Points to consider to satisfy a customer

Sometimes good work is not positively valued, if we are offering a quality service but customers are not happy we have a problem. And it’s a big one.

Although it is common to hear commercial trainers complain about this, they almost never feel responsible: Because the training is good, they think it must be the fault of whoever cannot appreciate it. This assumption is often false, of course there are cases where this is true, but not often.

Customer satisfaction is the third key to commercial success (the other two are quality work and optimizing training), to achieve it remember the following things:

1. Do not make deceptive advertising: A lot of the time in advertising we include everything that could bring in the customers and we do not stop to think about it later. The customer remembers and expects: If you do not do good work, do not say you do because it seems more commercial, however if you consider it best to leave a high percentage of failure rather than use negative techniques do not advertise 100% successful results. If you’re not really a specialist in a race, do not say you are. If what you say and what you do does not coincide, your customer will not be satisfied even if the training is good.
2. Make it clear where you think the training will get to: Individuals often want their dogs to never fail, even if the heavens open and Troy burns down. This can not be achieved, if dogs did not fail there would be no training competitions as every participant would get a hundred points! Let the customer know where their dog can get to, and you must be clear about it, don’t respond with phrases like "we’ll see what happens", "I’ll do everything possible" … These ambiguities are often taken for fear of not being hired, you must be clear from the start. It is better to not hire us than to feel cheated.
3. Make sure you know what the customer wants: Just because most people look for the same thing in training, do not assume that training is the same for everyone. Maybe the dog not coming into the kitchen while making dinner is more important than a perfect performance on the obstacle course. Take time to find out the priorities and objectives of each customer and before the end of training make sure you consider what has been achieved. It is better to give a couple of extra sessions than to leave a customer feeling like training has been interrupted.
4. The dog must work with the customer, not with you: Perhaps the phrase that I hate listening to most as a trainer is "with me the dog was perfect, but from the beginning, I knew they would not obey them," Well if you knew it would not, don’t accept it! It is easy to forget that we do not charge for training the dog, but the owner(s)/dog team.
5. Do not promise unnecessary things: One of the most frequent reasons for dissatisfaction is that the trainer says that "in a few days we will give an overview" or "see how it’s going," which arouses interest… and he doesn’t do it. When training is completed and there is work, it is easy to forget these things, which are often offered lightly. But the customer will have taken it as a commitment and if we don’t do it, the customer will feel that we have neglected them. Even though the dog has had exemplary training.
6. Do not badmouth your competition: Sure you have arguments to defend your services without having to say how bad the others are, doing so gives a bad impression. We are also all in the same boat, let’s compete but let’s not fight.
7. Be formal: Delays, cancellations of classes, changes of the agreed schedule… give the impression that "yes, they know a lot about dogs, but they’re not a serious person" Do not do any of the above unless it is unavoidable, feeling like a nap does not count as "inevitable"!
8. Make it clear how much, how and when you charge: Being ambiguous in this raises susceptibility rapidly, and more as it is.
9. Make sure you receive your money: Getting paid is not only important for eating every day and paying the mortgage, if someone does not pay you can be sure that they will speak badly about you to justify it. It can come to cause you a lot of damage, so avoiding it is a priority.