How does one gauge customer satisfaction with something like Reiki?
Yesterday, I had a client get up after the session had ended and abruptly ask “Is that it?”
She described a tingling sensation that she had felt, a sense of peace and the heat from my hands, yet somehow she was expecting more. She certainly wasn’t expecting to take charge of her own healing, which is, unfortunately, my whole ethos.
It became clear during our conversation she had come to me for a band aid. There were certain issues she did not want to confront, process and clear. She wanted the treatment to do all the work for her.
So was she a happy client? The truth is, I don’t know.
Her last visit to my practice had allowed her to make some significant step-changes in her life. I don’t claim to guarantee anything in my marketing, and as a psychic I picked up on certain areas that were blocks for her and issues she was carrying around.
Putting on my small-business hat, how can I extract the feedback I need without being able to measure the effect I’m having versus the effect the client is having on the healing?
Although she explicitly asked me what I had sensed, I resisted providing her the “answers” she was seeking. I believe firmly in empowering my clients, my job is to provide the tools to start the healing process and to facilitate the healing journey.
Putting on my small-business hat though, how can I extract the feedback I need without being able to measure the effect I’m having versus the effect the client is having on the healing?
Most companies conduct customer satisfaction surveys, but I would be loathed to give my clients something like that to fill out – it would negatively affect my credibility, and I mean that sincerely without any pretence whatsoever.
Happy customers return, and I guess this is as clear an indicator as I’m destined to get for now. Sometimes I won’t see a client for months as they process what took place in a healing session or simply because they were busy or short of funds. Then a few months later I get the call, and it’s always a good feeling.
Email confusion
My USP when I first started was a commitment to emailing every client a week after a session and checking in to see how they were. Over time I have dropped that. It was helpful in that I gained immediate feedback, but I started to question why I needed this feedback. Was it for my ego? Did I just want to hear how wonderful I had been? Or was it because I wanted to improve things?
I also felt that many clients just didn’t communicate that well via email or even in general about something like energy healing. They didn’t have the language just yet, and I’d overestimated the articulacy of a practitioner/client relationship – something you can’t legislate for until you launch the practice. Theory is one thing, but the coalface is something else entirely. In a therapy-based service there is no certainty. All I can do is keep training and improving, plus I can make sure the environment I use is pleasant and relaxing.
Prompt and helpful
When a client contacts me I can be prompt in my responses and helpful. Above all, I can maintain healthy boundaries in our relationship that empower the client and don’t feed my ego.
The rest is down to that client’s healing journey. The client I mentioned at the top of this post may well turn up on my doorstep tomorrow, she may email me next week or she may decide to go on and start to find ways of expressing her anger in healthy ways as I suggested. She may do all of these. She may do none. I’m learning the hardest lesson: my job ends when they leave the session.
There is a balance between creating and maintaining happy customer relations and overwhelming someone. I could never be one of those businesses that constantly hits you with spam. I know what it’s like to go for a treatment and then have the therapist get out her diary and insist on booking you in for the following week. It’s pushy and off-putting.
I do keep a mailing list though, and if I have something of interest to say I send out a block email. I always tell clients that I am on hand should anything come up they need to discuss. I sometimes run over our allotted one hour slots if there is a need and will not charge extra for this. I tailor each session to the needs of the client. I don’t bombard people with marketing campaigns.
I trust that as long as I do the best work I can, the people will come to me.
