Ep183 The Customer Service Angle

This week we're talking about how to make owners happy. How do we make a living working on dogs with difficulty with grooming? Now, this is very much for the groomers, but this is also for owners to understand where groomers are coming from and for the trainers and for anybody else because our customer service angle in the grooming industry needs to be tweaked and needs to be changed.

My example of a Safety Policy. 

"To provide the highest level of care for your pet, we have a safety policy. If at any time your pet gets nervous, anxious, scared, aggressive, or even overly silly, we slow down and help your pet to be comfortable and calm. It’s very important to us that the pets in our care are kept safe and stress-free. We use sharp tools and need to prevent injuries. We will work with your pet to help them feel comfortable. This will build a great experience for successful groomings for your pet’s lifetime. Your pet may not be groomed to perfection today. We will charge for the time that we spend working with your pet."

 

Ep183
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[00:00:00] Chrissy: Episode 180 3. This week we're talking about how to make owners happy. How do we make a living working on dogs with difficulty with grooming? Now, this is very much for the groomers, but this is also for owners to understand where groomers are coming from and for the trainers and for anybody else because our customer service angle.

[00:00:19] In the grooming industry needs to be tweaked, needs to be changed. This is the Creating Great Grooming Dog Show. I'm Chrissy Neumyer Smith. I'm a master groomer behavior specialist. I'm a certified professional dog trainer, a certified behavior consultant for canines, a certified professional groomer. I am an instructor at Whole Pet Grooming Academy and I own Happy Critters in Nashua, New Hampshire.

[00:00:40] And this my friends and colleagues is the show. We're grooming and training Meet. Start off with the common story that I hear from groomers. Okay. Because a lot of groomers reach out to me. My Facebook group and my Facebook page haven't been very active because I think that, um, most of the time people just reach out to me directly.

[00:00:58] And that's awesome. That's great guys. If you feel like we're friends, we are. So just go ahead and reach out and I will contact you. But what happens is, this is when I hear a lot is, , he was so bad that by the end he was being really aggressive. What should I do next time? How do I work on a dog like that?

[00:01:15] Now my question is, did you complete the groom? And they're like, well, yes. But by the end he was really getting so much worse. But that is because you keep trying to get the grooming finished. Okay. So I wanna talk about how we can help our owners be happy and understand what we're doing while also helping the dog, because there's a customer service angle that needs to be tweaked just a little bit.

[00:01:44] We are allowing our customers to think, I want this haircut. I'm buying a haircut. Like it's an object on a shelf. You know, you sold that. Guy a haircut, and that's the haircut I want for my dog. So that customer got one and my dog can't, you know, like as if it's [00:02:00] available for purchase. It's just an object.

[00:02:02] Okay? The things that we do are not objects on a shelf. We are selling services. Services are different than an item. Now when we think about it that way, we know as groomers, some dogs are a lot more work than other dogs. Every dog's gonna be a little bit different. Every BK is gonna be a little bit different.

[00:02:23] Maybe those owners brush every day and are very, very good about keeping that dog maintained and others are not. We understand when it's coat issues, but we need to take that into behavior issues. We need to take that information and pull it back. To behavior issues too. The dog, that's a lot more effort to groom because the dog is having trouble being groomed, and unfortunately, if we get stuck in the mindset that we have to get this trim done, we need to get this haircut done, we need this dog to look a certain way.

[00:02:58] That's what our owners are buying, and that's what we are selling. What happens is the behavior ends up getting ignored. Or just worked over. So in the case of he was so bad by the end, you know, like, what do I do next time? By the end, he was being really aggressive. I mean, he was bad from the beginning, but wow.

[00:03:17] By the end, right? That's predictable. He, this dog is literally trying to tell you, I am not comfortable with this. This makes me very, very uncomfortable. And we're saying, uh, sorry dude, your daddy wants a haircut and, okay. I hear you. I've been there. You know, you're like, I, I've gotta get this trim finished.

[00:03:37] I didn't suspect that you were gonna act like this, and your coat is in good shape. And that's what I told your owners when yo