Distance Learning Naturopathy: No Longer A Second-Rate Alternative

Naturopathy is simply another word for natural medicine. It is a very old science (the word 'science' means knowledge) which has its roots in Indian and Chinese healing traditions. In the west these traditions have branched out into many different disciplines, but the core of them all is naturopathic nutritional therapy, or simply naturopathic nutrition.

Naturopathy Schools

Naturopathic training nowadays fall into two types. The first type is sometimes known as 'natural hygiene'. It is all about eating fresh, natural (often raw) food, internal cleansing, detoxification and fasting. With this type of naturopathy, little has changed since pre-antibiotic times, when naturopathy was practised by Harry Benjamin, Henry Lindlahr and similar leaders of the natural health movement. It was a very real and frequently effective treatment choice for killer infectious diseases. Before the advent of antibiotics, diseases like scarlet fever, diphtheria and tuberculosis were the biggest public health problems of the day.

Nowadays, chronic ill-health in the form of arthritis, heart disease or hormonal problems is our greatest challenge. Traditional naturopathy can sometimes help these conditions, but it is a 'one diet fits all' approach which can be limited in its effect.

The other type of naturopathic school tends to model itself on conventional medical schools, with an ever-stricter adherence to what is known as the 'evidence-based' model. The teaching of important therapeutic knowledge gleaned by masters over many decades, is often left out of these courses in favour of teaching the results of clinical trials on nutritional supplements and herbal medicines.

These schools may also phase out older editions of books and include only texts which have been rewritten to omit so-called 'unscientific' therapeutic insights, leaving only references to clinical trials and similar research. A notable example is the wonderful original edition of Rudolf Fritz Weiss' book 'Herbal Medicine' which was bursting with pure gold for a practitioner whose priority is to help sick people. I have a copy of this book which I would not trade for 1,000 copies of the latest 'scientifically censored' edition.

Getting People Well Again

Sadly it is all too common now for the most famous schools of naturopathy to follow this so-called 'evidence-based' route. After a student has spent 100,000 dollars and four years of his or her life on this type of training, the student may find that he or she is actually lacking a basic grasp of holistic health, and does not understand why many patients are not responding to the treatment.

After all, if your practice is based on the principle that a 'significant percentage' of women with premenstrual syndrome respond to a particular vitamin supplement, then by copying this treatment you are only going to help the same proportion of your own patients. In medical practice a 'significant percentage' only means those who did better than the patients who were given a dummy treatment.

On the other hand if you study with a master who is dedicated to finding the most effective clinical approach for everybody - whether from their own experience or by also studying advice from past masters - you may be more likely to achieve what you originally wanted when you signed up for your course: to get people well again.

Distance Learning Naturopathy: A New Training Solution?

As I wrote my books over the years, I wanted very much to start a training course which would help to rectify some of the problems I have described. But starting a school is a major project, not to be taken lightly. I did teach many short 'skills development' courses for already-qualified naturopaths, and these courses were always well received. One thing I learned from my students was how stressful it was for them to travel to classes. The UK is not a large country, but even so, the distance and expense of travel was prohibitive for almost everyone who lived more than 100 miles away.

But would a distance-learning course be acceptable? After much thought and planning I believed that I could make a distance learning naturopathy course just as good as a course taught in class. The more I thought about it, the more advantages I saw for the student. Not only greater affordability and convenience, but also greater ease of learning, and better student-teacher contact.

When you think about it, how much student-teacher contact do you get in a classroom? You travel 100 miles to listen to a couple of days lectures and put your hand up to ask questions. You can get the same information online and ask your questions in an online forum, where you would probably get a better answer because the teacher has had the chance to think about it. In class you have to try to write down the teacher's answer and decipher it later. In an online forum the answer is written out for you in full.

Online courses can now easily include video content to vary the learning experience - much better than listening to a lecture droning on. It is well known that the average student starts to lose concentration after about 25 minutes and needs a break. If you have to attend lectures for a whole day or a whole weekend, frequent beaks are not possible. But online they are. Just pause the video and have a cup of green tea.

Accreditation For Distance Learning Graduates

After qualifying, graduates of a naturopathy course need to be able to join a national professional association. This allows them to get the practitioner insurance that they need in order to set up legally in private practice. Naturopathic health advisors also need professional insurance if they work for health food stores, health clubs or vitamin companies.

This is why all practitioner training courses need to be accredited by a national professional association that is recognized by insurers. Recently, many forward-thinking professional associations are beginning to recognize that a distance learning qualification from a good school can produce good practitioners. (See the link at the end to find an accredited course.)

Modern Naturopathy

Modern naturopathy does need to incorporate knowledge gained from modern research. But I don't believe that this means forgetting what our predecessors taught us. Naturopathy is about understanding the human body and how it becomes ill. Only then can the most appropriate treatment be applied. Sadly this basic principle is being eroded away in the mainstream schools of naturopathy. I believe that some of the best training can now be found in smaller schools and by learning from well-respected master teachers. Naturopathy distance learning may well be the way forward.

Linda Lazarides is one of Britain's most respected naturopathic medicine experts. She is founder of the British Association for Nutritional Therapy and author of eight books on health and nutrition, including the best-selling Waterfall Diet and A Textbook of Modern Naturopathy. In January 2011 Linda launched the internationally-accredited School of Modern Naturopathy, an online distance-learning school to train naturopathic practitioners in all countries.

Specialty Produce Wholesaler Frieda's Sets the Standard With Customer Service That Goes the Distance

As a teenager, Karen Caplan and her sister Jackie learned about customer service the old-fashioned way. They spent weekends in the offices of Frieda's, their mother's specialty produce business, answering customer inquiries and sending recipes on how to prepare the company's exotic fruits and vegetables. Frieda Caplan had encouraged shoppers to ask questions and request free recipes at a time when no one else was doing it.

Nearly three decades later, Karen Caplan, now president and CEO of the Los Alamitos, Calif., company, and VP Jackie Caplan Wiggins continue to set trends in customer satisfaction.

Frieda's, which last year did $35 million in business selling everything from sweet dumpling squash to morel mushrooms, is the nation's largest wholesaler of specialty produce, exotic fruits and other foods. And it has honed customer satisfaction and education to a fine art. At a time when analysts and customers lament often slow corporate responses to consumer e-mails, Frieda's fields up to 500 queries week (most of them e-mails), typically replying within a day of receipt. And while other companies have been criticized for "dumb sizing" -- downsizing without regard to customer service or product quality - Frieda's continues to focus on making customers happy. It's a strategy that has helped build customer loyalty and push revenues higher each year in recent times.

"Twenty-eight years ago, no one was doing customer service. If you wanted a recipe or a refund, they'd tell you to expect to wait six to eight weeks," says Karen Caplan, whose company was also the first in the specialty-produce industry to offer full retail refunds to unhappy customers, and within a week. "Today, I'm relentless about customer service."

Give Customers More Than They Expect
Frieda's was among the first to include product descriptions, usage, handling tips, country of origin, complete nutritional information on its labels. And if that weren't enough, Frieda's assigns three employees to answer the dozens of questions that arrive daily, such as:

"Can I freeze my yakisoba noodles?"

"What's the best way to store horseradish?"

"Can I grow elephant garlic from the bulb I bought?"

Other customers simply want a recipe for the dried chipotle peppers they purchased, or have an occasional gripe, says director of communications Tristan Millar, who oversees customer satisfaction. The company lists recipes and product tips on all its labels, as well as its phone number, address and e-mail address, urging buyers to request refunds if unhappy.

Giving consumers a quick turnaround is the key to keeping them happy. Even on weekends, Millar checks her e-mail for customer queries. And the staff is especially diligent before Thanksgiving, because they know buyers will want tips on how to make the most of their holiday produce. Indeed, it's an attitude more companies should adopt, says a study by Jupiter Communications, which says 46 percent of online businesses take five or more days to respond to e-mails, or don't respond at all, collectively losing millions of dollars. Many sites don't bother to list a customer service e-mail address.

To ease the job, Frieda's has set up its own resource library containing books and publications on just about every fruit, vegetable and exotic food the company could find. So when an e-mail asks about unusual uses of various melons, dried fruits or other products, employees can find a solution and fire off a quick answer. They then stash the information in a special binder, because inevitably, someone else will ask the same question.

How can a company of 160 employees that sells its products to retail grocery chains afford to lavish such attention on individual consumers?

Over the past five years, the privately held company's revenue has grown from about $23 million to $35 million annually. It's difficult to peg how much customer service has played in the growth. But Caplan says that Frieda's refund policy -- unique within the produce industry -- says it all.

"In the past year I can tell you we've refunded less than $1,000, which tells you something about our quality," she says. To keep customers happy and complaints low, the company spends about $200,000 each year in employee time to field consumer requests. The results easily justify the expense, says Caplan, who believes the outreach helps build relationships and trust with end users.

"We have some customers who send the refund checks back to us," says Caplan. "Many have been customers for years and feel they have a relationship with our company. They just wanted to let us know that maybe some items were stuck together in the package."

Pick Employees Ripe for the job
The focus on customer satisfaction begins with the company's culture. Caplan and her clan pick employees with the same care it might select a good pepino melon.

"Make sure the people who are dealing with your customers are passionate about the product. Before they're hired, they have to give us the impression of being very customer- service oriented. You can't come in with a clerical mentality," she says. "They have to show a passion for food or customer service."

Frieda's builds on that natural interest by immersing employees in lore about the 500 specialty products it sells. Workers spend the first weeks of employment learning about products in the company's 81,000-square-foot warehouse in the Los Angeles suburb. They are encouraged to take products home and use them in their own cooking and recipes.

Training and education are the key to sparking workers' passion, Caplan says. Many companies are reluctant to shell out for such training, but it has been well worth it for Frieda's. "Some things you have to do on blind faith, just knowing that you're doing something positive for (employees) and they will do something positive for someone else," she says.

So when someone writes or calls with a question like, "How do I cook a squash?" employees know the answer, because it's part of their training. Caplan makes a point of reading every snail-mail letter herself, to keep taking the pulse of what customers want. In the end, she says, "If you aren't passionate about your products, don't expect customers to be."

By Lisa Plendl

Lisa Plendl is a highly seasoned small business copywriter. She provides marketing writing customized for small businesses, including Web copy, brochures, sales sheets, business letters, scripts, articles, and other collateral that drives traffic and gets results.

Small Business and Technology Writer