Are we crazy or are people tone deaf??

[or19937]

Context: I work in a two person shop with (and owned by) my girlfriend, where I mostly do bathing and blowdrying + paperwork, appointments etc. She does cuts, scissorwork and ofc when I'm not there the full groom.

Lady called me last Friday to see if we could fit her cat who is "very sweet and well behaved" in on Monday (today) for a trim (#7f or #10 all around). I said we can get her in at 10AM or after 2PM. She says 10's fine, we end the call, 1h later calls me back, says she can't do 10 anymore, but she wants later in the day (like 4PM). Fine, I said, will do.

Two appointments in the morning, I left about 2pm for other work stuff I do while my partner stayed there till 4 to wait for lady X.

Left my girlfriend a message around 4:40 asking how it's going and she calls me back furios, telling me she got into an argument with lady X since a) the cat was batshit crazy and would not stop clawing and biting (lady X refused nail trim for.. some reason?) and b) how "the place I went before could handle her". Cat was halfway shaved at this point, before groom finally stopped.

Turns out, place they went before would basically strangle the cat until they got the job done. But since we don't want to give their pets PTSD, we suck at doing our job.

Thus, lady X refused to pay the fucking 12$ we charge for a cat trim saying "she's paying us for nothing" and on top of that, "we couldn't do her cat in time" (this conversation took place half an hour after lady X came in, so 4:30) as lady X had a dentist appointment at 5. As if that's OUR issue.

Mind you, from 11am to 4pm we had two walk-ins that we couldn't take today (we did reschedule for later in the week), as we were waiting for lady X, who fucked our whole schedule for the day

even though lady X wasted our time and brought in a literal wild animal who was eager to kill, SHE was the one complaining.

So here I am, asking a single question:
tl;Dr: Are we as groomers crazy or are people just tone deaf?

 

[hiskidd]

@or19937 Owners don't want to believe their pet is anything but the perfect angel they think they have. Some Karen type clients truly believe the world revolves around them (was once blamed for PP missing a flight? Who schedules a groom 2hrs before their flight?) Some people (50+) don't see pet grooming as a hard or even "real" job. There's just dickhead humans, I'm sorry you and yours had a bad client today, but I assure you that you're not crazy, some owners live in their own world.

 

[childman]

@or19937 Honestly, I’m impressed by anyone who works with cats, groomers and vet staff alike.

I have the sweetest male cat, he’s all cuddles and purrs, and he goes into the vet and charms everyone there as he’s such a ham. Until you want to make him do something he doesn’t want to do. He doesn’t bite (thankfully) but he’s strong as heck and will kick and twist until he gets away and then he’s sweet as sugar again. I feel like most cats are the same as mine, or worse, so I’m super impressed by all the cat professionals.

But yeah, it’s definitely the lady that was out of line. Some people just suck, but maybe she was having a hard day too. Who knows.

 

[steve333]

@childman I do cats on a case by case basis. I tell folks up front that I'm one person so whether or not I can groom their cat depends heavily on the cats behavior for everyone's safety. There's a $35 non refundable deposit -paid upfront- to cover time and gas (house call) and the rest of the groom depended on whether the cat could tolerate grooming.

I always made sure to thoroughly explain the grooming process for cats and what I could and couldn't work around. I'd say 90% of people over the years have been able to accurately predict whether their kitty was a good candidate or if they really should just go straight to sedated grooming at the vets.

I don't generally love grooming cats, but I do love cats themselves... And there's so few groomers in my area that offer it (there's one other shop in a 100+ mile radius) most of the cats I wind up with are matted/comfort grooming and if I didn't take them they just wouldn't get groomed.

 

[carl78]

@childman I took my tortie to the vet once for a mild injury. I raised this cat from a very sick, very young kitten. She's a total ball of silly crazy love, and is like handling a rag doll. I assured the vet she would not give them any trouble. The moment she was out of the carrier she turned into a psycho cat. The vet realized she was in pain, but I was still shocked because she had never acted so pissy in her life.

Then, I took my older female to the vet for a blood draw and warned the vet she might be fractious. That cat was an absolute angel for her blood draw. Cats are the ultimate surprise!

 

[brainnetenthusiast]

@childman Oh yeah for sure, I’ve seen what the cat groomer at our salon has been through. I’ve only ever bathed dogs, and don’t think I’d ever want to try with a cat.

 

[bren0628]

@childman My vets LOVE my cat Ron because he's so placid and they can do anything to him with literally zero fuss. I don't know if it's because of his breed (exotic shorthair) or because he had been shown a lot as a kitten before we got him but he's a complete angel. He barely had to be sedated to have his teeth pulled and every time he visits the vets everyone takes turns cuddling him.

My other cat though? She growls if you pick her up. So... she's basically your average cat. I really feel for anyone who works with cats because 99% of the time they go into feral mode when they're handled by strangers. Groomers who take cats are next level brave.

 

[markpote69]

@or19937 Yes, people are tone deaf, but I can't get over the fact you only charge $12 for a cat. That's vastly underpriced IMO.

 

[or19937]

@markpote69 Prices where we live are crazy. Minimum wage is 600$/month in any field. Lemme tell you our prices:

Full groom Small / medium breeds : from 27 - 36$
Full groom Big breeds : 45 - 90$
Bath & blow-dry small breeds : 13 - 18$
Bath blow-dry Big breeds : 22 - 34$

Cats:
Full groom - 25 - 30$
Bath blow-dry: 13$
Trim : 13 - 18$

Nail trim / brush : $3.5
Eye / ear cleaning : $4.5

Opawz hair chalk on tail & ears : $6.5

Essentially, we'd have to do 45 dogs a month so we can get minimum wage for the both of us. That's if we don't pay the rent for the salon. Or the bills. Or shampoo & conditioner. Or anything, really.

AND PEOPLE WILL STILL COMPLAIN.

 

[brainnetenthusiast]

@or19937 Cats should be more than dogs imo, for the risk alone. We charge about double for cats than dogs at our salon.

 

[labanswe]

@or19937 That's minimum wage here too but my prices are almost double yours, if not more.

 

[trutheverlasting]

@or19937 holy shit, I don't want specifics but are you in America? our grooms range from 70-100. nails are 15. cats are at least 70 and they're lucky cause only one of our groomers does cats. and from what we hear locally we should probably raise our prices again but our customers have a shitfit whenever we do

 

[or19937]

@trutheverlasting oh nono, we out here in Romania #easterneuropegang

 

[trutheverlasting]

@or19937 sheesh, good luck

 

[dea10001]

@or19937 I'm not sure if it's the same where you are, because this changes by region. Typically, when you keep your prices really low, you'll get people who will fight you on price.
If you raise your prices, you'll still get those people but less of them. You'll get more customers who appreciate your work and are willing to pay for it.
There will be some friction while you make the change, and it's best to increase prices slowly and with explanations. Pricing at rates that respect your work will be better overall for you. Both because of the type of customer you'll get and because you won't have to overwork yourselves to break even. And then when you do have the occassional customer like this woman, you'll have more energy to deal with them.

 

[or19937]

@dea10001 It's true but even so we're kind of going by regular rates here in our region, and want to go up in price somewhere like this summer. Thing is we still want to build our customer base before going forward with any price changes. However, we have started being more strict on pricing and communication.

 

[beccao]

@or19937 Holy crap those are low!!! Time to move if you can.

 

[or19937]

@beccao Move from the country maybe xD

yeah, market rate here is very low, at least in the area, but we own the salon and are currently trying to grow

We've thought about it though, yeah

 

[xekuter]

@or19937 Cat customers are built different. You get nuts dog clients too but they’re nothing compared to like 50% of cat clients.

 

[steve333]

@xekuter And then you have that one angel cat who LOVES grooming, will literally walk herself to the tub, hop in, and sit patiently waiting for someone to come bathe her. Purrs like a maniac for the entire drying/grooming, and is happy to hold up her paw to get a nail trim.

Poor thing was brought in maybe 4x a year, was always filthy.

I tried to convince the owners they were welcome to bring her in any day at the end of the day for a bath and brush out completely free of charge just to help maintain her (she was a doll faced persian) because she was honestly the most well behaved cat OR dog I had on my books.... but they insisted she didn't need to be groomed that often. Brooke my heart every time.