Upset Clients

From time to time, (unfortunately) some potential clients or actual clients will have reasons why they are upset with Wonder Dog. This could be because of the eval pro, a specific trainer or the process or anything.

The good news: Upset clients are the loudest and if handled properly, they turn into your biggest fans and they also tell the most people about you. I can’t tell you how many people over the years have been upset with us and we go above and beyond to fix it and they LOVE us for it!

How To Turn The Situation Around:

1) Start with an apology. When you do, it usually makes people open up since they don’t feel like it’s an “us against them” situation.

2) Listen to listen. Then respond.

3) Look for ways to go over the top in providing value.

4) Let them know we will handle the issue at hand and do our absolute best to make sure they are happy

5) Take responsibility. Don’t blame anyone. It never fixes the situation to blame others.

6) Don’t ever throw the team under the bus. Always protect the family. There may be real reasons to be upset with the trainer but don’t blame the trainer.

7) Ask yourself, what do values 4 & 5 say here? What is the right thing to do? What does owning the situation and creating a positive outcome look like?

Specific Ways to make an upset client happy again:

1) Add more lessons. We don’t have a guaranteed timeline, so this shouldn’t be an issue, but if it is, then add more lessons as needed.

2) Free Tribe Membership: We can extend their Tribe Membership for free.

3) Swap trainers. If this is a Dog Pro issue, then swap trainers and get someone out there ASAP.

4) Offer to send a Senior Dog Pro, Lead Trainer, Branch Manager, etc.

5) Collar at cost. If they are upset about the on-leash program we can do on-leash plus and get them the collar at cost and add another appointment.

6) Free Program Upgrade. If they are on-leash or on-leash + we can offer to upgrade them to off-leash.

How To REMEMBER The Ways to Make Clients Happy

Acronym: “Add more tribe members so Lead Trainer can party!”

Add more (Add more lessons)

Tribe Members (Free Tribe Membership)

So (Swap Trainers)

Lead Trainer (Offer SDP, LT, BM)

Can (Collar at cost)

Party (Free Program Upgrade)!

Last Case Scenarios

1) Partial refund: We can offer a partial refund and continue to train or stop depending on the situation.

2) Full refund and still train the dog/stop training: If the situation is bad enough, we can offer a full refund and continue to train the dog or not train the dog.

3) Recommend another trainer.