HANDS up those who have ever consulted Trip Advisor before making a booking for a hotel or restaurant! What about those among us who have looked at Amazon’s five star ratings before choosing a supplier from the list of those vying for our business?
Things have moved on enormously in recent years – assuming that we see this as progress – and the idea of consumers rating their experiences, whether as an altruistic service for other consumers or as a momentary flash of self-interest conveying a desire to be heard, is clearly here to stay.
Long ago, before the Kite mark was launched in the UK, there were few nationally recognised symbols or icons to suggest a commonality of standard and, in their absence, consumers’ understanding of brand values and the brand equity embodied in a company’s products became rather more important than some might feel is currently the case.
One can feel for the creators of original products and brands whose early work and investment is encompassed in a recognised and respected brand when, at a later stage in the brand’s life-cycle, others come along and produce something similar but cheaper as a generic copy.
Of course we need to balance innovation against sustainable costs but the generic version can only be successful if some of the innovator’s brand values transfer to the generic version and that must be hard to bear for the product’s innovators.
Guidance necessary
As consumers have come to realise that, by nature of their holding the wallet, they can pretty much have whatever they like, it is hardly surprising that some form of guidance has become necessary to guide them through the plethora of options.
Each town offers multiple choices of restaurants, hotels, taxi companies, dentists and veterinary practices, just to name a few of the businesses vying for a share of the wallet’s contents, so the provision of a simple, easily understandable guide to help consumers find like-minded businesses has become an industry in itself and those providing such help have long since learned that it pays to be not just intuitive but also engaging.
Rather sadly, the average reading age of adults in Britain hovers around the age of 12, so creating something which requires application and in-depth consideration by the public is unlikely to succeed. Similarly, with daily lives packed to the rafters with urgent tasks, information overload and a higher speed of interconnectivity than at any time before, we all know that things need to be simple if people are to engage with them at all.
While I have been known to rail against the inexorable “dumbing down” of this country, I am beginning to realise that the process has a certain inevitability about it for all these reasons, and more, shown above.
Attrition of language
In just the last sentence, I have contributed to the attrition of the language by using a verb inappropriately but seem happy to accept that being understood is a priority that exceeds the niceties of language. Please don’t tell my children or words like “hypocrisy” will be winging their way in my direction before teatime.
Critics of the suggestion that the Practice Standards Scheme (PSS) could adopt a simple tiered set of identification icons showing practices to be either Gold, Silver or Bronze have suggested that this is far too simplistic a set of identifiers to do justice to the practices themselves and I can see the ineffable logic in their complaint.
Of course, because a practice might display a plaque outside describing itself as being a Gold PSS member, there is no certainty that the attitude, the customer care, the empathy and the veterinary diagnostic skill will be adequately represented by such a marker.
Represent quality
From a veterinary viewpoint, many would argue such a scheme should first represent the quality of the practice in terms of medical understanding, surgical skill, diagnostic excellence and overall experience and understanding but consumers have little understanding of the post-nominals which are so meaningful to us and, in the main, most consumers think all vets walk on water.
Assuming that we choose, as a profession, to continue with such wooliness in the way in which the public understands the value of our skills, the depth of our learning and the achievement of our individual academic recognition – and I can see why this should be the case – is it any wonder that when pet owners describe our practices as being lovely or otherwise, they are referring to the premises, the cleanliness, perhaps the decor, the parking or the warmth of the welcome they receive?
What used to be the Feline Advisory Bureau, now International Cat Care, has launched an excellent scheme to help the public recognise cat-friendly practices and, in doing so, has gone the extra mile to add to the basic components required by the PSS so that members of the public can identify practices which have all the basic boxes ticked (box-ticking can be beneficial too) but which also offer a genuine appreciation that cats are different, have different needs and have owners who very often are seeking a practice which recognises these things.
The Cat Friendly Practice scheme awards a certificate at Gold or Silver level and ISFM, the veterinary arm of the charity, insists on the standards being uniform and reproducible wherever the scheme operates – in the UK, in other parts of Europe, in the US, Australia and even, very soon, in China.
To have the expertise is a prerequisite and to have amazing facilities, equipment and premises is a real bonus – possibly enough to warrant a Gold certificate – but no one should achieve the Cat Friendly Practice standard if the attitude of all practice staff is anything other than welcoming and empathetic with a genuine understanding and appreciation of cats.
Plans to introduce three levels of recognition within the PSS are laudable and will be much valued by the public. They will offer practices the chance to select a level which is best suited to them but will not, however, be representative of the human differences which consumers seek unless the staff within our practices all behave consistently in a manner which reflects the level of attainment shown on the plaque outside.
The perfect system of categorisation doesn’t exist but consumers know what they value and are very familiar with similar schemes of recognition.
It is almost certain that there will be some confusion about whether a gold attainment should be seen as better than a silver one but, if we do not take the step to offer such a scheme to our consumers, it is inevitable that they will introduce something of their own to help them select a practice which best reflects the values they hold themselves.
Having read Trip Advisor comments ad nauseam, I know which I would prefer.
