After establishing my card readings as a permanent service to the outside world I discovered that there are customers who tend to return very often (I won’t complain about that, haha) for the exact same or just slightly altered issue/question. I have wondered about some kind of reading addiction behind this, where the seeker doesn’t ask for guidance to better their situation or to tackle changes in their lifes but for the sake of the reading itself. This is not the intention I am laying into my “product”, most of my readings (and yours, too) are designed to help out the seeker long-term.
The never ending story with this is: the reading for the “eternal customer” barely changes its way for the same or at least very similar questions over the course of several days. In my greenness I was assuming that these people will eventually get the hint after the second or so reading: yes, your cards might look different from the last reading but the underlying message remains the same when taking them all into consideration.
I am torn in between calling them out (because it takes a considerable amount of time to get the readings done and it makes the waiting time for everybody else just longer; it also feels slightly frustrating to answer the same call over and over again, although this is probably something I should try to turn off altogether) or letting them return (because they are paying customers and therefore I should not complain?) and watching the same mistakes unfold forever.
How do you deal with such seekers? Do you point it out eventually to them or do you simply take the same request for a reading from the same person in a repetitive manner because its not for us to decide what people are doing with their lives and their money?
For now I feel as if I would contribute to the problem of their reading addiction with my product (and with not confronting them at some point), which is certainly not my intention
It sounds like the customer is thinking that the answer they receive will change, so they keep asking until they are eventually told what they want to hear. I feel this is likely especially true in love questions. People don’t want to hear that they will never get their ex back, or that the cute girl that sits behind them in algebra will never love them, etc.
Personally, before reading for them again, I would ask the customer why they are asking the same question over again when they have already received an answer. I’d want to find out if it is out of desperation, hope, lust of result, attachment, or whatever, Then I would give them a reading on the situation based on their answer, as there may actually be an unspoken question that they really want answered, but they are afraid to ask it, so they cover it with the obvious one.
That reminds me of the beginner habit to re-shuffle the cards over and over if I didn’t like the message
So far these repetitive questions from the same people seem to correlate with matters of the heart, yes. I take these questions seriously, even if I can see from a mile away that certain things look like a lost cause for now. But it seems that even with positive advice (from the reading, not from my personal point of view!) towards the situation, these advices are falling on overall deaf ears and they are back in four to six days with the same question (not just with love, but its notable how often it happens over this very topic). Which makes me think that some customers aren’t there for receiving a counseling but because they somehow depend on receiving a reading, no matter what. It makes me feel like a bartender who needs to decide if someone is still having a “good time” or if I need to throw them out
Sound advice; I’ll try to integrate it into my future readings without filling the reading with my own interpretation of their situation (and therefore my personal frontload). Interpreting unasked questions would be a more risky thing to do, so confronting them directly sounds a bit more promising.
I had customers that would try to get more and more readings about the same topic (usually, they were asking if their ex was coming back, or if their partner was cheating).
After two readings on the same topic, I started to reject and refund them, telling them to wait for at least a month between readings.
I won’t draw more than five more cards to clarify or obtain more information on one subject matter. I recommend they drop that subject for 2-4 weeks and occupy their mind with something else.
Depending on what they are obsessing over- usually it’s whether or not a result or an ex will come, I’ll recommend steps they can take on their own to remove the lust results etc, be it journaling or cord cutting or whatever.
I’ve not had someone do that to me in a really long time though. That doesn’t mean they don’t go knocking on someone else’s door as soon as I am done with them, but I’ve only ever had two or maybe three people ask for another five cards on the subject to fill in their misunderstandings- and those times it’s been useful because it’s clarified to me, what the cards were implying for those individuals.
So I guess basically I just took a stance and kept it, and that has worked for me.
", sounds like it could work 