How to get a groomer…

[pink1]

I live in Montana. Where I live our grooming options are PetSmart, PetCo and a handful of private groomers that are all so busy that they aren’t taking new clients. They also don’t keep wait lists.

I take my yorkipoo to a corporate groomer because I couldn’t get in anywhere else when I got her and I wanted to establish good habits early. She is groomed every 6 weeks. She has never had a mat, she gets brushed twice daily and I’m told she’s very well behaved. I’m always 10 min early and don’t miss or reschedule appointments.

For personal reasons I’d rather my money go to a small local shop than a huge corporation, but I’m not sure how to go about doing that when the privately owned people are so busy that they don’t call back. 3 even have signs on the window saying “not taking new clients.”

What’s the best way to recruit a groomer? Should I send a letter with receipts showing I show up regularly? Should I offer to pay for a year of grooms up front? Or should I just let this one go? I don’t have any friends with dogs that get groomed so I can’t ask for a good reference anywhere. I also don’t want to be pushy. The store I take her to does do a good job. Is this a hill worth dying on?

 

[slyder50]

@pink1 Do you have a request groomer at the corp store? You could always slip them a tip envelope with your number and ask if they groom on the side... or if they ever quit corp let them know you want to keep in touch.

 

[pink1]

@slyder50 She is about to have a baby and I do slip her 40 bucks when I see her. This is a great idea, I’ll see if she’s interested.

 

[aryehyehudah]

@pink1 If she gets caught she'll more than likely get fired.

 

[noheisable]

@aryehyehudah Not very difficult to not get caught. Every groomer in my previous Corp salon had a favorite request they groomed at the owner’s house or theirs for one reason or another, mostly because they were too old/got too stressed with other dogs/just did better at home.
We all knew because we got along and didn’t snitch and for people we didn’t trust/didn’t talk to we just never mentioned it. Or they can also just not tell anyone.

 

[aryehyehudah]

@noheisable I've learned you can never trust anyone to keep their mouth shut, either innocently or maliciously. I personally can't afford that gamble, but everyone's situation is different.

 

[slyder50]

@aryehyehudah That's why you slip it to them in a tip envelope. Especially if she's going out on maternity leave. Lots of groomers quit once they go on extended leave because the brainwashing wears off. Also depends on which corp. Petco allows groomers to groom elsewhere now. You just can't solicit the clients. If they solicit you it's a whole different story.

 

[aryehyehudah]

@slyder50 I would feel really shitty if I lost a new mother her job. Not everyone has the luxury to up and quit.

 

[silverfanng]

@slyder50 As a groomer myself - I find it very boundary crossing any time clients would ask if I groom "on the side". Like, we don't have timeeeee to be doing extra stuff outside our job.

 

[aryehyehudah]

@silverfanng Lol, yeah, my ex was always trying to find dogs for me to do on the side for less since I would get to keep everything. I finally convinced him the last thing I wanted to do on my day off was give someone a discount groom with no equipment because they're too cheap to actually go to the groomer (me or otherwise).

 

[silverfanng]

@aryehyehudah Right and you have to bring all your equipment home, bathe in your home tub etc it's just a mess and super inconvenient, yet people think they're doing you a favour by asking for it

 

[peacelovefaith]

@pink1 I would be so sad if a dog I groomed from the time it was a puppy left me because I work corporate.

Like others have said, you can just keep trying. Post in a local neighborhood Facebook group, that's usually a good way for groomers who have openings to advertise themselves. Remember grooming is unregulated in the US and anyone can call themselves a groomer.

 

[jp175]

@pink1 The reason that groomer’s stop taking new clients is because our books are completely full of recurring appointments from existing regulars. There is physically no more time in their schedule to groom another dog. You can only groom so many dogs in a day before you physically are in too much pain to continue — their days are full and they physically cannot take new clients. They already have clients who have to prebook their appointments and stay on a schedule (we don’t schedule new clients on Saturdays because every single grooming slot for Saturdays is prebooked by existing clients until mid 2025) and they cannot handle another dog, even though you can prebook and show up on time — so can their existing clients. Businesses that have stopped taking new clients have almost always weeded out their bad clientele, so the likelihood of them firing a client and getting room from that is low. They will not have another opening until a dog dies or is so old they can no longer be groomed, or a client leaves them.

If you’re set on getting in, the only thing to do is wait patiently and politely. If someone came into my shop trying to get a Saturday appointment and showed up with all sorts of receipts and offering to pay extra, that tells me they know they’re crossing a boundary and they’re trying to argue why they’re worth making an exception for. And the sorry fact of it is, as great as you or your dog may be, there is not enough time in my day to make an exception. The time that I would spend on your dog directly takes away from the time I have at home with my family, hanging out with my dog or having dinner with my daughter. You can call every few months and politely ask if they’re taking new clients or have a waitlist, but anything more than that is too much imo.

 

[worshiplady3]

@jp175 This is exactly why I’m not taking new clients. Not because I’m afraid you'll be a bad client, but because there is literally no space in my schedule. If someone needs to reschedule, which only happens once or twice per month, it’s like playing musical chairs trying to fit them back in. I closed my waiting list because my existing clients keep getting new puppies. It’s like an infinite loop of existing clients!

 

[seeingbabylon]

@worshiplady3 I closed my books the day I said that I recommend that new puppies come in at least every 4 weeks, but couldn't find a spot for them until 8 weeks later. It's stressful trying to accommodate everyone. Half the time, if someone cancels, I just say "oh thank God, a break" and don't rebook that spot.

 

[carl78]

@seeingbabylon I stopped taking new customers shortly after realizing when the OAY dogs call every Spring, I had nowhere to put them for 2-3 months. And even then, if I scheduled them in 2-3 months, when that time rolled around I had nowhere to put my regulars.

OP, if you're happy with the groomer you have, I'd stay with them. You sound like a fantastic client. What if you work and work and work to get in with a private groomer only to find out that they're not nearly as good as you had heard?

 

[helloitsme]

@seeingbabylon That "oh thank God, a break" speaks to my soul so deeply. Unless half of my dogs cancel I don't even look at our wait list and even then that can be hit or miss depending on what's going on in my life at the time. It's fun trying to explain to people wanting on our cancel list that their best bet is to schedule during the call and not just hope for something. Most of the time though we just don't get any cancellations with enough time to schedule in a new dog.

 

[jp175]

@helloitsme We don’t even allow people to get on our cancellation list without having an appointment! Otherwise our cancellation list would just be pages long with literally a handful of people being called per year. We book the appointment 2-3 months out (this is how long we’re usually booked out except for Saturdays, where we are booked well into 2025) and then they can go on a waitlist and if something opens up and we feel capable of taking a work in, we call off the list. Over 90% of clients on our cancellation list end up having to wait until their scheduled appointment anyways — if they didn’t have that, they would be in waiting limbo for well over a year for a spot to open up. Of course when they originally schedule they get so fussy that they have to have an appointment so far out when they want to be on the cancellation list. I like to be explicitly clear with them — “yeah, so I’ve got you guys scheduled on XYZ date, so if nothing else you’ll have an appointment then. Right now you have about twenty three clients in front of you on that list, we usually are able pull someone off of that list about once a month or less. So this way you will get in much quicker than just waiting for a cancellation.” And if I can remember, I’ll even keep track of how many clients got to come off the cancellation list so if they complain about the wait, I can show them their name on the list and tell them exactly how many cancellations we had that needed to be filled and how many other clients also just had to wait for their scheduled appointments. Almost everyone comes off the cancellation list not because they got called, but because their scheduled appointment came up. If they won’t schedule, they can’t wait around on my list because I already have so many clients who I know I’m going to be making money off of whether that’s from calling them or their scheduled appointment.

 

[helloitsme]

@jp175 I wish I could hold my boss and coworker to that. Sadly it's woefully everyone for themself at my shop but at least I'm on a w2 lol. Get a lot of the benefits of being a contractor without the hassles. My boss is an absolute shit business woman but an okay person.

 

[cerulean123]

@pink1 Most of my local small private salons, the "mom and pop" type, are abusive to both their employees and their animal clients. I left private to go back to corp and couldn't be happier. Obviously this is not the case everywhere but I'm pretty sick of the idea that just because a place is a small business that it's good.

Just because your groomer works for a corporation doesn't mean they are any less deserving of business or any less skilled.