I'm in a service business.. Golf Instruction. I've been doing it now for nearly 6 years. I obviously love what I do very much. I have never had a situation occur like the one that just did.
I've given probably over 3,500 golf lessons. I HAVE had clients get mildly annoyed if I needed to reschedule, or they couldn't get the time they wanted, etc. But nothing to cause me any stress. As a matter of fact nearly all my new business comes from client referrals.
Well, today I made a scheduling mistake. I had a 10 AM lesson scheduled for the past two months with a new client. For some reason I also booked a client at 9:45 AM. Normally my lessons are 45 minutes so I knew this wouldn't work. But I did not realize the issue until this morning around 7 AM. I know the client does drive from about an hour away so by 7:30 AM I had reached out to explain that I would probably need to reschedule. Now, unfortunately I had to reschedule this client 2 weeks ago also because I was crazy sick. However, in that case I did give him ample notice. I called 2 days before the lesson.
When I spoke with him this morning I got legit yelled at. Saying things like I should reschedule the other client, and next time this happens he's going to charge me, about how his time is extremely valuable, etc etc. I calmly tried to explain that I was very sorry and that it was my mistake and I was rescheduling him because the other client has been in my book for months and we had just scheduled his last week. (The lesson is actually for his son) I could see how angry he was, so I said that if they could make 9:30 AM instead of 9:45 AM I could probably push this around to make that work. My schedule of course would be screwed up the rest of the day but I wanted to try to make it right. He yelled about calling me to let me know and reminded me he lived an hour away.. Even tho this was 2+ hours until the lesson.
I am a younger guy, only 26. And I really felt like if I was older he wouldn't of said anything like he did. It has seriously ruined my mood for the remainder of the day, even tho I will do whatever I can to not let this affect my mood for my other clients for the day.
Should I just cut ties with this client? That would be something I have never done, because I would never turn away money. However in this case, I'm not sure I can look past the issue down the road when dealing with them.
Just would like some opinions on what others have had to deal with. This is new for me since all my clients mainly love me and my instruction. It really made me feel like crap, and has me wondering if the money is really worth it.
I should add that we have at least one lesson left, since it was package. However we were pretty sure we would continue working with his son after this package was over.
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