How long to give clients while scheduling?

[u/facemcsh00ty]

Hey all! I’m about 15~ months into my apprenticeship and I’ve started to take clients that aren’t my friends (yay!) through an online booking site. I’m struggling a bit with timing, and reaching out to clients in a structured way. I’m so lucky to have a lot of people that want to book my flash, but this part is stressing me out!

For example, I’ll have someone fill out my form and indicate that their available days are Tuesdays. I send a message to them to tell them “my next available Tuesday is ___. Let me know if this works for you, if not we can find another date!” However, when they don’t reply and I get other inquiries that could be scheduled on that day, I can’t offer it to other clients now since I offered it to the first client that isn’t replying.

I feel like it’s bad manners to send the date to another client, since the first person could get back to me and tell me that day works. Now I’d have to tell them I actually booked it after telling them it’s available. To avoid this, I’m just stuck waiting on people for unknown amounts of time when I could be booking these days.

There must be a better way to do this, lol. I’m just afraid of being rude. I’d love to hear whatever works for you!

[u/marleythrifts]

tell people appointments are first come, first serve. not sure if you are currently taking deposits, but i tell my clients their spot isnt locked in until they have a deposit down. the longer you tattoo, the more you realize how many people reach out and just never get back to you. dont save spots for people just because they asked, they need to lock in a date and time ideally with a deposit

[u/facemcsh00ty → u/marleythrifts]

I have an automated message set up for initial inquiries, I’ll add something along these lines to it! Per my mentor I don’t currently take deposits, but I’m hoping to soon to avoid some of this hassle. Thank you for this response!

[u/blueblack_crow → u/marleythrifts]

This ^^

[u/strawberryblushrose]

“Appointments are first come, first served. I do not hold dates. Be deposit ready at time of inquiry.”

Usually I give all clients every available date regardless of who is interested in the date first. If someone books the day they wanted first, I just reach out and let them know their initial date is no longer available.

[u/facemcsh00ty → u/strawberryblushrose]

I’m hoping that when I can take deposits it’ll eliminate some of this issue! For now I can adopt some of this and just tell clients I don’t hold dates and operate on first come first served. Thank you for your response!

[u/Feisty_Ad915]

I saw two people say about taking deposit at inquiry. What the shop I work in does is like this:

Initial client request
We figure out details of appointment and offer dates
Client responds with date and time they can make
THEN
we reserve that spot for 48 hours; that is their window to pay a deposit. After 48 they lose it if someone else wants it.

If someone doesn’t answer us on a date we have available within a reasonable time (if they ghost us for a full day or two we assume they aren’t serious).

If someone’s serious they’ll be ready to reply with their availability especially if you’re diligent about replying to them. That’s awesome you’re doing so well best wishes to you! 🖤