Amanda Barr 0:03
Hello friends I'm Amanda bar.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 0:05
And I'm Rebecca Lew Brennan and welcome to Dance principles united the
Amanda Barr 0:09
podcast. Together, we are passionate about helping studio owners with the business of running their studio.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 0:14
Join us as we talk everything from marketing systems studio culture, motherhood, life and everything in between. This
Amanda Barr 0:22
is the dance principals United podcast. Hey, friends, and welcome to the dance principals United podcast. Beck and I are in your ears today. We hope you're having an amazing start to your day. Hey, Beck, how are you doing?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 0:36
Super awesome. Yeah, just getting ready for mijia concert and pep rally on the weekend. It's massive. But yeah, super excited.
Amanda Barr 0:48
It's gonna go. So so good. I love me at G concerts. There's so much fun. I'm attending my girls ones at my own studio this weekend as well. So much fun.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 0:57
I forgot about that. You're such a dance mom. Now.
Amanda Barr 1:00
I'm such a dance Mom, look at me, I'm going to help as well. Just to have a few extra numbers as well. But then I get to sit back and watch my girls as well, which is lovely to be watching funny audience.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 1:13
That will be such a weird experience for you.
Amanda Barr 1:16
Absolutely. I have absolutely, I will do my best. That's okay. I'm not going to complain with that. So we are not here to talk about media concepts. As much as I love a good media showcase conversation. We're actually talking about, you know, different tactics of ways to deal with our parents when issues arrive. And we thought we would chat about this because I know you actually had an issue last night back. And I think that it's really important that we can talk about different strategies. And you know, why is that we can have those discussions, because sometimes we just feel like, you know, getting super angry with the parent, right. But that's not the right way to deal with it.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 1:55
Yes, and I was not happy last night when I had to make the phone call at 8:15pm. But the parent called the studio, she was very angry and upset. And she wanted a phone call for me. And you know, one of the teachers said something that probably she shouldn't have said yet to his heart. But you know, just a little comment that clearly upset the child, the child got in the car and was crying comes home. Of course, parents are very angry and upset that the child's crying. Yeah, of course. And
Amanda Barr 2:27
I totally understand that as a parent to right like, you know, someone's upset, you know, you're paying a lot of money to go to these classes, you've been sitting out in the cold, waiting in the car park for them, where you'd much rather be at home, you know, cooking dinner, or sitting with a glass of wine in front of the TV as a mom, but you're doing everything you can putting all this money into these dance classes, driving your kids around, and then they get in the car and they're crying and they're upset. And like, I get it from their point of view. I understand that. And as you said, we're going to talk about two kinds of different things. But in this one, you know, one of your staff were a little bit in the wrong. Correct. And so I think it's different to how you handle this. Yeah.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 3:04
Yeah, totally. But either way, I think you've got to the first thing that I teach my staff to do, and we actually talked about this, we had a mid year zoom with all of our people who are helping with. And same thing we just said to them, the first thing you do if there's a cranky parent for any reason whatsoever is you say, I'm so sorry that this has happened. So absolutely. I think that just stops them from being so angry and brings them down. And so the first thing I said to her was, I'm so sorry that she's word, Sally, I'm so sorry that Sally went home crying. We never want anyone to go home upset from pause that literally started the conversation. And I think we all need to start the conversation in that way.
Amanda Barr 3:50
Yeah, absolutely. Regardless if it was, you know, something that was the studio's fault or wasn't, even if it was completely not, even if the child has made up a story, and it's completely untrue, you're still sorry that the child came home upset regardless. And I you know, you have to feel bad for that. And you have to show a little bit of empathy. And that I think that's the first way to always start that conversation.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 4:14
Yes, and it's so easy to start angry or upset because anybody in this defensive, defensive or defensive and in this situation, the child did back chat the teacher which reached re the tape, not made the teacher, but then the teacher reacted in the way that I did. So I completely get it from the teachers perspective as well. And I kind of did that first. So I was like, Okay, I'm so sorry, this has happened, and then let her tell the story. And then I was able to say yep, well, I've called the teacher and spoken to them about it. This is their side of the story. And then kind of went from there, but I think that is, you know, the most important thing is to apologise regardless. Yeah,
Amanda Barr 4:56
awesome. So let's go through it step by step because I think that might really help For some of our listeners, step one is apologise that the child's upset or I'm so sorry, you feel this way. I'm so sorry that little Susie has come home upset. I'm so sorry. Because you are sorry. Even if you don't sorry about what happened or what they feel you're sorry about that situation, number one. Number two, I always think you should let them talk. Do you agree with that? Let them see what they have to say. And because so many times parents just want to be heard. And I think sometimes you just need to let them get it off their chest, right, which is obviously what you did. Yep.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 5:31
And let her talk. Let her say the situation, then I think the third one is make sure you've actually worked out what did happen in the eyes of your staff. If it wasn't you. Make sure that you work out what did happen. And as with every situation, the truth is always going to be in the middle somewhere like, yeah, I always backed my staff, and I'm big on backing my style as much as I possibly can. But I think as well, like, everyone's gonna see that situation differently, right? Absolutely.
Amanda Barr 6:01
Absolutely. And I think you need to have get, let them have a chance to say their side. And then you need to say, look, I understand that little Suzy, you know, felt like this. And this is how she felt. What half after chatting to miss so and so she saw that. This this this this this happened. Is that kind of what you did last night. Yep.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 6:22
That's exactly what I did. And then she disagreed, obviously, with a teacher's perspective on things. And then she I just said to her Yep, look, I think she probably used harsher words than what was necessary completely agree with that. I know that. You know, I sometimes get quite reactive when a child back chats me so I can see it from both sides. But I'm sure that Miss so and so we'll have a chat to Sally, next week in class and make sure that everything's fine between them.
Amanda Barr 6:57
Yeah, absolutely. So there was a resolution? Yeah, it
Rebecca Liu Brennan 7:02
was fine. She was like, thank you so much. Thank you so much for calling me it's such a late hour. And look, I could have left it because to be honest, I did not want to call her at that time at night. And I could have left it. But I feel like if I did leave it, it would have been a lot worse this morning.
Amanda Barr 7:19
Absolutely.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 7:22
And sometimes I think you'd have to make that call and just go okay, I need to talk to this parent now much as it's my time. Much as I don't want that to happen. I think it's just what you have to do. Right? Absolutely.
Amanda Barr 7:33
Because sometimes people will, like, you notice, like, even when you're calling like, you know, let's talk about those horrible call centres. You have to call when you're calling the Telstra hotline or you're calling cuantas. The longer it takes, the angrier you get. Because you're sitting there going off for God's sake, they don't even want to listen to me, they don't want it like, and you have more time to play it out. In your mind. You have more time to kind of back and forth. We all, you know, sit there and play out conversations in our heads, you know, I don't know, I do. I hope everybody else does in their heads. You know, and so as the parent, like if they had the whole night's sleep on it, they might have like, laid awake at night and like drama. Oh, and it's also like when this happened and wet like and make it into this bigger story in their head than what it actually was. Right? Whereas if you just like nip it in the bud, they appreciate
Rebecca Liu Brennan 8:23
it. Yes. And I think in our studio in general, I always talk about this. We find Amanda that a lot of our last year in a client's in tribe and SGC will avoid confrontation and don't want to deal with that situation and don't want to deal with that parent and or teacher and leave it leave it leave it and you're exactly right. It just makes that situation 1000 times worse.
Amanda Barr 8:47
Absolutely. Absolutely. So I think nip it in the bud. You know, let me start by apologising. Let's go through this framework. Let's make this super easy. If you're thinking of how to do it, do it in a timely manner. Apologise first let them speak even if they're speaking, you know, for a while, let them speak. You know, at some point, you have to cut them off. You need to lead the conversation. I think that's really important to you take control of the conversation. But let them say their piece before you have a chance. And rather than butting in I really dislike when people are like someone's trying to tell this Oh, that's it. Ah, and they're butting in on people, like people should they should be allowed to tell their side of the story correct without people biting in, you get that opportunity in court? Like why not on a phone conversation. So let them say their side of the story before you go back and say this is what happened. I think it's then talking about what the resolution is and where you're going forward from here. Whether that's I'm so sorry, she feels this way. I'm going to apologise, you know, I'm going to chat to her. Or if it's not, that's fine, too. It doesn't always have to be that but this is like, Hey, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to have a chat to the teacher about the situation we're going to work on some other ways that she can do You know, talk to students. And I wanted to apologise again that this happened. And as I said, I am going to work with the teacher on some new strategies. So thank you so much for bringing this to my attention, you know, something along those lines, but like a very clear resolution, or if you have to go back to them, if you're like, I need to go talk to the teacher. I will call you back tomorrow at 3pm. But be clear on that timeframe, that same sort of thing, do you think? Yeah,
Rebecca Liu Brennan 10:24
absolutely. I think there's lots of things to think about here, as a studio owner, and leader. And I think it's so easy for us to blame the child, we hear it all the time, blame the parent and say, they just don't discipline their child properly, or, or they just don't know what their child's like in class, or they don't know how naughty their child is. And I think we have to see it from the parents perspective here. And we hear that all the time, too, right, Amanda, where people are like, Oh, that's stupid parent or get rid of them or, and I just think that's not good customer service. And we have to have great customer service. And you know, as you said, when you call cuantas, or Telstra or whatever. And if you do get great customer service you happy and you stay with their brand. Absolutely.
Amanda Barr 11:11
And like we're a business like, yes, sometimes we're not going to agree with all of our clients. Actually, most of the time, you know, you're not gonna agree with every single parents and every single one of your clients, ways that they bring up their children or discipline their children or whatever. But that's okay. Because they're a client, and they're paying you money, and you're providing a service. You know what I mean? Like, they're the client. And, you know, there's that old saying the clients always right, and I don't 100% agree with that. But I do believe that the client deserves, and has the right to discuss any issues with them. They can't, you know, I've seen other studios go, I can't believe she called me about that, you know, that she complained about, they have every right to bring up any issues that they have or how they're feeling with your brand. You know, regardless of whether you agree with it or not, they do have the right to be heard as a client.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 12:04
Yep, totally agree. And I think sometimes we're too quick to be reactive in these situations. And you know, we just suddenly go, right, that's it, I'm kicking them out, or I'm doing this or doing that. And I think we need to be very careful of that. Because one bad client, reflect them going around your area telling everyone about it. I don't know about you, and about, if someone gives me great customer service, I'm not that inclined to tell people. But if I get bad customer service, I'm inclined to tell absolutely everybody, and absolutely the problem, right, when it's a small business in a local area, that stuff can really get around and it can affect your business. Absolutely.
Amanda Barr 12:45
The other thing I wanted to touch on is something that you always say, because like, how many people are we talking about, you know, we all get those late night angry, we've all had one, the parent that's upset or whatever, you know, that is, but it's not every day. And it's very occasionally, and you know, you might have 100 kids, you might have 400 kids, you might have 800 kids. And you know, as a percentage to expect that that's just to be expected, right? Like, it's just part of doing business. Just like the cafe has a complaints that you know, the coffee isn't hot enough, just like the restaurant has a complaint, just like cuantas or Telstra or whatever, have complaints, it's just part of doing business, there's always going to be a small percentage of people that want to be heard.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 13:31
And when people do go above and beyond and really do with that complaint, do help you out how good you feel about it. And you're like, Wow, that was not what I was expecting. And that was so amazing. And, you know, then like I said, you stick with their brand, you stay opted into their brand, I think we need to remember that as well that, okay, that parent might be cranky, and you don't agree with them. Let's say last night, I completely disagreed. And I know that the child has made this up, I probably wouldn't have dealt with it that differently, to be honest with you. I definitely I did defend the teacher and I probably would have defended the teacher even more so. But at the end of the day, I don't think I would have dealt with it that differently. And I think that then that parents happy will probably go till people at school tomorrow what happened and that you know that that's all hunky dory. And I think we just sometimes get too emotional about it and forget the impact that it can have on our business. Right? Absolutely. Sometimes
Amanda Barr 14:34
people just want to be heard. That's the other thing that I you know, I really think because I always think as well when you have a parent that has maybe overreacted to a situation perhaps like, you know, for some reason on that night, you know, they just took that a little bit too personally, but I always think about what's going on in their life. You know what I mean? There might be so much else going on. And you know, and now That's okay. Like, sometimes that's okay, they might have had, you know, something else happened at school that day. And something happened at netball with their daughter last week. And plus, on top of that they're exhausted because they've got a sick child and blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, whatever could have happened in their life or their week or whatever. That's okay. We have to respect that. And sometimes people are going to, you know, sometimes you're gonna say, like, just like sometimes you're gonna send the cold coffee back. And sometimes you just don't really care and you keep drinking it because of it depends what kind of mood you're in, right? Yep.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 15:30
And we tell our staff, the meatloaf story, Amanda and I think it's important for you guys to tell your staff a story like these, where, you know, mums had the two year old all day, the two year olds been screaming because she's sick, she puts a meatloaf into the oven to cook, she pulls the meatloaf out, she drops it, it falls all over the floor, she now doesn't have dinner for her children, she comes and picks her child up from dancing and her child gets in the car crying. That is going to be a cranky parent. And so we tell that story. Mostly we want our staff to understand to not get emotional over situations when parents come in angry because exactly what you're saying. We don't know what they've been through that day. And the state that their mental, you know, being is in at that time. And yes, they probably have completely overreacted. But I also know parents is so emotional with their children, you know, and when their child's emotional, they get emotional, and especially if dad gets involved. So it was actually dad that pick the child up last night and dad that saw the child crying. And that probably escalated even further, I
Amanda Barr 16:38
would say it's funny, I actually find that too. And I wonder if it's a dad doesn't know how to you know, might not be as good at talking with a teenager, the teenage daughter might not open up as much to dad for example. So it doesn't feel like they can resolve it with the daughter so therefore has to go and find some other way to fix it kind of thing. It's funny, isn't it? Sometimes when dads even though that's the mum that called it was still the dad that just like you need to do that call them right now. Like, yeah,
Rebecca Liu Brennan 17:05
all my other thoughts on it is dads like that it I'm not paying for this dancing, if she's gonna come home crying. That would be my dad would say, Absolutely.
Amanda Barr 17:15
And like, you know, they're paying you a lot of money. And so correct me if I'm wrong. This client, they're a big client.
Rebecca Liu Brennan 17:25
They probably do about six classes a week that I do privates or anything like that. But yeah, pretty Yeah,
Amanda Barr 17:30
relatively. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, lots lots of money and you don't know like, maybe that's a real stretch for them. Maybe that's a lot of money that they're paying. And so when the kid not doesn't come home happy. I felt like that the other day about soccer, to be honest, because Sally came home unhappy, and I was like, God, I hate going to soccer. Not that it's the money for me. But it's the I just hate getting up on the Sunday morning going soccer. She doesn't like it, please, let's not go anymore. But you know, we all have those moments, right? She's
Rebecca Liu Brennan 18:00
we definitely do. So I think guys, like, just think about how you're dealing with parent complaints. The easiest way is definitely to pick up the phone. That's the other thing. If you get a cranky email, I really don't believe in emailing back. It doesn't work. And you know, everyone can be a keyboard warrior, including yourself. So just pick up the phone, talk to them. Get it out of your headspace. Don't think about it for days on end before you deal with it. Because you've got too much other stuff to worry about and do then to have that stuff taking up your headspace. Absolutely,
Amanda Barr 18:34
absolutely. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, everyone for joining us. Thank you for sharing that story back. I think that that can help everyone and help kind of hopefully the framework kind of helps you guys with dealing with that next, email, phone call text, whatever you get from the parents because it's going to happen, right?
Rebecca Liu Brennan 18:53
Yep. Absolutely. Thanks so much, everyone. We hope you have an awesome week and we will see you next week. Bye bye. Bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai