Stealing clients

So, Tina, bless her little heart, wants what I have, which is a fairly steady client base.  Unfortunately, she'll try her damnedest to take the clients I have away from me.  Which manages to bite her in the behind on a regular basis.

Case in point:  Melissa has been coming in for quite a while now.  She started off as just a waxing client and has evolved into a color & cut client.  She and I have hit it off, rather well.  For whatever reason, I did not give her my card with my hours on it.  (DOOFUS)  So, when she was coming in, she wasn't able to get me because it was either my day off (and she wants it done NOW) or I was on lunch.  So, she wound up with Tina instead.  Now, she likes Tina as a person, just not necessarily what she does.

Yesterday, Melissa and her son's girlfriend came in yesterday to get stuff done.  I was on my lunch break when she came in (had just clocked out, in fact) so when she signed in, she requested Tina.  Now, I don't know what Tina told her specifically, but she was under the impression that I would be gone quite a while.  When I came back a half hour later, and saw she requested Tina, I stayed out of it.  If she wants Tina, whatever.  Well, Melissa walks up to me and asks me why she's sitting around if I'm back from lunch.  "You requested Tina."  "Well, I'd rather have you.  She told me you were on lunch".  "Okay, well, I'm back from lunch.  Let's go!"   And proceeded to talk to her about her hair color.

Melissa is funny, because she says to me "I'd like to have a lighter color in general.  Can that be done?"  "Sure.  What I'll do is figure out where you're at right now, and what color is lighter.  We'll do your regrowth that new color, feathering it into the old stuff so it blends and it'll be a work in progress with this new, lighter color.  That way, you don't have to highlight your hair all the time to get the lighter color you're looking for " (as I look at the highlights that have been done and see they're the stripey kind, which, personally, I hate to look at on a older woman)  "Oh, good.  I knew you'd be able to tell me if we could do it or not.  Tina is nice and all, but she won't tell me if we can do it or not."  And so, I won her back.

Now, if I lose a client to someone because they treat the client better than I do, and offer a better quality service than I do, or if our personalities just didn't mesh, that's fine.  It happens.  But, if I'm losing clients to others because of sneaky, underhanded tactics, that's NOT okay.  Clients don't like being lied to.  And when they find out, they WON'T go back to you.

I've got one more client to get back from her...we'll see if I can get that to happen.  I made sure both of these clients received my business card with my hours on it so they know when I'm around.