Your Salon’s Reputation

Hairdresser cutting a bob with clippers — Photo: Bigstock

Everyone makes mistakes and everyone has a bad day. You can't please everyone and in the customer service industry, there will always be someone who is dissatisfied with their experience. Sadly, that is just how life works because nobody is perfect.

This is especially true when it comes to working in a hair salon, whether you are an owner or a stylist, and why is that? There will always be those clients who come in wanting to look a certain way and no matter how hard you work with them and try to explain (in the nicest of terms) that you are not a miracle worker, they will not listen to you, leaving you feeling upset and frazzled. No matter what you may have done to dissuade the client, some people are just relentless and they want what they want. You can't stop them no matter what.

Those bangs you said were going to be too short for their face shape when they asked your opinion and you were as kind as possible? Now, they are walking out of the salon on their smartphone, Yelp-ing away about how they had the absolute worst experience and are never going back again. This may be a fit of rage, and they may be long-time clients who have only praised you as a stylist and have sent people your way. But with the invention of technology and review apps so readily available, they cannot help but jump on and unleash their fit of anger onto the world.

And now everyone who is looking for a new salon is going to see this negative review and think twice about coming by, and now your salon’s reputation may be ruined indefinitely. A dye job you may have tried to tell a client was just not going to work for them (and it didn't). It has left them in tears and now you are the target of their anger and, once again, social media is the platform of choice for venting. It is really sad that people cannot just talk to the person they have a problem with and resolve it then and there instead of bashing them.

If you, as a client, are not satisfied with a service, especially from someone that you have trusted for a long time, you should not undermine their business that they have worked hard to build. Think about how you would feel if someone did that to your passion. In a salon setting, you need to trust your stylist and understand that they will only do what they believe is best for you and your face shape as well as your hair and the condition it is in.

Hair salon customer who is about to get her long hair cut short

If it is damaged and fried but you want to go from brown to bleached blonde, they will probably tell you no and if you are not satisfied with the happy medium they may have suggested, remember that they were just trying to save you from further hair trauma.

Not everyone can bring in a photo of Jennifer Aniston and say that they want to look like that and walk out with her hair color and style because we are all different, thus highlighting the beauty of hair and life. According to Business.com, 88% of customers interviewed admitted that they rely heavily on and listen to online reviews and will only go to places with the best reviews and reputation.

It is much like Amazon.com, if you have ever shopped online. They will give you several options for the item you are looking for and most likely, you will purchase the one with the most number of stars and the highest percentage rating. Would you buy a necklace from a company with two stars when you can get one around the same price with five stars? Think about it for a moment.

That is what a review, a few simple negative reviews, can do for a business. We cannot control what people say about us and what they produce. If they are angry at a moment, there can be no talking them down but what we can do is figure out how to manage the crisis if and when it occurs.

The main sources of your reviews will come from Yelp (which has a smartphone app), Facebook, Twitter, and Reviews, etc. There are also sites such as Glassdoor where employees and former workers are encouraged to give their feedback as to what it was like to work for a particular company. I get them all the time because of my resume, but I don't dare give my input because I learned something from each and every place I've worked. Not everyone is like that, and a negative employee review could harm a company's reputation.

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