Backboard Makeover

Today's makeover is not on a dog, it is on my backboard.

What the heck is a backboard?

It is a life and career saver for me.

I am sure that many of my readers have seen the backboard on my grooming table when I post pictures of dogs.

I built the backboard to help save my back while grooming.

I love my electric grooming table but the top of it is just way too wide.

Personally I have never understood why grooming table tops are so wide.

I mean a groomers wish is for the dogs to stay as still as possible on our tables so that we can safely groom them.

Why give them so much room to move around, or away from the groomer?

 This is all of the extra room left on my table when I push my backboard all of the way to the back edge of the table.

I don't need all of that extra room, even for large dogs.

I know that a lot of groomers like to walk all around their table while grooming, and I like that too...if my table top was narrower.

 My backboard has really saved my back while grooming.

The dogs can no longer insist on standing right at the opposite back edge of the table while I am trying to groom them, causing me to have to stretch my arms and back to reach them.

The backboard keeps the dogs right up close to me.

I just turn the dogs around when I need to groom the opposite side of the dog.

My backboard needed a little makeover.

I t needed a new mat, and the bumpers around the top edges needed to be replaced.

There was also one other thing that I lost when I started using a backboard on my table.

A mirror.

I used to have a mirror on the wall behind my table, but I took it down after the backboard made it useless to me.

Why a mirror?

No, not for the dog to look a him or herself.  lol

The mirror comes in handy to look at the dog while it is being groomed to get another perspective on how the groom looks.

So, I bought these to use on my backboard.

12x12 mirror squares!

I was going to glue them over top of the existing tiles on my backboard.

Wa-La!

New mirror tiles.

New mat.

New bumper.

Now I can check out the dog in the mirror as I groom and still use the backboard.

 Wow, I know I have a bad habit of laying my tools on the table, but this picture makes it look even worse. :)

Anyway, the mirror tiles work great while working on small and medium size dogs.

Not as great with large dogs, but that is okay.

I can still check out the legs and feet.

I like it.

I am happy. :) 

Oh, did you notice the tiger striped duck tape down the front edges of the side panels?

I was afraid that the  mirror tile edges might be sharp and did not want to take any chances that a dog gets hurts, so I felt that the funky duck tape was a good idea and fun to look at too.

Two Posts....

......Rolled into one.

A Monday Makeover and a Tuesdays Tip.

Okay, I am going to keep my fingers crossed while writing this post.

So far, so good.

This post is a Monday makeover post with a tip mixed in.

 This little one was a little over due for a grooming.

Time for a makeover. :)

I actually like grooming these overgrown dogs.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like seeing them overgrown, but I do love making them feel better.

And I knew she was going to feel good when I was done.

What was I going to do with this face?

I warned the owner, at drop off, that I would do what I could but the dog was pretty matted.

I also made sure to warn the owner that the ear hair may have to be shaved off.

Let me stop a second to give some advice.

Be careful how you inform customers about how you are going to groom their dog. (what terms you use)

I once told a customer that her dogs ears were so matted that I was going to have to cut them off.

Now as groomers, you and I know exactly what I meant by that statement.

I would have to shave all of the matted hair off the ears.

What the pet owner heard..."Your dogs ears are matted and I am going to have to cut the ears off your dogs head."

I knew the second I saw the terror cross the owners face that I had to correct my statement.

I quickly reassured the owner of that other dog that I was not going to 'cut the ears off' and explained that 'the hair' would have to shaved 'off' of the ear.

Remember, pet owners don't always understand 'groomers speak'.

Okay, back to this little one.

Oh.....here is the Tuesday Tip.

It is a little hard to see in this picture, but this little one has a lot of crazy whiskers that shoot out in all different directions and into her eyes. (she had a lot of eye crust all around her eyes)

Sometimes with dogs with long hair on their faces, it is hard to cut the whiskers back without cutting hair that you don't want to be cut.

Try this little trick.

While all of the face hair is wet or soaped up and plastered to the face, scissor the whiskers off while they are sticking out of the wet hair.

It is much easier to scissor the whiskers off as close as you want without cut the face hair.

To any new groomers, or pet owners that did not know...Yes, it is okay to cut a dogs whiskers.

It does not harm them in any way.

BUT, never ever cut a cats whiskers!!

The crazy whiskers on this little dog are poking her eyes and causing them to run more than normal.

Back to her makeover.

All clean, fluffed out and ready for her clip.

The HV had blown the mats away from the skin just enough to get a #4F under them.

Unfortunately her face is still pretty matted.

I started out by shaving out the corner of her eyes and top of her nose with a #15.

Yes, I shaved the top of the nose. (light pressure)

As I stated before, this little Shih-Tzu has issues with her eyes.

All of the hair around her eyes was tangled with eye crust.

The shorter the better for the hair around her eyes.

I also used scissors to scissor all of the hair just above and around her eyes very short to open the eyes up and hopefully keeping the crust from forming around the eyes again for a while.

The chin was so matted that I clipped the chin with a #5F blade.

Hmmmmm I am thinking a little Asian style here about now.

easi

Look at those ears!

I could have easily dematted one of the ears, but the other was too badly matted. 

I decided that the best thing to do was to clip the ears short.

I clipped the top of the head with the #4F blade and followed it down into the ear and under all of the mat.

**When using a longer blade on the ears (#4F, 5F, 7F,) be very aware and careful of the edges of the ear leather.

 I also made sure to pull all of the yucky hair, under the nose that the dog licks back into its mouth, out and scissor it off.

I had to tickle her tongue with my finger to make her put it back into her mouth so that I could scissor or clip safely.

Oh, a little prayer doesn't hurt at time like these too.  :)

Sorry the words are so small in the picture. 

Green arrows: I used a #4F on the top of the head and ears.

Blue arrows: clipped the mats off of the sides of the head and cheeks with a #5F blade.

Orange arrow: scissor to round off and shorten mustache.

I also blended the edges to soften the cut.

Next I took my comb (green arrows) and combed the hair up.

Then I took the scissors (orange arrows) or thinning shears and blend and round off the mustache.

Have you ever had an owner come back in with their dog and say; "Can you do something different with the face, because I don't like how the hair on the side of his/her face sticks out to the side, or up."

You know that look....you have combed, brushed and scissored the face, and it looks great.

The mustache and beard are laying great, then the dog shakes its face and that nice, neat mustache and bread is suddenly sticking up and out to the side.

That is why I comb up the mustache and round off the edges, sometimes a lot, sometimes just a little bit.

It depends on the look I am looking for.

How's that?

Do you think she feels better?

This is a side view.

There!!!!

I finished.

Only one scare.

The screen blinked a few times, but she didn't freeze up on me.

Now lets see if this post will publish.

If you are reading this....it did!

Computer problems

Here I am trying to get back to posting and my computer decides that it has put in its time.
I have been trying to hold on to it, but it has survived a serious virus, and it is probably time to let it go to the computer graveyard.

I have a couple of posts already to go, but she keep freezing up, on top of doing several other strange things just to keep it interesting, and making me pull my hair out.
Hopefully I'll be able to do a good long post tomorrow, meanwhile I guess it is time to bite the bullet and start shopping for a new computer.

On a side note:  Thank you for all of the encouraging comments from my last post.
It is very humbling to see that so many groomers and non-groomers enjoy reading my blog.
I have not had the time to publish and comment on the comments yet. (I have been fighting with my computer for a little while now)

Wish me luck.....hopefully I will get a post on tomorrow.  :)

Hello???

 Heelllooooo?!

Anyone still there?

Hello?

I know that I have been away for awhile, but I hope everyone hasn't given up on me.  :)

I was getting a little discouraged with my blog. 

I started this blog to help show what the real world of pet grooming was like, and also to maybe help other groomers along the way by showing how I groomed.

One other reason I started to write this blog, was to vent about customers when I needed to.

I was always careful to not use any customer names, but one of my customers  saw a picture of her dog in a post that I wrote and took offense to something I said.

I lost that customer and her two dogs.

I really liked both of the dogs, especially one of them that I had been grooming for years.

It really upset me to lose that customer, on several different levels.

After that I got away from telling stories or talking about customers.

I stuck more to actual grooming.

As my daughter told me, my blog got boring.

I also felt like I was running out of 'grooming' related stuff to talk about.

You can only talk about how to shave a poodle foot so many times before it just gets redundant.

I also really missed telling some of the customer stories.

My daughter came to me the other night and asked why I had not written a new post in the last couple of weeks.

I shrugged my shoulders and said; "I don't know...I don't know what to write about anymore...most of our dogs are regulars, so there are no shocking before and afters...and I have already written about most grooming procedures. It has also been too busy lately to stop and take pictures."

Her response....."MOM! Start telling the customers stories again!"

So, I thought about it.

She is right.

The grooming procedures are a big part of grooming obviously, but the dogs and pet owners are just as big a part of grooming.

I truly think that it helps other groomers to see that they are not the only ones dealing with good, bad, crazy, or insane customers.

I also thought, that if I am going to tell stories about some of my customer situations, I should also tell about how I dealt with that customer, or situation in hopes that it may also help a fellow groomer.

I had been reading a lot of Facebook grooming groups.

'Had' being the operative word.

There are so many angry groomers out there.

I have not left any groups yet, but I have stopped reading a lot of them.

It was actually depressing to read a lot of them.

If the groomers were not attacking their customers in their posts, they were attacking each other.

So sad.

Yes, believe me, I know that there are pet customers out there that need someone to smack them up side the head, but I honestly think that some groomers bring bad customer situations on themselves with their attitudes and the way they deal with situations.

That is just my personal opinion.

I still skim through some of the posts that show up on my newsfeed, and some days that is definitely more than enough.

Anyway, I will be getting back to blogging again.

There are always customer stories to tell.

Like, the very long time customer that came in to pick up his dog, only to send the dog back into the grooming room asking to take the dogs ears short 'like we always do'.

 There was only one problem.... the ear hair on this particular dogs ears was over 8 inches long, because the owner never wanted us to trim them....NEVER EVER!!

How did we deal with this request?

We double checked to make sure he wanted the ears shorter.

I even asked my husband if he was sure it was the right dog with the right owner.

We all stared at each other in disbelief for a minute or two.

I asked my husband a second time; "Are you sure he said trim them short?"
"YES! He said that he wanted us to trim the ears short like we always do because he likes them that way!" my husband insisted.
"That's the problem," I said, "we never trim this dogs ears, because THAT IS the way he has always liked them!"

Then my daughter trimmed about two inches off of the ears and the owner went home with his dog with shorter ears.

I have to admit....I was waiting for a call back later, or the next day asking why we trimmed the ears.....

I could also talk about the number of people that have been calling lately swearing that they have been coming to us for grooming, only we have no record of them in our computer system.....every customer gets put into the system, even if they only ever made one appointment and canceled it, or no-showed. 

I don't know....maybe they think insisting that we have groomed their dog before will make us squeeze them in for an appointment.

Ummm...Nope!

Or, I could talk about the customer that complains about the price of her dogs groom just about every time she comes in.

The complaint this time was that she thought the price should be less because I was hand scissoring the coat down to 2 inches instead of the 4 inches that is left in the winter.

"No....hand scissoring is hand scissoring, and the same amount of work no matter how much shorter I take the coat," said with a smile.

 

Don't buy the high maintenance dog if you don't want to pay to groom it.

I have gotten to the point in my career that you either pay for the work I do on your pet, or find another groomer that you can bargain with.

Then you get what you paid for.

When a customer complains about a grooming price, I remind myself that my work is worth every penny that I charge.

I do what the owner wants. (within reason)

I treat the dog with love and respect.

I do a very good job.

I also remind myself that I didn't twist their arm to come to me for grooming.

Don't ever let a customer make you feel like your work is not worth what you are charging.

There are people out there that just love to haggle a price.

Stand your ground.

Then there is the customer that you call because they have not shown up for their appointment.

Us: "Hi, we were calling to see if someone is on there way with 'Muffin' for her grooming appointment."

Customer: "My  dogs appointment is for Thursday, June 12th!"

Us: "Yes, today is Thursday June 12th," said respectfully.

How we dealt with this matter.....either let the customer still come over with the understanding that the dog may take longer, because it will be late for its appointment, or reschedule if the owner is unable to bring the dog in.

Oh....then bang my head against the wall....

Last but not least...

The customer that came in to pick up two freshly groomed dogs during a summer down pour.

You know, that kind of torrential, hard down pour that soaks you to your underwear within seconds.

Instead of waiting 5 or 10 minutes for the summer shower to pass or slow down, I watch out the shop window as the said owner of the two freshly groomed dogs walks outside (with the dogs in his arms) and sets them down on the ground to walk them, through rain drops bigger than they are, to the car.

My response?......Cry!

Did I mention that this was all just in the last couple of weeks?

So Important....

....Customer Service!

Customer service is so important no matter whether you own your own grooming shop, or just work at one.

Good, and thoughtful customer service helps tremendously to grow your clientele.

Yes, I said "thoughtful".

Today I had an experience with good and bad (well not very good) customer service.

I got a call from my father this morning. (luckily I had taken off today)

He was pulled over on a side road with a flat tire.

Simple enough, right?

Go over change the tire to the spare doughnut tire, drive the car to a tire store, put new tire on, done.

Simple.

Maybe an hour out of my vacation day.

If only life were that simple.

Oh, he had a spare doughnut tire, and no problem jacking the car up, no problem getting the hubcap off, and the lug nuts were easy enough to loosen, there was just one problem....one of the lug nuts was special.

A special anti-theft lug nut that needed a special lug nut key to remove it.

There was also one other problem...my father had no idea where the lug nut key was.

So, I called the car dealership that my father bought the car from and got his repair work done.

I asked if the lug nut key was hidden in the car somewhere.

The mechanic told me to look in all of the places that I had already looked.

No lug nut key.

The only way to get that flat tire off was to have the car towed to the dealership to have the anti-theft lug nut cut off.

Really?

They don't have spare lug nut keys?

Anyway, the dealership gave me the number of a towing company.

I called.

They could come and tow the car to the dealership, but it would be a two and a half to three hour wait.

No problem, my fathers house was just 10 minutes away.

The towing company would call me when the tow driver was 10 minutes away so that I could be back at the car with the keys.

So, we locked up the car with a distress rag hanging out the window and the hazard lights on.

Two and a half hours went by with no call.

Then three hours went by with no call.

Three hours and ten minutes after my first call to the towing company, I called  them again. (Believe me, I was thinking about how my own customers keep calling, checking on their dogs)

I was very nice and asked the same girl that I had talked to three hours earlier if she had any idea how much longer the wait might be.

After all, this was supposed to be a vacation day.

I was told that the tow driver assigned to my fathers car was just picking up another car.

My fathers car was next on the list.

The young lady on the phone told me that it would be another 45 minutes to an hour.

I waited 45 minutes.

Then an hour.

An hour and a half later I called the towing company again.

Again, I very pleasantly inquired as to how much longer the wait was going to be, and if the driver would still be coming, because right at that moment a sever thunder storm had rolled in.

Yes, I truly was being pleasant with the young lady, because I knew that she had no control on how long the driver would be, and I also knew that getting upset with her was not going to get me anywhere.

Sadly, the receptionist was getting annoyed with me.

She told me that the tow driver had just gotten off  I95 and would be to my fathers car in a few minutes.

A few minutes turned into another 45 minutes.

Oh, and as for that 10 minutes heads up phone call that I was supposed to get when the driver was close.

The driver did call me....when he was a mile and a half away.

Luckily I had already gone back to my fathers car an hour earlier.

Thankfully the rain had stopped by the time the tow driver pulled up.

From the moment the tow drivers feet touched the road, he started to apologize for the long wait.

A truly heart felt apology, not a robotic, 'I have to say sorry to these people' type of apology.

I instantly cut him off and told him not to worry about it.

I told him I was sure that, because it was the first day after a Holiday, they were very busy.

As he loaded my fathers car I made small talk with him.

The tow driver, who had been on the job since 5:30am, (it was now 6:45pm)  and still had six more cars to pick up, was on the clock until midnight.

This overworked man still had a good attitude and a smile on his face.

He was very pleasant to talk to.

He had the car loaded on his truck in no time.

Even with all of the pissed off drivers passing us, that were annoyed that they had go up the wrong side of the road to get past him while he worked.

I had left my house at 11am.

My vacation day was shot.

All those hours of sitting around and waiting.

If the young lady from the towing company had been more truthful about the time we had to wait, I could have gotten some other things done instead of staying close by so that I could be back at my fathers car in a  few minutes notice.

Of course I understand that she could not give me an exact time.

Just like grooming dogs, I am sure that a tow driver can run in to different situations that could back him up.

But, I also believe that the receptionist could have given a little more accurate time estimate.  

So, what is the point of this story, and what does it have to do with groomers and customer service?

Two things.

One: As groomers, everyday we have to give estimated times to pet owners as to when their dogs will be finished.

At our shop, we are pretty good about having the dogs finished at the time out we promised.

Unfortunately, there are times that we run behind.

When that happens, we make a point to call the owner well ahead of the time promised out, to let them know that we are running behind, and what the new estimated time out is.

I will even add  10 to15 minutes to the estimated time out just in case the pet owner has a habit of walking in early.

Would it have really been so hard for that young lady from the towing company to give me a call back and let me know that the tow driver was running so far behind.

She did not give me a wrong estimated time of arrival just once, but three times.

If you want to upset a customer, get complaints, and even possibly lose that customer, don't bother to give them a heads up.

Let them walk in at the time you thought and find their dog unfinished.

Let them get upset that they wasted a trip and now have to leave and come back later.

They may just never come back to have you groom their dog again.

It is just common courtesy to call a customer and let them know that you are running behind.

Put yourself in the pet owners shoes.

I understand that not all pet owners will be understanding, but I have found that most of them are very appreciative that we called them.

My second point: The driver.

What a wonderful attitude he had.

He had already been working 13 hours.

He still had around 5 more hours to go.

I am sure that at least one or two other customers had given him a hard time about their waits.

Yet he still had a smile on his face, and his apology to me had been sincere.

I read a lot of stories on  groomers groups.

So many of these stories are filled with groomers talking about nasty encounters with their customers.

Yes, I have had a few nasty encounters with customers over the years, but I can honestly say that it is not a common occurance.

  I could count those encounters on one hand.

I admit, I could have definitely had many more bad encounters with customers who walked in with bad attitudes, but I have always made a point to keep a smile on my face, stay calm, and talk to the customer, not at them.

I like the challenge of turning a grumpy customer into a smiling customer by the time they leave my shop.

A smile truly does get you so much farther in life (and grooming) than a frown and bad attitude, both with the dogs and their owners.

Always shot for excellent customer service and see your business grow!