1 Massage 4 U

I had the same experience as Heather J., however, as a massage therapist and small business owner myself, while I do feel bad about posting this review, this is exactly why I won’t do a Groupon (or Groupon Now!) for that matter.
When my therapist had to cancel on me Friday morning, and given the desperate need for a massage, I set out to search and decided to purchase my first Groupon for massage services. (Again, I own a business and have someone to trade with, so I don’t really need to do this).
I purchased the Groupon Now! and called to at 10:45am on Friday. The first number (I’m assuming the office line) gave me a recording that the mailbox was full. The second number I tried, I was able to leave a voicemail and I did, stating that I had purchased the Groupon Now! and would like to set up an appointment. (The thing with the Groupon Now! is that you have to use it the same day, and it said it was valid on Friday from 9am-​6pm).
I didn’t get a phone call until 9:45am on Saturday morning. He was apologetic that he didn’t return the call and said he was having phone problems, but that he had appointments today and tomorrow. I thanked him but explained that I had the Groupon Now! that had expired.
My problem here is that again, as a fellow small business owner, why some people shouldn’t do a Groupon. And personally, if I get a message from someone looking for an appointment, whether I can see them or not, I call them as soon as possible, on the same day.
This obviously isn’t the first time this establishment has had a problem with a Groupon Now! so why keep doing it?

I should note up front I did not have the opportunity to actually have a massage here. I am instead commenting on the customer service aspect.
1massage4u had a promotional offer for a $ 35 massage (Swedish, deep tissue or reflexology/​foot massage) today at Groupon. It was a «today only» deal which means the certificate and discounted price are only useful today. Vendors can set how many certificates/​tickets they sell through Groupon’s NOW deals and this is displayed for customers to see, mostly to avoid overbooking. At time of purchase there was no notification like «2 left!» or «sold out!» That indicates all was well and I should be just fine.
I was delighted to see something local in Birmingham pop up and purchased the offer at 9:30am after an unsuccessful call to make an appointment. I figured, why not? It closes at 6 PM and I can get out of work early if I have to.
Between 9:30 and 2:30, several phone calls to set up an appointment went unanswered and straight to the answering machine. I never received a call back. I finally got through at 2:30pm, just in time to find out that 1massage4u ran out of appointments for the day hours ago. Saturday was completely booked up as well. I get that this is a small business and Julian does all the work himself, and he was probably swamped with ladies and gentlemen eager to take advantage of the deal. He probably didn’t have an assistant to handle the volume of phone calls he may or may not have received. I like to give the benefit of the doubt.
The thing is, I purchased something with a limited time use (e.g., today between 9am to 5pm) for the service. Nothing indicated the business was overbooked — were too many sold? I’ll never know. The business day was well over by the time I heard anything back and of course, it was a negative answer. Groupon does automatic refunds at midnight if you don’t use your voucher — provided you don’t print it off, which I did. A quick call to customer service reversed the charge, so that cleared matters up on my end.
But it’s quite frustrating to try and make a time-​sensitive appointment for a massage after purchasing the voucher, assuming they’ll have time for me, and come up cold. I suppose I really need that deep tissue now that I’m all in knots.

Coming from Asia where we indulged in foot reflexology massages every other day, I know what a good foot massage is. Julian, the owner, is the real deal and the 1 hour foot reflexology I had with him was probably the best I ever had! Highly recommend him and will try his deep tissue massage next. Julian, you’ll be seeing me at least once a week now!