refusing a client

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Nails At The Hat Hire Company

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Feb 8, 2003
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launton near bicester,oxon
Ok that sounds quite bad - and believe me i feel bad - but i am involved in the guild of professional beauty therapists ovaltine and andrex voucher offer - ie clients can have a free taster of manicure or pedicure - however most have been travelling for over 20 miles to get a freebie - even though i explain on the telephone it is a 'taster'.
now recently - i have moaned that after two years i have no regular clients exept for a man manicure client x 2 (they come every 6 weeks or so) and a toe nail art client again 6 weeks or so.
but i get on average of 3-4 clients - some weeks zilch some more (have ad going in yellow pages in june) i am in a sleepy village just outside a town called Bicester - ever heard of bicester village the designer outlet shopping place- anyway we have no nail only salons but about 5 beauty salons in the town and a few hairdressers now offer beauty treatment too. anyway i digress - people are always turning up late or not showing at all so this morning a lady was coming from about 18 miles away for a taster. I called her this morning x3 but could not contact her on the contact number she had given!!! (this is my new policy to ring if i can b4 to confirm appointment) however she arrived at 11.15. FIFTEEN mins past her appointment. so i told her in the nicest possible way i could not do her as it would have a knock on effect on the rest of my day! Now i feel really bad - i guess my hormones took over and made me really strong - normally i am a door mat and do people even if they are 1/2 hr late. but i felt really annoyed and thought i should put my foot down and as with the other tasters that have travelled from witney etc and all over oxfordshire i expect she wouldnt have been back anyway!
so as well as being a crap l & P technician i'm now a crap business woman too!
I only use creative plus fabric# (which is my only enhancement systme at present - as my l & p is too awful) so now im worried she will slag me off to everyone! not that the andrex voucher says im creative.
 
It really sounds that your being way tooo hard on yourself. I think 15mins too late is more than an acceptable time to refuse carrying out the treatment, some salons (for long treatments) would charge the customer as the salon also looses out on the profit of the treatment time. I think the best way to treat this sort of customer is to b so sickly sweet to them to keep situation in controll but b firm and set out a clear policy and stick to it!!!
 
You did the right thing. I also got sick of people not being on time. I work fm home and go out to peoples houses.I've only been doing it for a month. I had one lady that wasn't home for the appointment, but her flatmate let me in as the client was on the way. 1/2 hour later I just stood up and left. I'm normally very quiet and avoid confrontation, but this just pushed me over the edge. I called the client and said I was leaving her house and she was really rude! She said she had been shopping and was only going to be another 10 mins :eek: !!! I very politely explained through gritted teeth that it would put the rest of the clients appointments out and I would be late for them. She said I was unprofessional!!!!I sat and thought about the conversation all day, but then decided that i am better off without clients like her.

My friend thinks that the world would be a better place without other people in it!!! Sometimes I agree!!;) :biggrin:

Don't beat yourself up over this. I think that if she does say anything to other people they will see your side of things. Most people I know don't like lateness.
 
People seem to think that if they are coming for a freebie or taster session that you will be sitting around waiting for only them all day LOL.

I dont think you did the wrong thing.

I had a lady turn up an hour late for an appointment once - I had no one booked in after her but to make the point I told her I did not have time to do her airbrushing as I was not prepared to make my other clients wait - she accepted this and generally now comes on time.

I do think we are generally too soft with our clients and give the impression that they are doing us a favour by coming to us - there are some on here who get the respect they deserve.

It is a frightening situation when there are several salons locally and if you "upset" a client they will go elsewhere but we need to be strong and have confidence in our ability and the clients will stay and behave better LOL.
 
I totally agree with evrything evry1 has said on here. I'm also taking part in oveltine/andrex vouchers, what i have had to start doing is only excepting a certain amount of them on saturdays,cos evry1 want there freebie for there night out if i take lots of vouchers then ive not made much money, also i then have to turn regular clients away cos im booked up with freebies, who as u said earlier probebly wont come back again, although i must b honest i have gained quite a few clients from the andrex voucher so i dont want to moan to much, i just dont want to be booked with freebiw all day long
 
Jen I don't think you did anything wrong at all!! Clients can have a misconceived idea that we have ALL the time to wait around - WE DO NOT, WE CAN NOT & WE WILL NOT!! You are not a crap L+P technician and you really must start to believe in yourself and boost that self confidence of yours!! Why don't you take the opportunity to spend some one on one time with a tek on this site?? That could help both of you!!
I do not want you to apologise for what was a perfctly professional thing to do and if anyone questions you - you explain with confidence and possibly a very slight arrogance that your whole day is time dependant and unfortunately if your clients can't keep their times, neither can you!!

Wooo hooo - she flings herself off her soap box!!!! :)
 
Thanks you guys you really are a great support to me. I do still fee bad as it was quite out of charachter i normally am smiling sweetly through the service whilst chunnering in my head about their latenesss! I guess my hormones had a major flip or something! but hey now i have this support i think i would do it again -
Mrs Geek - thanks for your words too - much appreciated however you havent seen my l &P - when time and money are available i will get some one-one at milton keynes academy!!! i laugh at my efforts - otherwise i would cry!!! lol
 
Thehandsanctuary said:
Thanks you guys you really are a great support to me. I do still fee bad as it was quite out of charachter i normally am smiling sweetly through the service whilst chunnering in my head about their latenesss! I guess my hormones had a major flip or something! but hey now i have this support i think i would do it again -
Mrs Geek - thanks for your words too - much appreciated however you havent seen my l &P - when time and money are available i will get some one-one at milton keynes academy!!! i laugh at my efforts - otherwise i would cry!!! lol
Oh Jen babe,
dont get upset over this..............
But for the future maybe do this.................. the voucher / taster clients, tell them and this goes for all other clients too......
When they book,due to being a busy Tech, any client that is later then 15 minutes is classed as a cancellation...........but have the option to rebook their service.........
Any voucher/ taster / new clients will habe to be with you 15 minutes prior to their appointment,so they can fill in the client record card.
As I said before, your salon, your time your rules

So go and get em tigerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
 
I don't think you were wrong to cancel her. She should firstly have been on time, and secondly, could have called to confirm the appointment, and thirdly have rung to say that she was running late, and would that be ok?
I wonder though....
How long was her appointment for? And could you have done a shortened version?
(This doesn't mean that's what i think you should've done, just wondering about another way around it)
 
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