Goodbye is not The End

Keep in mind that everything you do professionally reflects on you and your practice. This includes the way you deal with difficult clients. Someone once advised me, “If your clients have a great experience, they will tell one or two other people. If they have a terrible experience, they will tell ten.” Sometimes things don’t work out in the clinic. Perhaps you find your client personally hard to work with and you cannot find a way to improve your relationship. Perhaps your client has had an upsetting emotional release or reacted badly to a misunderstanding around something you said. Or perhaps the acupuncture simply does not work as quickly as your client would like, and he decides to stop treatment. Whatever the case may be, when things do not work out, you still have to be professional and deal with your client openly and with compassion.

I recently heard a story of a teacher who told his class that when he didn’t like a client, he needled her badly, so she would go away and not come back. Now, I heard about this third-hand, so I am going to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt and assume that this was meant as a joke. It was not, unfortunately, heard in that way by his student, who thought this was a valid option in the clinic. I am going to… suggest… that intentionally causing pain to a client is not only a horrible and immoral idea, but that it is also a terrible business practice. This one is for all you out there for whom “horrible and immoral” is not enough to deter you from thinking that this intentional-bad-needle thing is a good idea: If a client were actually treated in that way, you would not just lose one client. That client would revile you, by name, every time acupuncture came up in conversation.

Imagine a group of people talking at a party somewhere. One person mentions that he is considering trying acupuncture for the first time. Standing nearby is a former client of yours who, for whatever reason, was not helped by your treatment. One of two things happens next. In the case where you intentionally caused her pain in order to get rid of her, she chimes in that she tried acupuncture and saw YOU (she will remember your name) and that you were terrible and it was the most painful thing ever. Hmm... In the case where you held a compassionate space for your client, dealt openly with her and perhaps referred her to the homeopath down the street, she chimes in that she tried acupuncture, it didn’t work out, but that her practitioner (she might not remember your name) tried very had and ended up referring her to her awesome homeopath who did such wonderful things for her.

Everything you do professionally reflects back on your practice and your name. So treat every client how you would want to be treated if you were in their shoes.