Train your veterinary team

Dealing with unhappy clients is just one of the many skills your receptionist needs to be an effective customer service representative. In The Veterinary Receptionist's Handbook, Second Edition (Advanstar Veterinary Healthcare Communications, 2000), authors M.T. McClister, DVM, and Amy Midgley offer these four steps to cool your clients' hire:

1. Let the client know you realize he or she is upset.

2. Find out the reason why.

3. Work out a solutionfor the problem.

4. Record exactly what happened in your client complaints notebook andin the client’s folder.