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Service With a Smile

Kristine Hayes

MY MOM TOOK ME to a local credit union in 1981, when I was 14 years old, to open my first savings account. I don’t remember how much money I initially deposited. But back then, I had two sources of income. Each summer, I sold a pig at our 4-H fair livestock auction. That typically provided me with $200—funds I budgeted for school clothes and supplies.

I also earned money by showing livestock at our county fair. Every ribbon my animals were awarded came with a cash bonus. Blue ribbons meant pocketing $20. Most years I’d earn between $200 and $300 by strategically entering my animals in as many categories as I could.

Still, I’m sure my savings account balance at the credit union rarely exceeded $500. You never would have known by the customer service I received. In 1981, my credit union had one branch and two tellers. Each time I’d go in to make a deposit, the tellers would greet me by name. I never had to tell them my account number or provide any identification.

For more than 30 years, I remained a member of that credit union. Over the years, the credit union grew and opened multiple branches. Even though the tellers no longer knew me by name, the customer service remained stellar. When I would recite my four-digit member number to one of the employees, they’d inevitably thank me for being a long-term customer. By then, new clients were being assigned eight-digit numbers for their accounts.

The lessons I learned about exemplary customer service have stayed with me. Although I’m quite frugal, I will willingly spend more money on a service or product if I know it’ll be accompanied by exceptional service.

When my husband and I decided to start a dog-training business, we knew customer service would be at the core of our business model. We wanted our clients to feel they were getting more than just information on how to train their dogs. We wanted them to have a clear understanding of the techniques we use. We wanted them to feel free to ask questions about the training. We wanted to share our love of dogs, and dog training, with them in whatever ways we could.

When we conduct a lesson at a client’s home, both my husband and I attend. This allows one of us to interact with the dog, while the other person is free to explain the training techniques to the owner. We provide clients with several written handouts explaining each exercise. We follow up each lesson with a personal email. We emphasize to clients that they should never hesitate to call or text us.

There are other ways we show our clients how much we appreciate their business. In December, we delivered a handwritten holiday card and a bag of dog treats to each client. We were inundated with positive feedback for this simple goodwill gesture.

From what I can tell, all the extra attention we provide is appreciated. Even though we’ve only worked with a handful of dogs, the reviews we’re getting from their owners have been positive.

How does all this customer service affect our bottom line? For every hour we get paid, I spend an additional one to two hours answering calls, writing emails and filming content for our business YouTube channel. My husband spends several hours a week researching ways to make our training techniques more effective. I suspect our hourly wage is barely above what we’d make if we worked at a local fast-food chain.

For now, my husband and I aren’t concerned about the money. We don’t rely on the business to pay our bills. Instead, training dogs—and their owners—serves as a rewarding outlet for our own passion for dogs.

Kristine Hayes Nibler recently retired, and she and her husband now live in Arizona. She enjoys spending her time reading, writing and training their four dogsCheck out Kristine’s earlier articles.

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Andrew Forsythe
2 years ago

Kristine, great article on the benefits of above-and-beyond customer service and taking care of your clients, both human and canine. And the dog videos are great—some smart, handsome, and well trained pups there!

Kristine Hayes
2 years ago

Thanks Andrew. We’re pretty proud of our pack. They get to be the guinea pigs for all of our various training ideas.

Jack Hannam
2 years ago

Loved the videos! I especially was impressed by the Shepherd who didn’t merely jump onto the top step of the ladder, but fit himself in between the step and the handle above. What a fun “Jobby”.

Kristine Hayes
2 years ago
Reply to  Jack Hannam

It’s a jobby I’ve dreamed about for quite a while. Credit for the German shepherd’s trick goes 100% to my husband. I didn’t even know he’d trained the dog to do it. I just got the step stool out one day and Mattis leaped up onto it!

Michael1
2 years ago

Kristine, enjoyed your article as always. You seem to have broken the code with your “jobby” and the value of customer service. We’ll go out of our way and pay extra for that as well.

Kristine Hayes
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael1

Thanks for the kind words. We think our emphasis on customer service keeps our clients happy. We always emphasize they should never hesitate to contact us if they have questions.

Nate Allen
2 years ago

As always, great article, Kristine!

One quick observation: when you click on the reviews page linked above, there are some generic “List title” and “Section title” areas at the bottom with placeholder text still displaying, likely from when you initially set up your website.

Last edited 2 years ago by Nate Allen
Kristine Hayes
2 years ago
Reply to  Nate Allen

Thanks for the kind words. And thanks for pointing out that little website glitch. Web design isn’t my strong point. I think I did manage to get rid of that placeholder text though. Best, Kristine

OldITGuy
2 years ago

I remember when my Mom was in her 80’s she had a german shepherd and a rottweiler that she cooked for and spent a lot of time with sitting in a rocker on her porch every day. Those 2 dogs seemed to read her mind and obeyed her every command. It appeared to me they just wanted to please her. I’m still impressed remembering how loyal and loving companions they were to her. Thanks for sharing your dog videos. It was a pleasant trip down memory lane as it recalled pleasant memories of my Mom working with her dogs.

Kristine Hayes
2 years ago
Reply to  OldITGuy

I’m glad you enjoyed watching some of the videos. I married into German shepherds and I’m constantly amazed at how devoted and loyal they are. One of the things I enjoy the most about having a dog training business is getting to work with multiple breeds of dogs.

Jeff Long
2 years ago

I’m happy you two are enjoying your venture. Sounds like you have discovered how to have a successful business: Provide a needed product or service, charge a fair price and take care of your customers/clients (employees, too). This worked very well for me with my own CPA firm for 28 years.

Kristine Hayes
2 years ago
Reply to  Jeff Long

We’re pleased with how it’s gone so far. Since we don’t depend on the revenue we generate, we can keep things small and personable. We never take more than four appointments per week and we only serve clients who live in our immediate area.

John Goodell
2 years ago

I really enjoy the updates on your business and the YouTube channel itself! Any chance you could relocate to Central Texas and train two embarrassingly-behaved mongrels 🤣

Kristine Hayes
2 years ago
Reply to  John Goodell

Thanks for the kind words! Interestingly enough, Texas was on our short list of places to retire to. We were particularly interested in the San Antonio area since Lackland Air Force Base is located there. Lackland is where most of the military working dogs are trained and they are always looking for people to help foster their puppies.

Michael1
2 years ago
Reply to  Kristine Hayes

There’s a reason for a road trip back to Texas – with room in the car for a puppy.

Kristine Hayes
2 years ago
Reply to  Michael1

Unfortunately you have to live within two hours of the Air Force Base in order to foster one of the puppies. Otherwise we’d probably have a few of them in our house…

Michael1
2 years ago
Reply to  Kristine Hayes

We have everything we need in the car, so we could make that happen 😉

parkslope
2 years ago
Reply to  Kristine Hayes

I also enjoyed your videos. Have you thought about making a series of detailed instructional videos? For example, it would be great to see how you are able to do such a great job of station training.

Kristine Hayes
2 years ago
Reply to  parkslope

A YouTube dog training channel is definitely on my (endlessly long) list of things to do. Somehow 24 hours a day is never enough time to get everything done!

Rick Connor
2 years ago

Great article Kristine. I will also gladly frequent businesses that provide great products and service. It’s so nice to see that you and your husband have found a post-retirement activity that you can do together and gives you such joy. I’m sure your clients appreciate the approach.

BTW – I loved the videos. You guys are really good! And the dogs look so happy!

Kristine Hayes
2 years ago
Reply to  Rick Connor

Thanks Rick! We are enjoying our little business venture quite a bit. A fellow dog trainer coined the term, ‘jobby’ to describe what we are doing–mixing together our own dog training hobby with a little income production.

Glad you enjoyed the videos. We do put an emphasis on keeping training fun for us and the dogs!

OldITGuy
2 years ago
Reply to  Kristine Hayes

I love that term ‘jobby’. I’m definitely going to use that sometime. Thanks!

Kristine Hayes
2 years ago
Reply to  OldITGuy

We really liked it as well. It seems like the perfect term to describe out-of-control hobbies!

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