Last night was a nice quiet night on call. A good meal and evening in with my spouse, some mindless Saturday television, uninterrupted by laminitics, stitch-ups or chokes. Until at 10.30pm, just as I was about to get into my bed, my phone bleeped and I ended up awake for half of the night. No, not a colic or a foaling, but a notification of a review being posted on our practice Facebook page. And not a favourable one!
The thing about Facebook reviews is that you can do nothing about them. You cannot delete them, you cannot edit them. You can reply to them, but opinion seems to be split between whether this is a good way of heading off trouble, or an invitation to all the complainant's friends to join the tirade. Thus they are inevitably completely one-sided. I do not know the story behind this lady's tale - I have never met her, nor her horse. She is a relatively new client and has been seen thus far exclusively by my colleague. She may well have a valid complaint, she may not. Most likely the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and the time of posting (10.30pm on a weekend night, three days after we last saw her horse) does make me suspicious that there may have been a glass of wine egging her on.
A previously received bad review was of the 'money-grabbing vets who care more about their bank account than the animal' variety. Now, anyone who has worked in practice for any period of time will probably have heard this line more often than they have applied a hot poultice. It is the usual cri de coeur of any client who has been asked to pay their bill. And most vets would reply that if they were in it for the money they would have picked a different career. However on this occasion the complaint was even more spurious than usual. The client had asked us to visit to vaccinate their horse, we had politely asked that they pay for their last vaccination, over 6 months previously, first. Not entirely unreasonable, but it left us with a rather floridly-worded tirade on our Facebook page for all the world to see as a result. I would happily have given some of my own hard-grabbed money to be able to comment on the post with the truth!
Luckily we have a lot of lovely clients who have left us lovely reviews, and it gladdens my heart to read them. However on occasions like last night, even though I was not personally involved in the lady's grievance, reading something like that really knocks me flat. It's a good thing I'm not much good at anything other than vetting, otherwise I might feel tempted to give it all up on the spot.
In these times of all-invasive social media it's far too easy to spread the vitriol of a bad experience (whether real or perceived) far and wide, to a potential audience of millions. However it is worth bearing in mind, before hitting the 'post' button, that you are talking about real people, whose feelings are as easily hurt as your own. I have spent most of this weekend being in turns angry and upset, which has impacted on my family. As vets we don't always get everything right. I can honestly say however that I do try my very best to do my very best by, and for, every horse and owner I meet. If anyone feels that this has not happened our practice is always happy to investigate and respond to any complaints sent to us. Choosing instead to spread this sort of poison across the internet, where professionalism and client confidentiality prevent us from defending ourselves, would seem like the work of a coward and a bully to me.
