Episode 388: Managing Emotional Reactions to Customer Complaints in Pet Businesses

Have you ever faced a day that spiraled out of control despite your best efforts? Maybe it was due to a misunderstanding with a client about their pet's needs or an unexpected hiccup in your scheduling. We know it happens to the best of us, and that's exactly why this episode is crucial. We're going to show you exactly how to turn the tide, enabling these road bumps to set you apart in this competitive market. But first, we are going to address the feeling we all have when our unhealed trauma comes up from "being in trouble." Handling customer complaints in the pet-sitting business isn't just about damage control—It's a skill that has the potential to reshape your professional trajectory and solidify your standing as a respected leader in your field. It is acknowledging the personal growth journey that it gives us the opportunity to go down. Today, we’re breaking down those barriers and turning customer complaints into stepping stones toward unparalleled success. Topics & Key Points: How to handle failure and find success with inspiring entrepreneur Julia McCoy Managing client complaints with grace and effectiveness Managing emotions when dealing with business complaints Handling customer complaints with emotional intelligence Timestamps: [3:41] Handling failure and finding success [10:14] Managing client complaints [13:03] Managing emotions when dealing with business complaints [15:43] Handling customer complaints with emotional intelligence Notable Quotes: "These are normal responses, but understanding where they come from can help you handle them even better" "Now recognizing these feelings, and the Origins is the first step to managing them. And so here's how you can regulate these emotions. And approach each complaint from a position of calm and professionalism" " Handling your emotional response allows you to approach each complaint as not a challenge. But an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to your client and enhance your services" Resources: The Joy of Failure Magai JazzHR Did you love this episode? Make sure you never miss an episode! Head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify to subscribe to Bella In Your Business. Transcript: Welcome to another episode of Bella in Your Business. My name is Bella Vasta. Oh boy. Before we get into today's topic, which is what to do when you have an angry customer, I want to pass on something that I discovered last week about a fabulous woman named Julie and McCoy who moved here to Arizona, from Texas. And she's quite a remarkable woman. After escaping a cult at 21. And starting her own writing company, and then selling it for millions of dollars. She has now taken that writing company and merged it with content at scale. And she's going to be our guest speaker in the Mastermind next month. And excited. I've just started a friendship with this amazing woman, she has a nine-year-old daughter as well as I do, and they just hit it right off. She's also got a beautiful two-year-old as well. And she's just a really solid person. So when she handed me her memoir, I read it in five days, five days, and I was I had chills, and I was crying. All within the first chapter, and it did not stop. It was amazing. It could not put it down. And I started, you know, traditionally reading it and then went to Audible. And she also had a book launch last week. And first of all, sorry, the memoir, for those of you wondering, is called A Woman Rising. And it's Julia McCoy. Last week, she also had a book launch for her ninth book called The Joy of Failure, how to Handle Failure, and experienced massive breakthroughs with her co-author, Chris Evans, and Chris flew into town for this book launch. And you could feel the palpable energy in this room, I was so grateful to be there. And I'm kind of basically on the track of anything Julie is doing. And she invites me to, I'm gonna say yes. As an entrepreneur, I believe that it is really important to surround yourself with inspiring, inspiring, and incredible people. And I just wanted to pass that on to you. But I also wanted to encourage you, as I have done so already in my groups like the mastermind, I wanted to encourage you to get the joy of failure. Now, I don't want you to see this as an Akash, I already have so much that I want to do already have so many audible books that I want to listen to, or books that I want to read and I never get around to them. But I just really want to encourage you, you know, if you don't have the people or you don't have the time in your life, to get in the rooms with awesomely inspiring people, if you feel like you're just, you know, overwhelmed, have so much to do this book is great. And there are a couple of reasons. Honestly, on Audible at normal speed, it only takes like three and a half hours to listen to. Now I say normal speed because I don't know if you are like me, where I like to listen to things at one and a half to two times the speed. After all, my brain stays involved. You might even listen to this podcast on that. Sometimes I do listen to my podcast, and I listen to it on double speed. Because it goes so fast that my mind doesn't wander. And so anyways, at normal speed, it's three and a half minutes long. Also, something else that is very interesting. I am a big audible person, if you know me. This is the first book I've ever listened to that was a virtual voice. It sounds exactly like a human, which also led me to lead me down a rabbit hole. I saw something from Jeff and, and. And Julia. There's this app that I trained to learn my voice in literally less than three minutes. I can type anything into this app and it produces an audio file that sounds exactly like me. It's but I mean, one day I could literally write out the podcast and not even have to sit here and worry about my ohms and ahhs and all that other jazz but that's neither here nor there. So go get the joy of failure. If you can't be in the room with awesomely inspiring people. I highly recommend the book in paperback. It's also not like a huge book that makes it feel like it's gonna take forever to get through the lessons and it is amazing. If I can just read you a short amount then I promise I'll get into today's topic. They write the mask of success is the image we present to the world that makes zero Role logical sense, but people believe in it anyway with Wild Hope. They want to desperately believe that some people don't struggle success can be easy. This mask looks like your face but blots out all of your failures, doubts, anxieties, losses, and fears. Wearing it means pretending you rose to meet your wins smoothly with nothing but fanfare fist fist-pumping smiles and excitement. It wipes away the tears, the frustration, the setbacks, and the low points as if they never happened. The messy failure-filled middle. The one we all know and experience when we strive to meet a goal doesn't exist. When you don't have on the mask. I wore the mask of success to protect myself. Yes, in the worldly sense, I was successful, but often, I felt insecure and like an imposter. With the mask. I had it all together, I was killing the game of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, I had the answers. I didn't struggle as people struggled through the mask, if I presented a curated image of myself, I could control the image others had of me. However, there's a big problem with wearing a mask. It's not true. It's posturing, it's inauthentic. It's exhausting, and not sustainable. Guys, I could keep going on with this book, reading it to you and my best mom, good night story voice. But I implore you to go get it, you will not regret it. It is so inspiring. And so antidotal. And the chapters are broken up into really awesome nuggets that you could even skip around if you wanted to. So go grab the joy of failure by Chris Evans, and Julia McCoy. All right, today, we're gonna get into our topic, I just felt the need to just really share stuff that is impacting my life, because if it's impacting my life, then I'm sure it will impact your life. But I kind of wanted to talk about like, you know, when things go wrong in customer service this month, in the mastermind, we are focusing all on customer service. As you know, every single month, we have a different topic, and we dissect it and go through it. And this podcast might be a little bit more of a training session for you than then not, I can't help myself, like, I literally can't help myself, I want to over-deliver value. So this might be a podcast that you might want to bring your staff in on or think about, like out your notepad on your phone, or pen and paper depending on where you're listening to it. And maybe take notes for an actual standard operating procedure sop on how to deal with things. I even thought about sharing this crazy audio that I still have from when I used to have my pet-sitting company of this lady who just went off on me. On my voicemail. I'm pretty sure she was drunk. But the way that I reacted to it, so I'm not sure if I'm going to share it on the podcast or only in the mastermind. Nonetheless, in our line of work where our emotions run high, our clients, and beloved companions are involved, right? And so managing their complaints with grace and effectiveness is nothing short of critical. It's these moments that can either make or break our reputation. And today we're all about making it by breaking down the barriers that complaints may seem to impose. Have you ever had a day when despite your best efforts, things just spiraled right out of control? Maybe it's today? Maybe it's a misunderstanding with the client over specific pet needs or an unexpected hiccup with your scheduling. Maybe someone called out, it happens to the best of us. But here's where we turn the tide. Here's how we handle those bumps in the road that can significantly distinguish our business in this competitive market.