“Is it supposed to look like this?” — the PMU call that is not a booking

A client had powder brows done on a Saturday. On Wednesday she rings the studio. They look darker than she expected, one side has started to flake, and she spent the previous evening reading forums. She does not want an appointment. She wants somebody to tell her it is fine.

Every permanent makeup studio gets this call, and it tends to arrive while the artist is leaning over somebody else's face. Whatever picks up has a few seconds to choose between three answers, and two of them are wrong.

The three answers

• “That's completely normal.” Kind, fluent, and a clinical opinion about a face nobody on the phone has seen. If it was normal, she learned nothing your aftercare sheet would not have told her. If it was not, your studio has just told a client with a reaction to wait.
• “You'd have to ask your artist.” True, and it leaves her where she started, except that she has now rung and got nothing. She has no idea whether the artist will ever hear that she called.
• What the studio already wrote, and then a message. If your aftercare notes are written down, the phone reads her the part that covers what she asked and adds nothing to it. If they are not, or her question is not in them, it takes a message for the artist with what she described, in her own words.

The third is what Harkbell's PMU agent is briefed to do, and the rule behind it is short. Permanent makeup is a skin procedure, so the agent never advises on healing, scabbing, fading, infection, pigment reactions or contraindications. When the studio's own aftercare notes are in its knowledge, it reads from them. Otherwise it takes a message for the artist.

Where a question becomes a problem

There is a line inside this call, and the phone has to hear when it is crossed. “Is flaking normal?” is a question about healing. Swelling, oozing, unexpected color, or anything that sounds like an allergic reaction is a problem after a procedure, and the brief treats it differently: the agent stops booking, is kind, and takes a message marked urgent. It does not reassure her clinically and it does not suggest a product.

An urgent message is not an ordinary message with a stronger adjective. It reaches the studio as its own kind of alert, weighted above the day's routine callbacks, so it does not sit in the same pile as a question about parking.

What the agent does not do is decide how serious it is. A front desk that sorts reactions into worrying and not worrying is giving the advice the first rule forbids, one step removed. The message carries what the caller said, and the artist decides what happens next.

The other call that is not a booking

The second one arrives sounding exactly like a booking. The caller wants microblading next month and mentions, in passing, that she is pregnant. Or breastfeeding, or on Accutane, or diabetic, or taking a blood thinner. Those five are the examples in the agent's brief, not the whole list: any medical condition, medication or skin condition a caller mentions is handled the same way.

The same way means the artist reviews it before a procedure is booked. Where your studio books consultations, the agent books one, never the procedure, and puts what she mentioned in the consultation's note, in her words. Where it does not, the agent takes a message for the artist. It does not screen her itself, and it does not tell her it will be fine.

That is not the same as turning the call away. The caller hangs up with a consultation on a real date. The artist walks into it having already read the one thing she needed to know. Nothing was decided at the desk.

“Brows” is not a service

Most of the remaining confusion on a PMU line is vocabulary. Microblading, powder brows, ombre brows, nano brows and combo brows are different techniques. If your service list separates them and the caller just says “brows”, the agent asks which she was thinking of, and if she does not know, it says that is exactly what a consultation is for. Lip blush, lip tint and lip liner are lip work. Eyeliner, or a lash line enhancement, is eye work.

“A touch-up” needs one question before it can be booked. A touch-up within weeks of the first appointment and an annual refresh a year later are different bookings at most studios, so the agent asks when her last session was. Two things then go into every booking or message: whether she has had PMU on that area before and roughly when, and whether this is a first session, a touch-up or a refresh. Old work changes what an artist can do, so it is always passed along.

Four questions the phone does not answer for you

• “Will it look natural on me?” and “can you fix my old brows?” The agent never promises how a result will look, or how well old work can be covered or corrected. Both are the artist's call, at a consultation.
• “Does it hurt?” and “how long does it last?” Answered only from what your studio has written. Where you have written nothing, it says the artist walks through all of it at a consultation.
• “I faint at needles.” A worry about how the appointment will go gets “tell your artist on the day”, and nothing about what her body will do or what the artist will do about it. No “that's common” and no comfort tips, unless your own written answers say so, and then only as written.
• “What's the deposit?” Deposit and cancellation terms are stated only if you have written them down. Where you have, the agent can also tell the caller how you take a deposit. It never handles the money, and it cannot tell you whether anyone paid.

What you have to write down first

Everything above is only as good as what the studio has written. An agent that reads from your aftercare notes needs aftercare notes. Four things are worth an evening:

• Your aftercare notes, as you would hand them to a client. They are the only words about healing the phone will ever say.
• Whether a consultation comes before a first procedure, and the consultation itself as a service on your list, so there is something to book.
• Your deposit and cancellation terms, exactly as you want them said.
• Your own answers to “does it hurt” and “how long does it last”, in your words.

A question the agent could not answer is not lost either. It comes back to you as the exact question the caller asked, and once you have written the answer, the next caller gets it.

What one missed inquiry is worth

Assume one inquiry a week goes unanswered, at a $450 brow appointment: that is about $5,400 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 PMU studios. The missed-call calculator on this site takes yours.

What the sum cannot show is the kind of call it is. A call about a procedure on somebody's face is rarely made on impulse, and a phone that rings out while you are mid-procedure gives the caller no reason to try you again tomorrow rather than try the next studio today.

One thing to say plainly: ticket resale is the kind of business Harkbell's agent is fully working for today. For PMU 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.