Abusive clients

I’ve read some of the reports of vets suffering abuse from clients and it’s upset me on many fronts.

First is the misuse of the term “abuse”, but that’s something I’ll leave for another blog. My main issue today is that, as veterinary practices, we have it within our control to resolve many of the potential conflict areas that can result in a client speaking in unacceptable terms or tones.

This has left me with several thoughts bouncing around:

1. Yes, clients have spoken to me inappropriately in my time as a vet nurse.
2. I would say vets face the least stress as the client has often vented at other staff members before and after seeing the vet.
3. Having worked in retail, I’ve suffered much worse conduct over less important issues from the public.
4. We’re a service industry, and while I don’t believe clients should be able to act how they like, we can easily reduce the areas where conflict occurs.

Let me explain…

1. Inappropriate behaviour

I’ve worked for charities and private practice, and have covered all hours of the day and night. You see people at their best and their worst in the role of a vet nurse: people helping family members in difficult times and pet owners receiving the worst news possible about their beloved pet. Add veterinary bills into the mix and things can get very heated indeed.

I’ve been threatened with death, been physically intimidated and generally been told I don’t care, that I’m heartless (etc) – just for doing my job – and while I agree such behaviour is inappropriate, it’s usually from people at the extremes of pain and grief and stress.

Different people have different ways of coping, and while death threats aren’t my way of doing things, I realise they are for some. It isn’t right, but it happens.

In the veterinary world I’ve always had the support of a team around me and been able to feed back if some situations were, in fact, down to the way we dealt with clients.

2. Do vets have it easy?

I realise the headlines of these reports need to grab people to read the article but, as mentioned in one story, vets usually receive the least abuse.

If consults are running late, for example, it’s the front of house staff who get moaned at. Once in the consult room, after the vet has apologised for the wait, the client will likely say: “Don’t worry, that’s fine”, when we ALL know that’s not what they were/would be saying to anyone else leading up to – or after – that moment.

The whole team suffers from poor service, so the whole team can put it right.

3. Disorderly conduct

Let’s just make it clear – these situations are not exclusive to the veterinary profession.

I don’t want to scare anyone with my work stories – mainly because I know they were hollow threats from people in a stressful situation, but also because I’ve not always worked in the veterinary sector. If you think it’s bad in the veterinary world, try retail – during my time “behind the counter”, as such, I was intimated, threatened, and even stalked.

Tales of retail

In one case a member of the public complained about my decision when they tried to return an item. Management then deemed it suitable to give out my full name to said customer.

The store had a staff entrance down a badly lit alleyway and I would need to leave via that on my own later that day. Near closing time, the man with the complaint appeared in the store, and waited on my floor – not shopping, just waiting. I informed other staff, but they could see no issue.

Not only that, but local shoplifters get to know who you are and where you work. Have the misfortune to meet them when not at work, and it’s not pleasant.

4. Areas for improvement

To pit the retail stories against the vet ones is interesting. Neither set of clients are better than the other, but we should be able to work free of stress and harassment whoever employs us.

However, while many vet practices offer mediocre front of house services (see below) and don’t have a transparent way of calculating estimates (or sticking to them), you’re going to see more complaints than you need to.

That’s the difference here: in retail, I had no control over what I could do – the customer’s back story re: why they needed the money back so badly didn’t change anything. In veterinary practice, however, we have many ways to a) reduce the stress on clients and b) improve our communication and transparency with costs.

The flip side

Having also been a client, I can say the ability to deal with “us” at a decent level of customer service is limited. Sitting in vet waiting rooms over the past 2-3 months I’ve seen pretty awful standards of client care and, sadly, I don’t think these are outliers. From my experience, it’s normal.

A quick summary of what I’ve seen and experienced recently:

• staff sighing and holding their head after putting down the phone from a client – while the waiting room is full
• chatting about clients with colleagues in front of other clients – not always with a positive attitude
• failure to complete basic paperwork despite four reminders
• rude response to client requests

When you are the client you head to the practice each time with at best a 1-5% niggling thought that something might be wrong with your pet. Introduce any clinical signs and that escalates to 100%, or: “My pet has something incurable and/or debilitating and/or expensive”.

We’re a service industry after all. Having done mystery shopping for vet practices and been a client in many I don’t work in, I can say customer service is pretty basic in many places and downright awful in others.

While I don’t believe clients should come in, be rude to staff, and be allowed to think this is normal, we must realise we have the power to improve the experience for clients – not only in reducing the stress, but also in minimising the flash points for confrontation.