Many thanks for chatting with Miko. What you describe is unfortunately a
very typical mainland attitude. Cityguy has a great suggestion re Whatsapp.
The basic issues for Miko:
1. I will loose business if I do not immediately book clients.
2. Hence, I loose income.
3. If I cannot make money then I cannot stay in my shop, etc.
4. My clients then go to other providers.
Solutions:
1. Miko's Number 1 selling point is her Massage Skillset*. She is forgetting
THIS is THE REASON why she has so many new clients who are NOT GOING
to other shops.
2. She is also forgetting she was in her current shop for how many months/years?
at the pre-popularity daily number of clients and getting by [or ?better].
3. Competent personnel [on ANY level] are rare.
4. She does not understand when we [collectively] find a competent provider
[of any service], we are grudingly willing to wait until a booking slot is available.
5. She needs (1) Voicemail with a Cantonese/Mandarin/English message that
states she will call back shortly and (2) cityguy's Whatsapp solution. Both instantly
provide a short term solution. Then when she meets a new client, she hands them
a language appropriate sheet of paper explaining her booking drill.
6. She really needs to comprehend longtimelurker's complaint. When she is hired
for X number of minutes, her attention is 100% on the paying client, toilet breaks
excepted.
7. Messages are answered between clients [put a 10 minute break here.]
8. Competent personnel rarely starve unless they "piss off" their clients with bullhocky,
an unfortunate yet frequent situation in HKG . . . . as I am told.
9. I do not believe in Catch-22 scenarios. By my experience, it is typically a combination
of (1) communication and (2) functional education or lack thereof. Professionally, I solve
problems for a living [all types except IT voodoo and where to find competent Lingan massage].
BootBoot, if you are willing, have another chat with her. She has great potential for
a very successful business for the rest of her working life. I genuinely hope she will
listen as your back [and those of others] need her. On her current course, she is headed
for a client haemorrhage which may not be fixable, a very sad situation for all.
*THE massage school is in Guangzhou. In HKG, there are 1-2 other massage providers
with excellent and likely similar skillsets. The one I routinely use is superb HOWEVER there
are "no extras of any type or kind." If you try, you will be permanently banned by the shop.
Hence, go for the massage, get the "happiness" elsewhere.