Nightmare day

[cardell]

Hi all. I’m looking for advice on 2 things that happened today:

1) a young girl came in today and had a beautiful set of acrylics done. There was nothing wrong with them, my nail tech is v experienced and this client was new. When it came to paying £25 she kicked up a fuss saying they were awful and she is not paying. My staff called me and I went to the salon (it’s my day off today) I spoke to the girl myself and she refused to pay, I saw the nails and they are absolutely fine. I told her I cannot let her not pay for them and she said “well I dunno what your gonna do then because I’m not paying” and sat down. After a discussion she left paying half the price- What would you have done then? she point blank refused to pay anything more.

2) I have a regular client, a bit of a pain in the arse, she is snappy and rude and not the nicest lady but still she’s been coming a while.. she has a few times not turned up for apt’s in the past year and the last time I decided to deduct one of her blow drys from her course she has with us, when she came in today she was informed the course has ran out, we informed her she had none left as the no show last week was used for her last credit. She’s kicking off and wants me to call her Monday. What would you do? I don’t want to give her the credit back because it’s certainly not the first time and I’m sick of clients thinking they can just not turn up to a booked apt and think it’s ok. What’s worse is we confirmation call the evening before and we’ve been banned from calling her so it’s not like we’re even allowed to remind her.

 

[AcidPerm]

Scenario 1.
I’d go nuclear. I’d have taken photos of her on my phone and threaten to name and shame her on social media and point out that intending to not pay at the outset is straightforward theft and I’d be informing the police. No different to stealing a bottle of expensive booze from Tesco.

Scenario 2.
I think you’re in the wrong here.
You can’t simply refuse to provide the final blow dry service as then you’ll be in breach of contract and she can sue you.
You could only deduct the blow dry IF it was made clear in your written terms and conditions at the time she paid for the whole course that failure to attend any booked appt. without a minimum 24 hours cancellation notice, will result in forfeit of the pre-paid service.
You can’t suddenly introduce new terms to the agreement mid-way through a paid course of treatments.

 

[cardell]

Hi. We have a 24 hour notice policy in writing on the wall.

 

[AcidPerm]

Hi. We have a 24 hour notice policy in writing on the wall.

Does it state that they may lose pre-booked treatments? Even so, I don’t think that’s really adequate. If you’re taking money in advance for a course of treatments, it needs to be included in the written terms that the client also signs to say they’ve read and understood them.