And so, you know, there's a lot of different ways to go about this. We do have a workshop in Uncharted in the Learning Library that a lot of people have used and really like. It is all about scheduling and alternative ways of scheduling.

And so that's, that is a resource I'll put forward for Uncharted members. The general approach I think that I would take is you have got to audit your appointment types and your, how you block your schedule. If you're having this problem and you're booking people first come first serve, that does not make any sense.

If you haven't transitioned over to an a smart plan that says, look, we recognize that on a given day we tend to get about this many. If you haven't looked at those numbers and kind of know what that is, then you need to start with that. What are we talking about absorbing? Are we talking about absorbing 3 pets?

10 pets? Again, it depends. Somebody goes, 10 pets? Well, I worked at a place that had 10 pets. 12 doctors on at a time, absorbing 10 pets was not an issue, right? Some of this is looking at your workflow. I was listening to a podcast recently and they were laughing saying, Oh my God, can you believe that there are vet clinics that schedule one hour appointments?

Appointments, that's so zany. How could you ever do that? And I like these people But also I have worked at a place that scheduled up one hour appointments You know why? Because we have three walk ins every hour And so you did have one hour appointments But also that's because you were doing three other appointments on top of the one that came in at the top of the hour and so again not trying to throw shade, and it's not wrong, but that was how that practice adapted to the clients they had walking in.

And again, it's not comparing apples apples to apples because some client, some clinics are all about walk-ins. The clients know they do walk-ins. The expectation is, yeah, you can have an appointment, or you can walk in. Other places do not do that. Talk about walk-ins. It's not something they advertise.

It is a rarity if it happens. It's not right or wrong. Walk in practices are great if you staff for them and you know what you're doing and you book your appointments. You just have to be honest and with yourself about what you're seeing and what you're doing. And so do we need to expand our appointment times so that we book less appointments and we can absorb people walking in?

Do we need to have day only? Appointments, where people, these appointments unlock four hours before that time and that doesn't need to be the whole staff, if you've got these appointments and then they're not filling, you need to have less of those appointments, but you should have a couple, you know what I mean, and so all of that is tinkering around and saying, all right, What you don't want to do is book your schedule full of wellness appointments and then have nothing left to see Sick patients because sick patients are not going to book three weeks out.

They're going to come in. That's just part of our business. And so anyway That audit I think is really important.

Stephanie Goss: Yep. I, and I also think you hit something on the head too. I think one of the things from an audit perspective that you do have to look at is the mixture of the same day to pre booked appointments, you know, and like how far in advance were they getting booked. But the other thing I think you have to look at is what is making up that schedule.

Like how many spaces. So we've got emergencies. We've got sick pets. We've got wellness. We've got puppy and kitten and we've got rechecks. Well, rechecks are timely. Puppy and kittens are timely. Emergencies are timely and sick pets are timely. So that leaves you one out of the five for wellness that isn't as timely.

Like those can go further out and it feels sometimes like heresy. For people to say, well, the good client who's calling ahead for their appointment, like I should be able to just put them on the schedule. And I would say, well, but look at the other four types that you have good clients who can't control when their pet gets sick.

And you have good clients who can't control that they get a, you know, eight week old puppy and that it needs to come in on a certain time schedule. Like you, it isn't just about, it isn't just about good versus not good clients. It is about the mixture and the ratio. And so I think you have to do that kind of analyzing of the schedule.

And this is where I think the CSRs can be super helpful. One of the things that worked really well for me was I wanted to make sure that We were having a problem getting clients in as well and I wanted to get a sense of you know, as a manager, I could listen to the calls. I could hear how clients were acting agitation wise.

And I knew my CSRs were, you know, there was, they were onto it and they were, I totally believed them a hundred percent. And I wasn't sure, is this, how massive of a problem is this from a schedule perspective? And one of the things you can do is it's really easy to insert a code into your PIMS that just automatically posts.

So that you can track like if a CSR schedules an appointment and it's A sick pet and they couldn't get them in within a seven day period have them put that quote in the chart And then you can run that report and see how many patients are we not who are sick? Are we not able to meet our definition of sick?

Are we not able to get in a seven day period or a 14 day period like you have got to do some things? To start to really look at how to dial in the practice. And at the same time, you can start with something super small. So this doesn't have to be this big giant system. So for the CSRs, remember this was a headspace thing, but I think it's really important when you're talking to your practice owner and to your manager, change doesn't have to be forever.

Change can be for right now. And so suggesting a trial and saying, Hey, Can we try this one thing, or maybe these two things, for the next 30 days and see how this helps us alleviate the pressure? Maybe it becomes something that you keep forever, but everybody has waves and it goes up and down like a roller coaster in terms of our scheduling.

And this may be a forever problem until you get more doctors, or it may be a spring problem. It may be a summer problem. Like, veterinary medicine is very cyclical, so I think, When you're the CSR, bringing some of the ideas to your team from a systems perspective, remember that trials are your friend.

And so suggest doing one thing or two things and then layer it on. And as a manager, like suggest to them, there are other things we can do. We can do an extensive schedule audit. We can start to listen to phone calls. We can look at putting, you know, things into the PIMS, but let's just get started. If we start with one thing and layer on to it, it will help alleviate the pressure off of the front desk right now and help to figure out what maybe a new schedule looks like for your practice.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, no, I agree with that. I have to say this and some people are going to hate it, but I do think if you're at a place where you've got your clients and they come in or they need to come in and we're not be able to get them in, I think at some point you have to consider referral and you know that's obviously offering them a chance to go to the emergency clinic, but also it may be considering referring to urgent care practices.

So we've got urgent care practices opening up. They're going to go there anyway. If you tell them you can't see them for two weeks okay. All you're doing is releasing them without any support and they're going to go find somebody else and they're going to go there. At least if you say, Hey, we can't get you in, but here are some other places that might be able to see you today.

And then we'll, you know, we can follow up with you and see how everything goes later on. At least there's some retention of trust, hopefully there, and you're helping them to get support in a place that you think does fairly good work, especially if it's an urgent care practice, they're not going to take them on for their wellness needs and things.

And that may be something that you can swing and save face and try to help the client. Oh,

Stephanie Goss: going to level up the travesty to end us on a hot note because I'm going to agree with you and double down, which you Refer to other GPs. Stop being so narrow minded. There is more than enough business for all of us. If you are giving your clients no option, you are choosing to put them in somebody else's hands anyways.

So stop being so hyper competitive and find a practice. You said it perfectly, Andy, find a practice or multiple practices in your community who you feel like practice a good standard of medicine. You might not like this doctor. You might not like the staff. You might not like their culture. Find a doctor whose medicine  you generally agree with and send your clients there because they're going to search on the internet And I would far rather have them go to somebody who I believe practices good medicine Than somebody that they just pick off of google really, it's the same thing about if we let our clients go out there.

The reason they're Dr. Googling is because we're not sending them where we want them to go. We've got to stop being so competitive and start referring to other local practices. If you have an urgent care, great. By all means, give them the business. Alleviate the pressure off of your ER. But stop, we have got to stop being so close minded and start to refer to other GPs in our community.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, the the last thing I'll say is this and, again, I don't know how people feel about it, but in any other industry, if you had so much work that people could not get in for an extended period of time, the answer would be obvious. It's supply and demand. The demand is huge and the supply is low.

That means the price is going to go up. And the idea is that increasing the price will help reduce the demand for services because some people will go other places. And I'm not saying necessarily that's what you should do. I know that there's a lot of people have strong feelings about making sure that their clinic is exhaustible for everybody.

I don't think all clinics are going to be priced for everybody. They're just not. And if you're at a place where you say, we've got so much demand, And we need to demand, we need to decrease demand so that we could actually take care of the people who come in the

Stephanie Goss: hmm. Mm 

Dr. Andy Roark: Then, raising prices is actually a solid business practice that would make some sense here.

That's, that is just something to consider to say, well, we don't have any appointments for weeks and people are getting angry. One way to sort of start to sort people out is to, and I would, if you're going to do it, I would say, I would communicate far ahead of time that it was going to happen.

I would let people know in three months there's going to be a price increase and I would not tell them I'm doing it because I want to decrease demand, [00:52:00] but I would just say this is, we have to, compensate our staff for the work that they're doing. and I would mean it, I would follow through on what I said I was going to do, but I would communicate early on that this was going to happen and let people know.

And that might help them. Start to reduce some of the demand that you're getting. But anyway, I'm not, I don't feel strongly about that. If you can, my, I, my, my personal preference would be to try to work the schedule around in a way that would relieve some of this. I would love to lean into efficiency in the back, see if there's things that we can do to get more pets seen.

But but at the end of the day, if you've done all you can to maximize. How we move patients through the building, and we still got more than we can do. The answer is to probably raise prices so that we have the revenue to maybe add another doctor. Consider building on to our facility, things like that.

Those are the things you should start thinking about.

Stephanie Goss: Well, and I think those are great long term supply and demand supply and demand solutions, although I disagree with you about notifying people on price increases, but that's a whole other podcast. And immediate supply and demand issues is to remember that it's not all or nothing. There are levers you can pull here.

You can slow down the flow of new clients. It doesn't have to be that you stop taking new clients. It can be that you see one new client a day and that means new clients book out six weeks for non Thick pet things like you can put some systems in place again. It doesn't have to be forever. You can restrict new clients. You can restrict the number of wellness patients you see in a day. You can, you know, try and limit the number of puppies and kittens and so on and so forth book them a little bit further out.

Not so far out that they're missing the schedule you need them to be on, but there are those restrictors that you can put in place to help narrow that funnel down a little bit and reduce the supply and the demand while you look at those long term strategies like you were talking about.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Cool. Well, that's what I got. You got anything else?

Stephanie Goss: I think that's it.

Dr. Andy Roark: cool. Well, thanks for talking to it with me.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, hopefully hopefully this was helpful. Have a fantastic rest of your week, everybody.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, everybody. Take care.

Stephanie Goss: And that's a wrap on another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. Thanks for joining us and spending your week with us. If you enjoyed this week's episode, head over to wherever you get your podcasts and leave us a review. It's the best way to let us know that you love listening. We'll see you next time.