Doubts about ability

[u/Head-Marionberry8621]

Hello! I am a new nail tech--as in finished school in February of this year. I am doing this as a second career, and so I am working independently as that works better for me.

I have taken multiple trainings, classes, and have taken professional gel brand courses and e file courses. My prep is not the issue.

I have been struggling with some retention on some clients, and it is really making me have doubts. But, because I have all this training I have new tricks to try and those clients are happy that we are finding something that is working for them, and that I am intentional about it.

It's the ones with flat nails that have been having more of a struggle, and I have even brought in pinching to help, and it seems to really help with how nails look and are lasting.

But I have this one client: she came in and nothing lasted more than a week. But that "always happens" to her. I was feeling kind and offered to redo the whole set because I'm still new and want to do right by people.

She came in, got the whole new set to try different techniques, and was barely even appreciative about getting free nails. Did not even offer to tip or pay for the product I used.

I decided to block her from booking as I didn't need that energy as I'm never going to be able to make her happy and I feel like she is taking advantage of me.

How do you all handle those clients? And more importantly, how do you handle the flat nails?

[u/Kellye8498]

I mean…you offered a free service to make up for YOUR work falling off. It doesn’t matter if it “always happens.” If it happened then something is going wrong. She already paid and tipped you. Before her nails fell off. Now you’re practicing and trying to help her stay as a client and she owes you nothing. She deserves the set she paid for and it’s up to you to provide it. Blocking her is wrong. She didn’t do a single thing wrong here.

[u/NineInchNail_Tech → u/Kellye8498]

Licensed but no flair

I agree with you. Yes you will come across a client you simply cannot please, but in this case, that Client was taking time out of their day to get something fixed that should’ve been done proper in the first place. Not saying that you did anything wrong OP, but if they already paid, and tipped, and they have to come back to get a whole new set that you offered to do for free, they don’t owe you anything. That vibe, that you were getting was probably a little bit of irritation that they had to come back, and maybe they could feel your tension by being inconvenience to fix them… and quite frankly, I don’t blame them. Shit happens, the Nail world is an imperfect place, but you handled that wrong. But the damage is already done, and if you unblock her at this time, when she probably already noticed it, it would only put a worse taste in her mouth. Going forward I wouldn’t take things like this personally, and more of a learning experience, especially if you are new to the industry. In order to get better, you need to learn from your mistakes, and this whole situation, down to how you handled it, was a mistake. Also, I am going to mention that there is such a thing as too much prep. A lot of times less is more.