Personally, I would never take this approach with a soap. They don't know me from Adam and it would be impossible for them to know what they are getting over the phone. They really have no way to profile me to make sure everything would be OK. Soaps are pretty safe in terms of getting good service, even though the pics might be a little fake. I am not sure about your focus on "doable" or not. For a first time with me this is not a factor. So many other things come into play besides what she looks like in a photo. Whenever I try a new place I am thinking about setting up a relationship, not just a quick hit. This is a tough business for me to crack and I am willing to have a less than optimal experience in order to establish myself as OK for them moving forward. I have this sort of relationship with a few places which I keep to myself because they have told me that I am a special case and to not refer my foreigner friends. This is reality. It really is about business relationships.
Deli places are a little different. They don't have a building and investment to protect. They are essentially just a phone referral service. They can afford to get a jolt via bad experience from time-to-time and it doesn't threaten their investment, they can just write it off as a mistake. A soap cannot do this. If a foreigner causes an incident at a soap it could get ugly, they could lose an established customer or two and they are basically screwed. Ever notice how they call and sometimes hold you in the room before exiting so you don't meet someone in the hallway or entrance? I don't know if they do this for everyone so carefully but I've been held in the room until other customers are done and exited before they take me out.
This is just my experience. Don't take it as advice or criticism. I just think showing your face the first time at a place makes for a more comfortable experience for them. I know if I were them and they spoke to me only over the phone I would certainly be a little nervous thinking about what was going to show up.
[QUOTE=RalphKramden;1596487]I got a good lesson in P4 P reality in Tokyo. On Wednesday I called Kings Club to make a reservation for Friday. The guy was nice enough on the phone and even spoke some English during our conversation in Japanese. He said call back one day in advance for reservations. I called back the next day and might have got a different guy. I told him what I was interested in and he turned me over to another who was probably the boss at the moment. I ran down a list of very doable girls and all had the next day off as a holiday but were posted on the web site as being on Friday's schedule. I got the message and gave up, but before the conversation was over the guy encouraged me to drop by the shop and look at the photos of available girls. In short, foreigners are not able to make a reservation in advance at Kings Club. Keep in mind I have never been there and they don't know me. Has anyone been able to make a phone reservation at Kings Club or Club Naniwa? Please report your experience.
So I executed Plan B which was to call Ageha to make a reservation with one of four merely doable ladies purportedly in their 30's. Not one of the four would take a foreigner. The friendly English speaking phone agent gave me a list of three names which I later checked and found to be not doable.
Next stop was to call Hipness for the first time. The guy was pleasant enough on the phone and we had a straight forward conversation in Japanese. I don't know if anyone speaks English there. My appointment is for tomorrow.[/QUOTE]
