I have luckily only had to do this with one person so far... I've been open 18months and my very first client in the salon messed me around, never let me know if she was not able to come or anything. She left some nasty messages on my answer phone too, as well as different contact numbers and names. Suspicious no? But as I had just opened I gave her the benefit of the doubt and booked her in, with her not showing, and later ringing me to book another, with no mention of the other appointment. Eventually it got ridiculous and so when she rang me back a few months later I instantly recognised her gravelly tones and told her that as I had previously booked out time for her before (patch tests and appointments) and she had not turned up to any or let me know (I have to this day never met this woman) I thought it best she found somewhere else to have her treatments. She sounded flabbergasted and embarrassed and offered to pay me for her missed treatments, whilst also saying to me that "had I not let you know?!". My heart was literally bouncing out of my chest but I stood my ground and my god I felt so much better when I put the phone down. She has tried to get back in touch again as she has left another answerphone message. If she manages to catch me on the phone again I will say the same back to her!
Yes your clients pay your wage, but part of the reason why we chose this career path is because we like the job we do, and the people we deal with. So many people are envious of our jobs as they hate their own, and we do ours generally because on the whole we love ours! I believe that for every nasty, horrible time waster there are at least 100 lovely clients out there, and that we should fill our books up with these people, so that every day we look at our books and think "gosh am I really getting paid for this?". In doing this we will do our best work and these nice people are more than likely to tell their nice friends. Hence a nice customer base!