Training on ‘Emotional Intelligence’ is the WRONG Way to Fix Your Client Service Problem

A practice leader is struggling with younger team members' reactions to client disagreements. The leader is frustrated with the team’s hypersensitivity to client interactions, particularly around money and customer service, which is resulting in feedback that the practice feels cold and transactional. In this episode of the Uncharted Veterinary Podcast, Practice Management Super Nerd, Stephanie Goss and Dr. Andy Roark explore how to shift the team’s culture towards empathy and understanding, while also addressing issues of emotional intelligence, client interactions, and accountability. They emphasize the importance of avoiding generational stereotypes and focus on actionable strategies to create a supportive, client-centered environment. Let's get into this episode…

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Episode Transcript

Stephanie Goss: Hey everybody. I am Stephanie Goss, and this is another episode of the Uncharted Podcast. This week on the podcast, Andy and I are diving into the mailbag. We've got a great letter from a practice manager who is asking for some emotional intelligence training for their team. Now there's nothing wrong with that. 

Emotional intelligence is one of the things that I'm super passionate about teaching our teams. But the more we got into this conversation, the more there was probably some stuff going on under the surface that we needed to look at more than whether the team needed emotional intelligence training. This was a fun one. Let's get into it.

Dr. Andy Roark: And we are back, it's me, Dr. Andy Roark and the one and only Stephanie Where is the Love Goss.

Stephanie Goss: Oh, that's fun. I, you're, I want to hear, I want to hear you sing it. Where…

Dr. Andy Roark: I was listening to an older…

Stephanie Goss: is the love?

Dr. Andy Roark: I was listening, see, there you go. I was listening to an old episode of our podcast this morning. And I said that song and then I sang it. And I was like, I wonder how much cringe I'm inflicting on people across United States and Canada every week. If my daughters heard me singing, where's the love on a podcast?

Like they would cringe so hard with referred embarrassment for me. And so I was like, ah, so funny. 

Stephanie Goss: That's the best part. That's the best part. I also feel the same way, cringing wise about my giggle, but everybody tells me that's their favorite part. How's it going, Andy Roark?

Dr. Andy Roark: It's, boy, it's great. The fall, suddenly, is rolling up in South Carolina. The dog is demanding to be outside on the porch, instead of in the house. It is just a joy to be outside. I'm looking for things to do. Like I'm happily pulling weeds just to be outside. It's absolutely beautiful.

The neighbors had a neighborhood gathering a couple of days ago. And one of the neighbors was like, I smoke brisket. And I'm like, this is, I love this.

Stephanie Goss: You're like, it's fall.

Dr. Andy Roark: What- it's fall, the leaves are going to, are just about to start changing the temperatures dropping. There's brisket, you don't eat brisket in the summertime.

At least I don't. It just, the thought of it makes me sweat. But brisket in the fall, that's what I'm talking about. I'm a, I like pumpkin as a flavor. I'm looking for pumpkin bagels. I'm looking for pumpkin beer.

Stephanie Goss: I was just having this conversation with a friend who, with a girlfriend because it's basic. It's that basic time of the year where everybody is all about the pumpkin spice, latte and the pumpkin spice, everything at Starbucks.

But I was having this conversation because I have a friend who was like, yeah, you know, she's all about the Starbucks, but she's like my mom, man, the day that Costco puts out the pumpkin pies. She's like, she's there. And I was like, really? There are people in the world that love pumpkin that much that they're like, Costco has put out their pumpkin pies and I'm going to go get one.

Dr. Andy Roark: There are these certain things. Okay. So let me, wax romantic here about pumpkin pie. There are these things in our life. That becomes special to individual people, right? I drink one glass of eggnog everyyear. It's just one. I don't, I don't want, I don't want a carton. 

I just, I have to, I try to find it without buying it. Otherwise I can, they have small amounts too, like you can buy singles now. I drink one glass of eggnog a year and I don't even particularly like it, I don't think, but I have so many memories wrapped up in it and there's a feeling and it's this it's this visceral reminder of a season in a way that I felt when I was young.

And so it's really important to me. And so I, I don't know if other people have, I'm sure people have those things. And again, I don't buy it by the carton. I don't, please don't mail me gallons of it. Like I love people who are just generous. They're like, 

Stephanie Goss: That’s your ice cream now. Yeah,

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh yeah, again. I would eat a bowl of eggnog ice cream in December, and it would be a wonderful thing for me, but I don't need a carton of it, you know, I really don't, but I would be so thrilled if someone gave me a little bowl and I feel that way about, about pumpkin stuff as well, it's I am not here to suck down pumpkin coffee and get, pumpkin  milkshakes and like, but yeah, I have decided, like, the eggnog thing, I don't drink a lot of beer, I don't drink, I honestly don't drink at all, hardly anymore, but but I will find a pint

of pumpkin beer at some point and I will drink it outside and I don't know how But to me i'm like I will go to a tap room That has outdoor seating and i'll wear my flannel and I will go there at some point and I will get a pint of pumpkin beer and I will drink it and it will just be this wonderful 15 minute experience for me and then I'll go on, but the fall, it just means something to me. 

Stephanie Goss: They're strong sciences. So that explains the association both taste wise and sense wise that we have as humans tied to experiences or memories. And so there is science behind that. Like you said, the visceral reaction of it's like when I smell for me, one of those is I smell cigars and I immediately think of my grandfather or I smell where there's candies because he always used to keep them in his pocket for us when we were kids.

And so it's that that you just have that visceral reaction that takes you back to that time and place in your life. And there's strong science behind that. So that makes sense. That makes super sense. But noted, Andy will not be lining up for Pumpkin Spice Day at Starbucks

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah. Probably not. Probably not. I, again, there's just, there's just little things that I do love, like you said, that just anchor you to those times. But I said I was gonna wax romantic about it. I think that's a beautiful part of life. And like, this falls into my celebration of rituals.

And I always say we should have rituals. We should have things that we do that are special. I don't know, like I said, the fact that I drank one glass of eggnog. Is much more special than if I started buying half gallons and going through them like and drank it every day. I don't think I would love it as much and so anyway But that goes back to practice and stuff as well I think that there's I think that there's things that we can kind of lean into It's all about tying things to purpose and and to tying them to things that people will remember I don't know if you start the year at your, practice in a certain way, I think that can be, I think that can be wonderful.

You know, I think, go back to like, our friend Jenn Galvin always, she's always involved in these community outreach projects and stuff. And I can't think of a specific example, but I'm confident that they have rituals they do, whether it's participating in a local parade, you know what I mean?

And you just go, this is what we do. We get ready and we do our little float and we do our little parade. And you go, well, that's silly. I was like, but it's important. It's important. It's a thing that we do every year. It's a tradition. I really think that building tradition, I think people miss that. I just, I really do.

Stephanie Goss: I think it's intrinsically tied to our sense of community too, you know, and just the greater sense of community. Those rituals, those things that we do collectively as a, as a culture. It's the same within the culture of our practice, right? Like we, we have an established culture and we might do things in, within that culture.

We might do things that connect us to the bigger community, but it's those kind of, I think about it like you know, when you slice a tree and you see the rings and you can count how old it is and think about it that way. Like our practice is at the center of that ring, but then if you, and that, that would be.

our team, right? Like us as a group. And then if you go out, then our, then we have our clients and then we have, the general public who comes in contact with our practice. And then our community as a, as a larger organization. And then beyond that, our connection to veterinary medicine, there's all these rings that go out.

And I think that you're not wrong, that those things that we do, the rituals that we have as a, Culture connect us to those broader communities,

Dr. Andy Roark: No, I think you're right. I just, I feel like the world is changing a lot and I'm such a proponent of rituals and small rituals because I feel like a lot of those things are getting sort of swept away and they're getting swept away because. I think that we live in a society where more is more.

It's like, Andy, you like a pumpkin beer? Well, have you had pumpkin vodka? How about pumpkin, milk, just plain old pumpkin milk, you know? And I'm like, I don't, I don't want pumpkin vodka or pumpkin milk, but surely Andy, how about, how about signing up for this pumpkin related streaming service?

Like, I, no, I don't, I don't want any of that. I just, I just want one pint of pumpkin beer. 

Stephanie Goss: But it's totally, it is totally true. It has become so to your point, like it has been, The, it has been spread, like on, on everything. It is the homogenized approach. Like it's being applied. 

Dr. Andy Roark: pumpkin cream cheese. cream cheese. Well, I was going to say, perfect illustration and I'll, I will leave out details and people can fill in the blanks.

Stephanie Goss: But as a former sex ed teacher, I got an email yesterday and I'll let you guys imagine what kind of pumpkin things were advertised in it, but it's, it is across the board. It takes away, I think, that meaning. You know, when you have

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, oh yeah, from back in the old days when the emails you got had, had things that were just

Stephanie Goss: and not safe for work things, that are pumpkin 

Dr. Andy Roark: is not a work email that you're receiving is what I'm, is what I'm hearing

Stephanie Goss: It was not my Uncharted email. It was my Uncharted After Dark email. Listen, we got good feedback from our listeners that they like when I take us off the rails sometimes, 

Dr. Andy Roark: That takes us off the rails into a part of town that I've never asked to go to.

Stephanie Goss: It's okay, it's okay. It's good for you. You just hold on. Hang on. We're getting there. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Hang on. Buckle up, Andy. 

Stephanie Goss: Buckle up, Andy! No, I think that it's a, I think that it's a good conversation. And I think that to your point, When we make it intentional and we make it special and I, given that we're, this is coming out this episode is coming out.

We're a couple weeks before Halloween and Dia de los Muertos. And I, so my practice in California before I moved to Washington, There was one thing that we did every year that we connected to both our greater community and also was ritualistic to us. And that was we, our whole town, we lived in a farming community.

And so we had a lot of Hispanic community members. And we culturally in school as kids, we learned about Dia de los Muertos the same way we did Halloween. And it was a part of our culture, community culture. And we as a town celebrated it. And there was different events that happened over the course of the month.

And one of those pieces was our clinic hosted the pet altar. We had an ofrenda that we set up in the lobby and clients, but also the community as a whole were welcomed into the practice to bring offerings and memory share memories of departed pets, bring in pictures. And our team, part of our tradition was we actually closed the practice for an afternoon and took a couple of hours and we decorated the whole lobby and we set up our ofrenda and we had we celebrated with cultural snacks and drinks and we really celebrated it as a team.

And it was a tradition. It was one of those things that we did. And it was one of those things that as a team, we looked forward to every year because we got to we got to include ourselves as real human beings. So my girlfriend and I, who I worked with at that practice, we're super crafty.

We got to create things for it. We had a team member who was Hispanic. And so she would Make food for us to try. That was from her family and her culture. And so it became this thing that was greater than us as a group in a practice. And so when you talk about creating those rituals, those things that not only bring us memories as teams, but also tie us to our greater communities, I think about things like that.

And I think you're not wrong that we have a lot of practices in veterinary medicine that have those unique things that tie them to their greater community or that have those kind of rituals with their team. And I, I love that. I'm here for it 

Dr. Andy Roark: You just blew my mind with that. I, that just makes me so freaking happy. I, I love to Dia de Los Muertos. I just think it's such a cool holiday. It's just, the family part of it is just so freaking cool. And, but just to the point of making a ritual, like for your, for your team to have some sort of tradition.

What a freaking amazing tradition, right? It's got the arts and crafts stuff. That's team building. That's spending time together doing stuff. Doing something that's low stress. That's not about medicine. Just there's so many beautiful pieces to what you lay down. And it's like, I don't know what it costs as a business to say, we're going to close early and we're going to do this and we're going to let the community come in.

I don't know. I don't care. To me, it's, it's gotta be worth it. It's you'll never be able to calculate that ROI for the bean counters, but you gotta believe it's there. It's there in employee morale. It's there in community engagement. It's there with just making life something worth, worth participating

Stephanie Goss: Well, and being tied to the greater, The greater, that greater community, you know, I, I agree with you, like there, there is not that calculate, you can't calculate that return on investment.

Dr. Andy Roark: No, as soon as you try to, it just, it, it kills it too. Like there, there has to be things going back to my point about like, everything has to be monetized to the max. It's like, we kill so many beautiful things when we, do that. And so again, I understand we got to pay the bills. This is a business podcast.

I get it. And I think in this world, having little traditions like that, will become more and more valuable because they are rarer and rarer. And so anyway, I just I could just talk about this forever But what a what a beautiful sentiment. I'm really glad we talked about this. Let's let's talk about that Let's talk

Stephanie Goss: Let's talk about that episode, but no,

Dr. Andy Roark: We gotta we better get this show on the road. 

Stephanie Goss: There is a point, there is a point to this. So we were, so we had a, we had a great mail bag question that at first glance maybe is like has nothing to do with what we've been talking about, but I can't wait to dig into into it because it has to do with culture, right?

We got a mailbag. We have, I'm assuming it's from a manager or a leader in their practice, but they're struggling particularly with some of their younger team members. And I'm going to go ahead and make an important distinction that if you are the practice owner, the practice manager listening right now, and when I say younger generation, you say millennials, I'm going to say wrong.

And I wish that Dustin could insert a big buzzer 

​

Stephanie Goss: and when I say younger generation, you say millennials, I'm going to say wrong. because these are not millennials. These are Gen Z and even Gen Alpha are starting to be hired as kennel kids in our practices. And so we need to start thinking about that. Because it's a very distinct difference, but they're struggling with the younger generations because they are struggling in two ways,

and I have experienced these as a manager, one is the adulting and knowing how to adult. And the other is having in specific is having compassion for their clients. And so this leader is struggling because they feel like there is a lot of judgy behavior happening with the team. And when the team feels like they're getting pushback from clients or there's anything that doesn't go exactly according to plan with a client, the team has the attitude of like, I don't have the mental capacity to deal this deal with this and there's this behavior of let me run to my manager to take care of it like this client is angry and I experienced this and the best example would be when the front desk would call me and they'd be like, I have a client on the phone who's yelling at me.

And I would say, okay, well, tell me what that looks like. And they're like they just said this. And I'm like, so they didn't actually yell at you. They just told you something that you didn't maybe know the answer to, or didn't like the answer to, right? This leader is having that kind of experience.

And so they're struggling with feeling like the team is super hypersensitive and reactive to clients. And especially when it gets into the money territory, as all of us can imagine, it gets even stickier. And so they're like, look, I have tried the coaching. I have tried pulling them aside. I've tried talking through how I am handling situations. This leader is just super, super frustrated. And they're, they're also now getting feedback from the community and from their clients that the customer service aspect comes off as very cold, very not welcoming being all about the money. And this leader is like, that's not who we are. So how do I change this?

How do I change the tide? Because this is not sitting well with me. 

Dr. Andy Roark: Okay This is a great question and we see this we see this a lot. All right. I want to go ahead, let's start with headspace as we usually do. Now, hold on for a second, because we're going to get a little bit philosophical here. And this is going to get, this is going to get real broad, but I promise I'm going somewhere pretty concise with this. I think that as leaders, we have got to pay attention to our own emotions. And when we start to feel like we are looking at a societal problem, we need to take a step back. Because that is wildly unproductive. It is wildly unproductive, right? If if I'm looking at my staff and I go, Ah, that's the problem with young people.

No accountability. That is such a, it's probably unfounded. It's probably stereotyping just because we're saying young people. But just, just walk with me. If I say, Ah, it's a problem with people in America today. There's no accountability. Okay. That's a monumental, it's an existential problem. You are not going to fix it.

You're not going to fix it. It is so far beyond your capacity. It makes you feel helpless. It makes you feel angry. Everything kind of falls into it. It is completely unproductive headspace. And so the first part of headspace for me is to say, Hey, reject the idea. I just I don't like talking about problems as generational problems And i've gotten flack for that because i've never done anything about generational styles.

I don't try I just I don't like it I do I understand that there are trends based on people hitting certain developmental Milestones at similar times with certain things going on in the world around them. I understand that people who were in school when COVID hit and everything shut down, they're going to have some trends and behavior and future perspective based on that.

I get it. I don't from a management action standpoint, believe that it's really helpful for me to deal in generational trends. It's much more helpful to say, all right. Let's look at the people that we have and let's address the specific behaviors that we're seeing without stacking them up into generational trends.

I think we pile these things into trends, societal trends, because we like to make sense of the world. That is antithetical to actually fixing problems in your practice and enjoying your day. And whenever I start to feel really crappy, it's generally because I am zoomed way  out, looking at the world with a caveman brain that was evolved to juggle problems That has to do with a tribe of a couple dozen people, right?

Like it's just i'm not built to take whole world problems.

Stephanie Goss: Or the flip side of that, where you're zoomed so far in, and I think this, email was a great example of that because it started with this leader asking, Hey, I need some team training on emotional intelligence, right? So it was zoomed in laser focus where they had said, My problem is on my team doesn't have enough emotional intelligence.

How do I train them on it? But if you open that lens a little bit, is that really your problem?

Dr. Andy Roark: Ah, I like that. I like that a lot.

Stephanie Goss: Or is there some stuff going on? So I think it goes on both sides, the zoomed way 

Dr. Andy Roark: Oh 

Stephanie Goss: the zoomed way in.

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I think you're right. There's a framing issue here for sure So I just want to start with that whenever you're looking at your team and you say that's the societal problem. You need to stop because you have just said that's a problem. That is so big No single person could ever I'm like, you just frame this up in a way that's completely impossible for you to deal with.

So anyway, let it go, let it you don't have to fix the problem of society, but we are going to fix the problem inside of our little vet clinic that we have power over. So that's one. So number two, the thing I want to get to is I see three issues here that are laid down. So the first is emotional intelligence.

The second is expectation setting, and the third is accountability. So we'll start with those three.

I want to talk about emotional intelligence, and I think you're right in that there's really framed in here. I think there's two ways to think about it. You could either say what you said, which is, Boy, you're really framed in tightly.

I'm not sure if that's really your issue. I, it's funny you said it that way. My thought was, I could say, okay, cool. I'll buy the emotional intelligence thing for a moment. But I will say this. There are some problems that we do not fix directly. Okay, or that are much more challenging to fix directly and the analogy I'll give you is imagine there's a traffic jam that you have to navigate

you can get into that traffic jam and try to maneuver your car around all of the other bumper to bumper traffic and get through it or you can recognize a traffic jam and make a turn onto a side street and just drive all the way around this thing and not deal with it and get where you need to go.

That's how I feel about this statement about emotional intelligence. I don't think you want to wade into emotional intelligence for this specific problem about customer service, especially around angry, upset people. I, I think that if you go to your team and you start talking about emotional intelligence, it's going to become this huge thing and it's all multifaceted and it's just don't even if we fix the customer service client empathy problem, the emotional intelligence, in quotes is going to get taken care of. It's, you're going to be fine. And so, I am much less likely to go and say to my team, we need to work on emotional intelligence and more, guys, tell me about, tell me how you feel about working with our pet owners.

Like, how does it make you feel to work with our pet owners? And like, that's, it sounds much more roundabout. It is, it's me driving around the traffic jam. And we're gonna, we're gonna fix this problem, but I'm not going to wade into emotional intelligence. I think there's another way to do it. That's going to get us where we need to go.

Stephanie Goss: And I think going back to your analogy about the big whole world problems that no one can fix. You can collectively brainstorm as a team solutions to a problem like, Hey, tell me about how you guys feel when a client gives you pushback about an estimate because they tell you that they have no money. Tell me how that makes you feel. You can dive into that with them as a group and still make progress. That's actually a problem you can solve as a group. Whereas talking about emotional intelligence, everybody on your team is going to come at it from different perspectives, different levels, different backgrounds.

If you have the conversation, tell me how you feel about it, when a client pushes back from a financial perspective, you're going to be able to laser in. on the team members specifically who may have some emotional intelligence work to do that you then can help them with as a, as an end result, right?

Whether it's self awareness or, the ability to, gauge others and judge behavior whatever the emotional intelligence skills are that they are struggling with or lacking. That actually gives you a crystal clear picture. You won't get that if you try and come at it from a, Hey, let's work on emotional intelligence skills.

You're not going to necessarily get, you might get to the same end result, but to your point about the traffic jam is going to be a whole hell of a lot messier 

Dr. Andy Roark: I think you're going to get bogged down here and it's just, it's, yeah, it's, it's not a good effective use of your time and resources.

There's three things we need to do. So I said, we've got emotional intelligence.

We've got expectations, accountability, the three steps for me. And we'll get this in action steps is number one. We need changed the culture around clients, the way we think about clients, the way we feel about them, what success looks like. And if we changed the culture around clients, I think the empathy part will resolve itself.

People are like, how do you treat empathy? And, or how do you teach empathy? And the thing is, I don't think you do. I think you get. I think you work to help people understand others and then the empathy will follow. I can't make you empathize I can help you to understand and if I do that and you're not a complete psychopath or sociopath then I think that you'll you know What I mean empathy is kind of a natural thing when we understand the other people I do I think people are innately good. I really do. 

Stephanie Goss: Don't be, don't be a psychopath like Andy. 

Dr. Andy Roark: yeah, it's there's some people who are just like i'm I don't care burn them down. I don't see those You have to be, you have to be really evil to be like, I don't care, burn it down, and I'm going to go to vet medicine. Like, Dr. Evil, you know?

Like, I went to evil medical school. It's just, it's a next level evil. So anyway, I don't think that's usually the case. So number one is change the culture around the clients. Number two, we need to set expectations for who deals with hard clients.

And then we need to build accountability for dealing with customer service challenges and that can't happen without without training and support, but ultimately change the culture around the clients set expectations for dealing with the clients inside this new culture and then after expectations are set we start to hold people accountable and obviously we can't hold people accountable if we don't support them and train Them and get them the skills that they need.

But that's it. It's a it's a that's a three step. That's a three step plan Yeah that's, I think that's what I got, and then we can come back and talk about how you actually do that for me in the action

Stephanie Goss: I can, I actually, so I wound up in a very similar place, so I can totally buy into that. And if you are listening to this episode and you didn't listen to the last episode that, that we did, we did one, uh, it's episode 306. about a team that is struggling with bashing clients and changing on a broader level, changing the culture around dealing with clients.

You should go back and listen to that episode because we walked through specific steps on how do we start to actually make that cultural change too. it's so funny cause we did not plan this, but that one just came out as well. And so, you're looking for a resource there, that, that's a good one. It's 306.

Dr. Andy Roark: You got anything else for Headspace?

Stephanie Goss: No, I think that's good. Let's get in. Let's get into the action steps.

Dr. Andy Roark: Cool, let's take a break and we'll do that. 

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Dr. Andy Roark: Alright, so we're getting into action steps here. There's, this kind of weeds a little bit into Headspace, but it but not really. the first thing I think you need to do here is get curious about how the staff really feels about clients and why there's a lot of, talking about, the clients report that the staff seems cold and they seem to be about the money and, and I understand that.

And I would hear that and the owner says, or the manager says, you know, that's not who we are. Okay, we gotta do some work here. You know, I don't know what's going on. I think there's a lot of assumptions about these people don't want to adult or whatever. Like, maybe that's true. I don't know.

Do they really not have the skills? Do they really think that they just can't even, or they don't have the bandwidth? What, what's going on here?

Stephanie Goss: I will being honest and candid, uh, say that as a manager, when you are frustrated because people are asking you to do their job regularly. And that was my perception. Like when my team would be like, Hey, I have this client on the phone and they're yelling at me, can you please talk to them?

What ultimately, when that happens consistently, if it's a one off, okay, fine, no problem. But when it's happening consistently as a manager, I, without even thinking about it, not intentionally, unintentionally, immediately switch to a headspace of like, why can't they just do their jobs? Like, why am I having to do their job with that for them?

And it came from this place of frustration. And so now I'm applying generalities to them. Well, none of them know how to do this. And they can't adult. And I just don't understand. It's really easy to spiral into that negative headspace when you're feeling frustrated about something else. And so I love that you started with the getting curious and the other piece that goes hand in hand with that which is what else could this possibly mean?

And I think you probably have to do some headspace work with a finger pointing back at yourself before you point the finger at the rest of the team and ask yourself, What am I actually frustrated about here? What am I actually feeling emotions about here?

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, there's a potential to blow this whole thing up right here in a good way. Meaning I know this, this is going to sound trite when I say it, but I promise it's true. The number of times I've gotten to this step with somebody who's having a problem in practice and said, look, we got to go get real curious.

And the person goes in and pulls the staffer individually and sort of says, what's going on? And the people say, I Hand the angry client off to you because I don't have anywhere to take phone calls and there are clients standing at the desk looking at

me while this person is talking to me and It's just it is too much and the whole issue comes down to oh They're kicking you these calls because they're stuck in a public place in front of your other clients and just can't execute what you're asking them to do.

And you go, oh. And the whole, this whole like emotional, it all goes away. And I know that sounds like it's ridiculous and you're like, Andy, that, that does not happen. It's never that simple. It's amazing how often it is that simple. It really shocks me where there is a totally understandable, or at least partially understandable reason that you get and you go, Oh, yes, I can at least see where you're coming from.

And that, that happens a lot. And you're like, Oh, they would tell me. It's amazing. What people just leave out of their reports, if you will. 

Stephanie Goss: I think the majority of the time it comes down to three, it comes down to three things. It's either a logistical problem, like you said, there's not the space for the conversation, they're worried about having it in front of other clients, something like that. It is a training issue where someone says, I know we're supposed to tell them, this is what you have to pay for and why, but I'm not actually sure that I understand that why or I don't, you know, I, I just don't know how I'm supposed to do that or it comes down to a training issue or the third piece is often an experience piece where.

They had it go badly with a client, and now they're worried about it, or they have their own concerns over money, and so they're feeling uncomfortable having the conversation, and so I think usually when you ask the questions and get curious, you get an answer that falls into one of those camps and that is that is solvable that is a problem that you can put on the table and say hey gang this is the challenge how this is the problem.

How do we fix it?

Dr. Andy Roark: Yeah, I agree with that. So related to getting curious, the first part of getting curious is what the heck is going on here, and let's try to figure out how to have that conversation. I would probably have it informally. I'd probably have it as one off conversations with one person, as opposed to engaging with a group, things like that.

The other part of getting curious is things that I probably would talk to the group about meaning everyone who's involved in this issue and it would sound like a team building activity just a little discussion with the team with the staff whatever but my opener would be something like What do you guys think the ideal?

Path for an upset client is let's say that someone is upset. They have a real problem. How do they engage with us? Where does that go? Who do they talk to help me understand in your minds? What does that look like? And then I'm going to follow up. If they don't give it to me, I'll follow up with the questions of at what point do you think it's acceptable to send somebody up the chain?

Like, when does that happen? What are the criteria for that? And I really like this as a group discussion, because then. One, it's not them saying to me, Hey, I want you to take this call, and me going, do you think it's acceptable for me to take this call? It's in front of everybody, and we're all talking about it.

And I have found that I can get generally positive discussions out of this. I think that it helps people to hear what other people think. Now, granted, you need to read the room a little bit here, and kind of know what you're walking into, and if you've got people who are going to be militant, and angry, and pounce on you, it might not do it, but for the most part, I think this honest, candid discussion works fine.

It's okay. If they say things you don't agree with, the point here for you is not to publicly debate them. I see a lot of people who go in there like, all right, got it, Andy. I'm going to go into this meeting. I'm going to ask a question. I'm going to hope that they give the answer that I want. And if they don't

give the answer that I want, that I'm going to publicly debate them in front of the rest of the staff. I'm like, no, no, 

Stephanie Goss: Been there done that. Made that mistake. 

Dr. Andy Roark: You're gonna, you're gonna go in there with, exactly, we all have but you're gonna, you're gonna go in there with a notebook, and you're gonna say, I just want to understand what you guys think, and what's important to you, and you're gonna dutifully write down what they say, and then you're gonna shut up, and you're gonna say, thank you very much, I just wanted to hear this is good, this helps me a lot.

If any of you have other thoughts or comments, or things you didn't share today, and you want to, things, comes to you, come and let me know. I'm gonna, I'm gonna sit with this, I'm gonna process a little bit. And you're gonna go away, and you might end up writing a rebuttal. You might be like, Hey, I heard all of you.

These are the realities of what we're dealing with. Or you might be able to say there were three themes I pulled out that I really want to talk about and just, but I don't know what you're going to get. The important thing is to go in there and really try to listen to them. Oftentimes what happens is it does a lot of good for them to hear that other people are not on the same page as them and what other people, how they do their jobs.

And the last part, is we need clarity here in what we're looking at, right? one of the biggest problems that we deal with in these cases is we're managing to something that has not been spoken out loud. They haven't told me when they're going to escalate a call up the chain.

And I'm kind of making assumptions about what their criteria is. I really want them to answer the question of, At what point do you want to escalate this call? Or do you think you should escalate this call? Because if I can get them to say it, Then we can have an honest conversation about it. when it's needed I do it now we're arguing about what does need mean?

And again, we're not even fixing the problem. We're still trying to figure out what happens but if I can make them tell me with some level of clarity In their mind what constitutes a call that needs to be elevated then I can take that I can write it down. I can ask them. Why is this the level for you?

You like, what is it about these calls that make you feel like they need to get escalated? And now, buddy, now we're in the good stuff. This is where the solution lies. This is where I'm gonna find my key that unlocks the gate and gets this problem opened up and ready to go.

Stephanie Goss: There's two really important pieces that come out of that too, because when you have that conversation collectively as a group, and to your point, when you ask them, like, when do you escalate it? And whether you do it You know, privately or you just let them bring it out.

The reality is in most teams that have more than, you know, five or six people, you probably have one person on your team who is the cowboy and they've been around the block and they're, they'll tackle any client. So they're going to have the answer of, I don't like, unless someone's threatening physical violence, I just deal with it.

Right. And then you're going to have the person on your team who maybe is the newer person, maybe is more introverted. Like whatever the reasons are, they're just like I, you know, they're the ones who escalate things more frequently and they're going to have a reason for that. And so now you have the two ends of the spectrum within your own team and you have the ability to say, okay, so if Amanda is over here and she feels super confident and she can do this, Hey Amanda, I would love it if you could help me.

And let's talk through what that looks like for you. How do you talk to them? What do you say? How do you get them to calm down? And now it's not you as the leader who is doing that work. You have the ability to lean into the team for the solution and help get them to a more middle ground, which would probably be your ideal solution of, okay, there's probably some happy medium between Amanda standing there while a client is threatening to punch her in the face.

A manager should probably be involved before that, right? But I don't need to answer every call where a client is looks sideways at someone. Part of your job is to deal with the client service at the front desk, you know what I mean? So I feel like we're picking on the front desk, but it's a great illustration for the, for the conversation.

Dr. Andy Roark: No, I, I completely agree with that. So once we've sort of had this conversation and we've done the curious part and we've done the investigation for me, I think we need to start talking about resetting the culture. And again, this is very much pending what they say. Is the underlying issues. But let's just say that they don't like the clients, or, or that they're not comfortable with or that they're cold towards the clients.

it's always hard to negatively reinforce culture. That's one of my favorite sayings is, you're not going to punish people into a good culture. You're just not. I've seen it happen. Tried many, many times. It doesn't work. You have got to positively reinforce your way into culture. And so for me, I would start to have a culture meeting, right?

Remember culture comes from the top as well. And I would take that as an owner, as a manager, as a medical director, you have great power in setting the tone about how we look at clients and how we talk to clients. Now you can't snap your fingers and make other people talk differently, but the way that the practice talks about its clients sends a message to the employees about what is expected.

And so I might go ahead and start a client appreciation push. That's unrelated in its stated purpose to the issue at hand. If you're getting these responses or or reviews that people are cold, I think it might be time to circle up the troops and just start to talk to them about our clients. Not in relation to anything in particular, but just guys What do our clients mean to us? What do you like about our clients? Our clients take a lot of effort and energy. Why are they worth it?

Guys, think about the times you've gone home at the end of the day and felt really good about your job. When were those days? Did the clients you see play a role in those? 

Stephanie Goss: hmm. Mm hmm.

Dr. Andy Roark: And, and I would start to put together some sort of a meeting or something around that.

And then just lean into the idea that we want to honor our clients. We want to respect our clients. We want to celebrate our clients. And, and then start to, to figure out ways to do that unrelated to the telephone problem. And again, this, it takes a while. I would, I wouldn't tie this to training or anything.

I would just start to work on it. And then I think I would take that and own it as the team lead and say, what can I do to manifest the way that I think our clients should be treated and talked about and just start thinking creatively.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah I love that. And it's fun. I think as a leader in this, this is where it goes back to like my team loving, participating in, in Dia de los Muertos, like this is that same opportunity because let me tell you, when I have asked. My team questions like, close your eyes and tell me about your favorite client. The difference in the answers that you get is so awesome. And you learn things about your team and you also learn things about your clients. Like you learn about Mrs. Smith who might have, been sharing the story about her pet at the front desk with, you know, Sarah. And then she finds out when she comes in that you know, Sarah's out because

her partner is sick or something like that and takes her a home cooked meal. You don't even know about some of that stuff that our clients do for us in the team and help create that fabric. And so I love your point about, about trying to get them to talk about it in a different way and inspiring that what is going to set you apart? Like what about your clients makes them a part of who you are as a culture?

Dr. Andy Roark: Exactly. And then how do the clients tie to your values? And then I would say related to that, remember I said, you can't punish your way to good culture. You need to flip it around. I would start an initiative to celebrate people who celebrate the clients. 

I would get back into the uncharted, positive reinforcement that we teach of finding specific examples of when people go above and beyond to support our clients, to celebrate our clients, to make our clients feel valued. And I would start shouting those people out and celebrating them and however you want. And it can't be you, the medical director, hoping to catch people in the act. We need to start a program where they can shout each other out, where we ask them very clearly, if, and when you see someone who's living our values and, and going above and beyond to take care of our pet owners, I want you to drop the I want you to write it down and drop it in this box and i'm gonna we're gonna do something nice for them.

It doesn't have anything big. It can be it can be their favorite candy bar It can be five dollar starbucks gift cards. It's things like that But now you're showing your team what matters you are positively reinforcing behaviors you want. You're patting people on the back making them feel appreciated and recognized for going the extra mile and delivering the behaviors that you want and so don't smack them on the hand for not being nice. Give them a candy bar for being wonderful.

Stephanie Goss: And so I'll tell you one, one of the ways I think this will illustrate your point perfectly, Andy, and it's one of the ways that I have screwed this up. So we went through a period where we were getting a lot of negative reviews about team related client service related stuff. And I, it got brought to my attention because my boss was like, Hey, We're getting a lot of these reviews and I need you to deal with it.

And so as a leader, I felt pinched. I was like, Oh crap. Now I'm on the hot seat because the team is not having good customer service. And so as a manager, I was thinking through it, what I thought was logically, which was, okay, let me look at the reviews. Let me find out what they're complaining about. Okay.

Let me help these people by giving them further training. I'll point out what's being done. And correctly, we'll talk through it, we'll get them to the right answer, and then the behavior will change. How it came across to the team was that the only time they were hearing about client reviews was when they were the negative reviews.

And so they were like, we only get smacked, and we have a sit down with you to talk about what we're doing wrong. We never hear about the positive stuff because I was like, Oh, we need to fix this stuff. We're on the wrong side of the 80 20 rule. And it took me a while to realize that until I had a team member go, don't we ever get any good client reviews?

And I was like, well, yeah, we get tons of good client reviews. Well, how can we never see any of those? And I realized that I was doing it wrong and I was doing it backward. And so I switched it up for myself, and I was like, Oh, that's a good point. And I started focusing on the positive. And so I started having the team be able to see all of the reviews instead of just the ones that we needed to fix, right?

Because we focus on the problems. We're problem solvers by nature in medicine. And so it was like, Oh, here's something that's broken. I want to fix it. But really, it was about, let's talk about the Let's talk about the good. And so very easy version of that was to say, okay, when somebody gets called out by name or by position where we can identify them in a positive way in their review, I'm going to reward them.

And that was such an easy switch for me to make as leader. And to your point, Andy, be able to reward that positive behavior, but also how uplifting for the team to be able to say, Hey, guys, at the end of the day, we're doing our team huddle. And I just want to take two seconds and read you this review that came in today from Mrs.

Smith. 

Dr. Andy Roark: I'm completely on board. All right. So action steps so far, get curious, get curious about what is happening? Why is this happening? Get curious about how they actually feel about the clients and then get into resetting the culture. And starting to jumpstart the culture, let's get positive about our clients.

Just top down, not, this is not a program for the front desk. It's is a program for everybody. Let's make sure that we're getting clear messaging from the top down about what our clients mean. And then let's start to positively reinforce lateral celebrations of people who are going up and beyond for our clients.

Number three is we got to create some kind of guidelines, right? They're not rules. But there are some guidelines. Yeah, exactly. About when and why clients get escalated up the chain. And so let's talk, let's try to come up with some, at least some guidelines. And that's all about trying to set expectations.

And really, I said, problem number one, we said emotional intelligence. Number two, we said setting expectations, setting guidelines and making the guidelines collaboratively with the team, or at least that's how we set expectations. If they say if the client raises their voice. They should be escalated if you say oh, okay Then the expectation is now the client who raised their voice gets escalated And so we need to work that out the way that I would do this Yes, and this is super uncharted style.

This is stephanie. I teach like this all the time. I really love it's it's case challenges is what we call them. I would make up an imaginary front desk person with the staff. We'll all come up with Denise and we'll come up with her together and we'll decide how old she is and how many years she's been here and blah blah blah and what her hobbies are and we'll come up with some fun things and we make imaginary Denise and then I'm going to give Denise a challenge.

I'm going to say Denise is talking on the phone to a pet owner who says these things and does these things. Now do not use something that happened in the practice. People will immediately recognize it. They'll get really defensive. Take something in the practice and modify it to something different. If somebody called about a client a cat that got a bath and something happened, change it to a dog that was boarding and something different happened.

And the staff, they, again, it should not be recognizable, but the theme should be the same. You know, like, they should the client being upset should be understandable come up with it. This is Denise This is what she's saying. The person calls this is what they say to her and this is how they say it Okay, so I start with that number two, and this is important.

I don't have them talk to me directly I have them turn to their partners or work in small groups and come up with a plan Of how you would respond and that lets them talk low stakes quietly to each other and they validate each other and decide that this is an acceptable plan and then I get these groups to share their plan back out to the larger group and we can all look at them.

I don't judge them. I write them all down. And we look at them and say, Oh, what do we like about this plan? Is there anything we would change about this plan? Is there anything that other groups would do differently here? And again, it's not about shaming. It's not about grading. It's about getting them to discuss what they see.

It is amazing how often one group will have a plan and another group will have a totally different plan and they will look at each other like they're from different planets and then. Like comprehension just dawns like, oh, I wasn't even thinking about those things. And so get them to do it based on their discussions of what they come up with about how they would handle these cases.

Let's start to make those guidelines about when we might escalate phone calls and then apply appropriate training. And so if they, if they're like, yep, we need to send this up. It is totally in bounds for you to say I want us to do some training on this so that not every one of these cases gets escalated and if you're like, but how do I train?

I'll put a quick plug in for the Dr. Andy Roark Charming the Angry Client Course online. It's drandyroark.com it is a mega best seller. I've sold a lot a lot a lot of these courses. They are made for the team to watch together and to discuss what they do and how they do it in your practice Anyway, drandyroark.com Check out the it's called Charming the Angry Client and is made for teams. But it is a great training resource. And so I got that one for the creating guidelines. That's kind of how I would do that. 

Stephanie Goss: Okay. And that, and that sets the expectations for the team, right? Which is here's when, because ultimately in a situation like this, part of what is probably missing is that there is not a clear expectation two ways. What they can, when they can expect help from you and when you can expect them to solve their own problems, right?

And that, that's what comes out of that kind of conversation and creating the guidelines because you're having that group conversation. 

Dr. Andy Roark: And so that's, we talked about the emotional intelligence part, which we broke up into pieces and turned into a culture part, and then we talked about the setting expectations part, which is what we just did, and the last thing is the accountability. And so for me, after we have. Investigated after we have sort of recommitted ourselves to the culture and building the positive culture after we have talked about some creating some guidelines on how we're going to handle upset clients and use those guidelines to identify holes in our training.

Then it's time for us to hold people accountable to following the guidelines. And so, this is the time when we're going to start reviewing cases that get escalated up. And there's a couple reasons for this. Number one, if somebody kicks me a case up to deal with and I'm like, yeah, they should have kicked me this case.

I'm gonna say that was the, just so you know, that was the right call. You should possibly reinforce them sending cases up that they should send up. If it's not and i'm like, why am I dealing with this? I would go back and say to them. Hey, walk me through the the thought process on escalating this case.

What was going on? Why did you decide to do this? Now a lot of times what's going to happen is the person talking to the practice owner or the manager a very different tone than they did when they talked to the front desk. That is a crap tastic behavior, but it's out there. And so do not think that you got this rosy, nice person and the front desk was a bunch of chickens and just is like, nah, they may have had a very different experience you had.

And so just know that and be okay with it.

So part of it's going back and saying Talk to me about why this this came up just so I understand what were they doing and lean into it as far as you know Is there are there skills that we need to work on? Is there support that you need? Guys, I talk a lot about the path of least resistance and remember your employees your staff will often take the path of least resistance.

And if it's easier for them to hit the switch button and send the angry person to you, than it is for them to deal with the angry person, they're going to be more likely to hit the switch button and kick it to you. If they know they're going to kick it to me, and then I'm going to come and we're going to sit down and review the call, suddenly just dealing with the call might be easier and faster than kicking it to Andy.

And I told you this the punishing but I want them to get better because I don't want them to keep kicking it to me But the thing that happens is that path of least resistance. Coming to me is not the least resistant path because we are going to talk about why you send it over to me So I can make sure you have the resources you need and you're going to have to talk to me and it's going to be you know, not not a bad thing But it's going to be a thing you're gonna have to deal with And just that level of what I call intentional friction is often enough to make people say, you know what?

I'll just deal with it. And so we can subtly introduce that. And the last thing here is get serious about diving into these things. if you're not recording phone calls, it might be time to try recording phone calls for a while. You don't have to do it forever, but we might want to have a recording so that when the person says, yeah, they're being nasty, I said them to you.

I'm going to listen to that phone call and see what they said. And, I might bring you in and we'll listen to it together and talk about what could we have done differently? How, you know, how could we've handled this another way? And again, it's just about having that conversation of like, let's listen to the same thing.

And so anyway, at some point you're going to pick your poison. You're either going to record the phone calls and then sit down and talk to the person about them, or you're going to bring them in and do sort of a postmortem on the phone call that they escalated, or you're not going to do those things and you're going to continue to answer the phone. And deal with angry people. Now, you pick your poison. Do you want more phone calls you deal with yourself or do you want more phone calls or sit down meetings where you work with people so that they can better deal with the angry clients? Those are your two options. One of them gets a lot easier over time and the other one does not get any easier.

Stephanie Goss: I have a, I have a hint. No one should answer yes to the first one. 

Dr. Andy Roark: and the last thing I would give is maybe a circle back to headspace here too is know that if you're the leader or the manager Your goal should not be to get to zero where no one ever 

Stephanie Goss: Yes. 

Dr. Andy Roark: to you. That means that they're, that means that they're, exactly. That means that, that they're afraid to send things to you.

There are going to be some things that they're just not going to have the power to fix. And, You should be okay with that. There's going to be things that happen that honestly, just emotionally, the pet owners are going to want to talk to the owner or the medical director or the manager. You know what I mean?

And like, if they don't hear from the manager, they're going to be upset. And again, those things are few and far between, but when they happen, don't get upset about it. Just know that sometimes it's going to happen. It should not be an everyday occurrence for you to, it should not be a once a week occurrence for you, but it should happen.

And that's, that's fine. We're working to try to reduce the call volume you're dealing with by 80%. Not a hundred percent.

Stephanie Goss: Yeah. Yeah. The, the other thing, the only other thing that I would add to your, to picking your poison and your your options besides the recording the calls. That was a game changer for me and my practice was adding video because body language and communication makes such an impact. And especially from where this leader is talking about, there's reviews from the clients that talk about something like the client, the, the staff comes across as cold or they come across as all about the money.

Well, what does that actually mean? What does it look like? What does it sound like? What did it feel like? I think in terms of getting to the root cause. And instead of focusing, focusing on it from an this goes back to once you open the lens wide, then you can narrow it back down. So if you do have a team member that is struggling with some emotional intelligence, and maybe their struggle is with, you know, the self awareness, maybe their struggle is with empathy or social skills.

Those are actual emotional intelligence skills that they may need more training on. And you get that. You get that glimpse into it by being able to see what they're doing here, what they're doing. And I know that a lot of people are opposed to that because they don't want to make it an environment where they feel like big brother is watching in their practice.

But let me tell you, it was a game changer for the whole team. They all hated me when I said I was bringing cameras in and it made the biggest

difference on how we worked with clients in the end. And it was huge. And even some of the biggest detractors at the end were just like, this is actually really helpful. Like I hate seeing myself on camera, but this was really, I'm really glad that we did this.

Dr. Andy Roark: We are out of time. Thank you, Stephanie Goss. Uh, thanks everybody for tuning in. 

Stephanie Goss: Yeah, have a great week, everybody.

Dr. Andy Roark: See you, gang!

Stephanie Goss: Hey, everybody. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. We really enjoyed it and we hope you did as well. I just wanted to take a quick second and say, if you aren't currently on our untreaded newsletter, you should head over to unchartedvet.com/assemble Yes, that's right. 

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And it's a low stakes fun way to engage with your team. Doesn't take very long. All you gotta do is sign up for the newsletter and you'll get a free PDF in your inbox. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next week.