Misleading Marketing Terms - Preying on Spa and Salon businesses
Nora Kenyeres initially agreed to features that she markets with her company - spaandsalonacademy - that they will get appointment deposits upfront at the time of client booking from the Facebook and Instagram advertising. She charges $99 per booking that arrives to appointment, which is 50% of the time they are no-shows or change appointment during the scheduled time of the client appointment, or right before the client should be arriving. She charges $299, broken down in the following - $99 sign up, $200 to cover 2 bookings in case your spa/salon does not pay her invoice. They bill the spa/salon 1 week after the prior week bookings. They are never accurate. Many no-shows, etc.. she tried to bill me for and I had to send in the clients that did not show up. They know this already because they follow-up on the cancellations or no-shows to try to get them to rebook. They only confirm the appointments day before. There are many, many virtual assistants that handle the text and email communication with her company so you never know if they are following up on your last communication or you have to update them again and again. This is a scam and Nora completely understands what she is doing. Here is her approach - she agrees to getting quality leads with deposits. 2 weeks go by and there are no bookings. She then reaches out to you and convince you that having a credit card on file is better as people are nervouse about paying deposits. You agree. Then another week goes by with no bookings and she reaches out again and says the market is not responsive to credit card on file. Can they book appointments and they will confirm the day before. So you now agree to this as well. She also convinces you to decrease the promotional price of your service to $99 as well. We started much higher than $99. Another week, no bookings. Then she reaches out to say that we should market to the underserved market of foreigners because they are highly ignored. We agree as we have no bias. NOW the bookings start to come in. She uses her virtual assistants to speak in the customer native language. Now they come to the appointment 50% of the time and do not speak English. You have to use an app translator. You complain to Nora about what is happening with your normal customer demographic markets, she says she is working on it but we should be happy with the bookings, even though only 50% show up. Don't let me start with the late arrivals or bringing tons of family and friends to the appointments with them. I sent my spa policy to Nora so they can send it to each customer with each appointment booking so they understand spa etiquette. This helped as my spa policy with my normal business always includes the spa policy on the website and as part of the email appointment booking sent to each client. They did translate my spa policy to whatever language they were marketing too. I continue to ask about my normal customer demographic that we get from my normal marketing and I tell her I want to go back to requiring a deposit. Requiring a deposit is normal protocol these days, especially in a metropolitan market as big as Dallas Texas. She then tells me that she would only take that approach if we paid her $300/month additional to the $99/client booking so it covers her cost with her virtual assistants and that we would get very few bookings. I was in shock, could not believe the nerve of Nora. You promote yourself as a marketing expert in my industry yet you conveniently change the terms over a series of weeks to where you wanted it to be in the beginning at the expense of my spa business. Having my staff waiting for all of those appointments that did not show up or that arrived very late could have disrupted my business if I did not take action quickly. Nora Kenyeres owes it to spa and salon owners honest feedback on her business marketing strategy and not waste the spa and salon resource time. Very unprofessional and she takes NO accountability. I immediately told her I will no longer be working with her. She then says in her reply email that we honor the bookings made without a deposit as it is unfair to her and the customers to change the terms agreed too.... SERIOUSLY!! That is all you've done is change the agreement multiple times. You want my business resources to wait and cross fingers that the clients your company booked will show up and when they do, I then owe you $99... No Thank You. I refuse to allow her scammy tactics to continue pimping my business when my team was doing the work at the spa level while she markets to whomever. She tells you to upsell and that is where the money is. I already know this. But our ads bring in a certain caliber of clientele that is seeking high quality med spa clinical facials and have the resources to continue getting services.
December 30, 2024
Unprompted review
