217 | Sending Birthday Cards: Balancing Customer Service and Confidentiality

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You're listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr. Brenna Hicks.

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Your source for centered and focused play therapy coaching.

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Hi, I'm Dr. Brenna Hicks, The Kid Counselor.

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This is the Play Therapy Podcast where you get a master class in child-centered,

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play therapy

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and practical support and application for your

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work with children and their families.

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In today's episode. I am answering a question from Brianna in Texas

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and her question is about sending birthday cards to clients

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and for some context,

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this is one of the things that we talk about in the coaching program.

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So she has started sending birthday cards as a result of the coaching program,

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but was then wondering if there's a certain way to do that

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to be a little more careful with confidentiality.

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So she was asking about how to handle that and what we do at the center.

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So let's start with,

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if you do not send birthday cards to your clients, you should.

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So let's begin there.

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Kids do not, rarely if ever get things in the mail

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and the relationship is a very special thing between us and our clients.

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So when we know that it's the child's birthday

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and they get a birthday card, you know,

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think about and I was actually told by some of my

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international coaching participants that this is not true in other countries.

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So I'm, I'm throwing out the disclaimer that I think this might be just a US thing.

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But think about,

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you know, when you go to a doctor or when you go to a dentist or you go to a chiropractor,

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they typically send you a birthday card

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of some sort.

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So in the States, at least it's a common practice

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for clients or patients to be acknowledged for their birthday.

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And sometimes it's truly just an acknowledgment and then sometimes it's

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something special, you know, like 10% off this or come in for a free such and such.

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So it can be geared in different ways.

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But the bulk will send an acknowledgment for your birthday.

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So similarly,

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we have the opportunity to really honor

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and remember our client when it's their birthday

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and we have gotten so much feedback about how much impact this has.

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So if you've not started doing that, you may want to.

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But then Brianna's question is I'll read from her email.

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Is there a certain way I should label them? So it does not violate confidentiality.

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Obviously, I put the child's first and last name and their address.

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I'm wondering if this is how you do it or if you edit it.

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So it has less obvious information.

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I realized that if a friend saw the envelope,

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they should not immediately know it's from a counseling office.

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Ok.

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So this is typically what we do,

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we do put the child's first and last name and mailing address,

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that's how it gets to the child correctly.

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So you really can't do anything apart from that.

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And quite honestly,

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any mail people are going to know the child's first and last name anyway

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and their address.

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So that is a standard part of the mail system.

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There's no issue to be concerned about regarding confidentiality there.

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For our return address label,

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we provide the business address

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because that does not have

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any sense of who's sending it, why they're sending it,

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what the nature of the relationship is.

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And keep in mind the return address is only

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if something happens with the mail and it needs to be returned to sender.

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So that's not even really that important, I suppose if you really wanted to

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go above and beyond, you could just leave that off.

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But then if anything happened with it, they would never know who to return it to.

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For example, when we send out mass mailings for the holidays,

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a lot of times we will get some of them returned

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and we know that that specific family never got the card.

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So that allows us to reach out and confirm their

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address and ask if they've moved and you know,

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find out what went on there and then resend it.

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So if you don't put a return address,

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you will not get it back.

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However, that is a way to just make sure that if it's just the address,

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anyone looking at it

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would know that that child that lives there got something for their birthday,

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but they would not know who sent it or why.

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And just as a general rule about the birthday cards,

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we typically have each therapist that's working with that child,

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let me know that didn't make sense.

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We have the therapist that's working with the child,

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write something personal

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on the card.

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So

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our office manager kind of stamps them, addresses them, does all of that.

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But then each individual therapist,

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when it's their client, they write a personalized message

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to the child.

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And we've gotten feedback from families that the child puts it on their dresser,

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they put it on their mirror, they put it on the fridge,

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they keep it and they won't let anyone throw it away.

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That becomes a really special

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representation of the relationship that they have with you

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and you send it to their house

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because typically they come to you and they play with you at your business.

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So for them to have something that reminds them of you and represents you at home.

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It's a very inexpensive, easy, simple way

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for the child to really feel special.

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And then in the customer service light,

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the parents are just blown away that you sent their child a birthday card. So

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I highly recommend doing that. It's easy. It's simple postcards are

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cheaper, not only the postcard themselves, but also the stamp.

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So if you want to be especially frugal,

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you can send postcards instead of

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enveloped cards.

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But that is something that we do consistently. We've been doing it for years

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and we just make sure that every month, all of the children who are born in that month

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receive birthday cards.

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So Brianna, thank you so much for the question.

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I hope that that is helpful for all of you and maybe it

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inspires you to go buy some birthday cards or some birthday postcards.

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You can create them yourself in Canva

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if you want to really make it personalized and design it exactly how you want it.

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But even just standard birthday cards that you buy at the store

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will suffice

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and it just is

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an extra elevated level of customer service for the family and

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it's an extra level of connection and relationship to the child.

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All right, love y'all. Thanks for hanging out with me. We'll talk again soon. Bye.

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Thank you for listening to the Play Therapy Podcast with Dr

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Brenna Hicks. For more episodes and resources.

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Please go to www.playtherapypodcast.com.