Fight at hair salon. What would you have said, if anything?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would not have poked the cranky old lady bear. Anything you said to her was not going to register, and would just provoke her more.

But I would have spoken to someone at the front desk after waiting about 10-15 minutes. "Excuse me, I had an appointment with Kiki at 5:30. It's 5:45 and she doesn't seem like she's going to be ready for me anytime soon."

From there, ask for what you want. Either "Is there someone similar who can help me now? I really am not willing to come back on another day." Or "I'm not willing to wait while this issue plays out. Can you help me reschedule? And can you adjust the pricing to take this into account? I was here on time, but she's nowhere close to being ready for our appointment. And now I have to go home and come back again."

That’s not how salons work. They don’t have extra people sitting around to do a coloring. And why should they reduce their price over this? Bad enough they had to deal with her. They weren’t ready through no fault on their part.

-1

I strongly believe this was 💯% on the salon.

It is a salon’s responsibility to ensure that their customers are properly taken care of - - bar none.

They inconvenienced a customer (even indirectly) so they should eat up some of the co$t too.

[Anonymous]

You shouldn’t have paid full price.

[Anonymous]

“The customer is always right”

The salon was in the wrong for defending the stylist. She probably did snicker

[Anonymous]

You have to validate the customer’s feelings and let them know you will fully reprimand the worker for not following protocol. You don’t actually have to do it, you just need to make the customer feel that they are right. Instead, this salon and the nosy customer gaslit the poor woman as if her feelings weren’t valid. They’re lucky she didn’t collapse or have a medical episode on the spot as that can happen with the older& fragile. Maybe she has early onset dementia. You never know what someone’s actually dealing with

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You have to validate the customer’s feelings and let them know you will fully reprimand the worker for not following protocol. You don’t actually have to do it, you just need to make the customer feel that they are right. Instead, this salon and the nosy customer gaslit the poor woman as if her feelings weren’t valid. They’re lucky she didn’t collapse or have a medical episode on the spot as that can happen with the older& fragile. Maybe she has early onset dementia. You never know what someone’s actually dealing with

I die. This is hilarious. A medical episode because her hair appt wasn't going the way she wanted? Special!!! If I felt like the entertainment, I'd actually pay MORE money to go to a salon with customers this dramatic. It sounds like a telenovela.

If this is the way you operate, it sounds like you need to cut the weirdos in your life a little less slack. Undermining your professional relationships by supporting bad customer behaviour is not conducive to a good working environment- for clients or staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Cranky seeming lady was upset, insisting that her colorist (new to her apparently) snickered when she complained about something (not sure what it was- something about a knot in her hair..?) and then made a comment to a co worker about her. The cranky customer refused to continue working with her and went and sat in the waiting area, but not before another customer got involved, I think to defend the colorist, and there was a yelling match over MYOB etc.

Cranky lady sat and had to be convinced by another colorist (who is also the manager) to go back to her chair to finish. She insisted the colorist had ‘snickered’, that she was ‘triggered’ and ‘very offended’ and wouldn’t go back to her seat. All of this took awhile and my appt was delayed by 45 minutes.

I felt like saying something to the lady but kept quiet. I kept my nose in my phone.

This was at a salon in an upscale location fwiw.

Glad you stayed out of it. I can't imagine what you could say that would help the situation in any way. And you really do NOT know what the interaction entailed. People aren't always good at reading each other or giving each other the benefit of the doubt. But if your appt was excessively delayed, you should have spoken up (not to add more drama, just to let them know you did not like having to wait, although if I wasn't in a hurry and had a good book with me, I wouldn't have cared either way.

I think the world would be a better place if people limited their observations of other people to observable facts to start with, avoided judgment, and unless they could actually help make a situation better stay out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to validate the customer’s feelings and let them know you will fully reprimand the worker for not following protocol. You don’t actually have to do it, you just need to make the customer feel that they are right. Instead, this salon and the nosy customer gaslit the poor woman as if her feelings weren’t valid. They’re lucky she didn’t collapse or have a medical episode on the spot as that can happen with the older& fragile. Maybe she has early onset dementia. You never know what someone’s actually dealing with

I die. This is hilarious. A medical episode because her hair appt wasn't going the way she wanted? Special!!! If I felt like the entertainment, I'd actually pay MORE money to go to a salon with customers this dramatic. It sounds like a telenovela.

If this is the way you operate, it sounds like you need to cut the weirdos in your life a little less slack. Undermining your professional relationships by supporting bad customer behaviour is not conducive to a good working environment- for clients or staff.

The delay in your appointment is your issue. The conflict with the other customer was not. Period. You can complain about the delay, you can ask for reduced charge (or could have decided you didn't want to stay). Sounds to me like the nosy customer didn't help matters either.

[Anonymous]

I would not get involved in any spat between a customer and the salon staff. It really isn't your business unless you've experienced the same poor treatment.

I've experienced so much bad behavior from salon staff that I almost always side with the customer now. I am fed up with stylists completely ignoring what I want. I ask for a trim with only an inch off and I get my hair cut short almost every time. I'm fed up with stylists who ignore the color I want. If you make my hair darker, I will hate you with the fire of a thousand suns and yet they do this again and again.

I've always gone to the better/more expensive salons but have seen such trashy behavior at those places... Girl the stories I could tell...

[Anonymous]

I have a very low tolerance for people being rude to service workers. I've been going to the same nail salon for years; the owner is wonderful and the employees are the sweetest, most talented people.

Last year this biotch was laying into one of the technicians, saying her nails looked AWFUL and she HAD TO GET ON A FLIGHT THE NEXT DAY. No fix was acceptable to her. She turned around and looked at me, as if to get me to take her side, NO. I rolled my eyes at her and said "WOW, rude much..." and ignored her afterwards.

[Anonymous]

I think you did right by MYOB.