“Can you fill a set from another salon?” — the nail and lash call with no yes or no

A new client rings a nail studio on a Tuesday. She has acrylics on from a salon near her old apartment, three weeks grown out, and she wants a fill before Friday. She asks two things: can you fill them, and how long will it take?

Neither question has an answer on a phone. Whether another studio's set can be filled or has to come off depends on what is on her nails, and nobody on the call can see her nails. How long it takes depends on the same thing. But she is ready to book now, and “you'd have to come in and let us look” is not a booking.

The three answers

• “Yes, no problem.” She is booked for a fill. On Friday the technician looks at the set, decides it has to come off, and is now doing a removal and a new set in a fill's slot with the next client already waiting.
• “We don't work on other salons' sets.” Possibly true and possibly not, and decided by whoever picked up the phone instead of by a technician. If your studio does take them, that was a new regular.
• Book her, and write down what is on her nails. Ask what she has on now and roughly when it was done, note that the set is from another studio, book what she asked for, and tell her the technician confirms on arrival what the set needs.

The third is what Harkbell's nail and lash agent is briefed to do. The limit is in its brief in so many words: never promise that a set from another studio can be filled rather than removed, because that is the technician's call. So is the note. What is on the caller's nails or lashes right now, whether bare, a set from this studio, or work from somewhere else, goes into every booking or message. For an infill, so does roughly when the current set was done.

Time on the phone is a guess

Her second question gets the same honesty. Infill and removal timings depend on the set in front of the technician. The agent can say how long your service list gives a service, because that is written down. It does not tell a caller how long her own fill or removal will take. It says the technician confirms on arrival.

There is a neighboring mix-up worth knowing about. “How long will it last?” and “how long does it take?” sound alike and are different questions, and the brief's instruction is simply to answer the one she asked.

The words that sort the call

Most calls in this trade are decided by vocabulary, and a new client often does not have it. These are the distinctions the agent works from.

• Gel, gel polish and shellac are polish systems. BIAB, or builder gel, is a strengthening overlay. Acrylics and extensions add length. Dip, or SNS, is powder.
• A full set is new nails. An infill, or a fill, maintains a set that is already there. Removal, or a soak off, takes a set off. A new set over an old one may need removal first, which is why the agent asks what is on her nails now.
• Lashes divide the same way, into a full set or a fill, in classic, hybrid, volume or Russian. A lash lift, often with a tint, is not extensions at all: it curls her own lashes. If she says “lashes” and your list has both, the agent asks whether she has extensions on now.
• Brows are shaping, wax and tint, lamination or threading. HD brows is a branded shaping and tint treatment.

Two kinds of caller

The brief describes two people. Regulars ring to squeeze an infill into a busy week, and they want it quick. New clients ring not knowing gel from acrylic, and they need it plain. The agent is meant to be quick and warm with the first and patient with the second.

In practice, a regular asking for a fill on Thursday is asked when the set was done and offered a time, not walked through the menu. A new client who wants a new set is asked what is on her nails now, because a set over an old one may need a removal first.

The lash call where booking stops

One call in this trade is not a booking at all, and it often starts as one. A client rings to book a fill and mentions that her eye has been red and sore since her last set. When a caller reports irritation, an allergic reaction, or anything wrong with an eye after lash work, such as redness, swelling or pain, the agent stops booking and takes a message marked urgent. It suggests no remedy, and it does not book her in as if nothing happened.

The reasoning is the same on any line where the work touches skin. Nobody on a phone can see the eye, and “pop in on Thursday and we'll take a look” is a decision about a reaction, made by a diary.

What to write down first

• Fills, full sets and removal as separate services, each with the time it gets. What the agent can book is what your list distinguishes.
• If you do not take sets from other studios at all, one sentence saying so. Then the phone says it, and nobody finds out in the chair.
• Your walk-in policy, in one sentence.
• Prices for the things people ring to ask about. A caller who only wants a price should not need you to put a brush down.

What one of these calls is worth

Assume five calls a week go unanswered, at a $95 full set: that is about $9,120 a year, if 60% of those callers wanted to book and 60% of them never ring back. Those are our assumptions, not a claim about nail or lash studios. The missed-call calculator on this site takes yours.

The appointments are short and there are many of them, so the phone rings while somebody is holding a brush, or working an inch from a client's eye. Answering it is not a matter of trying harder.

One thing to say plainly: ticket resale is the kind of business Harkbell's agent is fully working for today. For nail and lash studios it runs on the brief described here, and it is still in progress and may not yet handle every call the way it should. The free plan answers on your own website, which is the place to find that out before it goes anywhere near your phone line.