When to say goodbye to a salon customer?

They have been with your salon since day one, and have helped your business prosper - you’ve expanded your salon menu, purchased professional equipment and hired a team of talented specialists. And all thanks to your amazing customers! Whether you’ve been open a few years or a few months, if you’re doing something right, your clients want to see your business grow!

However, there are also clients who are difficult to deal with. You may be having a great day, until one of them arrives - they have a permanent frown and speak to you in one-word sentences. You try to keep your cool and offer them something to drink, but they quickly reject your proposition. If you’ve been down this road, you know it's going to be a bumpy one. Maybe it’s time to cut ties with them?

Make an assessment

Wait, wait, wait, are you sure you want to say goodbye to a client? You shouldn’t put them on your blacklist just because they weren’t beaming from ear to ear when they came into your salon! Before you get ahead of yourself, make an assessment - has the client been in your salon before? How were they during their initial visit? Did something go wrong during their treatment? Have they previously caused trouble for you or other staff members? Has this been a recurring situation? Luckily, there’s a solution that tracks each customer’s history with your salon, and that’s Booksy. It lets you add client notes and tags, so that every time a difficult customer books with you, the assigned staff member can see what to expect from them. And of course, you can block the client from using your online booking system if you feel you've had enough of their antics.

Tip: if a customer has a complaint, don’t disregard it! Although you’re the professional, mistakes can be made. Before you mark the client as “difficult”, make sure that you weren’t at fault!

What kind of difficult client are they?

Chances are you’ve probably run into a few varieties and you probably have a couple of handy methods for dealing with difficult clients. There are those who notoriously fail to appear for their booked appointments, are always unsatisfied with your treatments, cancel late, are not happy with your prices, do not respect you, your staff or other clients, as well as those who want to pay with IOUs or wash your car in exchange for the treatment. For those of you reading this - you know that I’m just scraping the surface.

Chances are you know these culprits by heart, however, don’t toss them onto your “bad customers” list just yet! Bear in mind that firing a client should be a last resort and doing so rashly can bring a wave of hate. To be 110% sure a customer has to go, it’s best to go through this procedure!

Before the last goodbye

Before you say farewell to a difficult client, you need to make sure that you’ve done everything in your power to fix the situation. Although each situation should be approached individually, these steps should be applied to every difficult client:

• Speak with the customer: what don’t they like about your salon?
• Be supportive: some clients may have a bad day and need to blow off some steam, whereas others may have genuine issues. Ask what’s wrong and avoid blatantly blaming them, even if they are in the wrong about something.
• Provide recommendations: if nothing seems to work, recommend the customer a different treatment, refer them to a different stylist, or in the worst case, offer them a different salon to visit.

If you have gone through this list and the customer continues to be difficult, it’s time to act. If you take bookings with the help of your Booksy system, then you can block the client, so that they will not be able to make an online reservation and will be forced to call the salon to make a booking. When they do so, you need to be ready to make a stand. Calmly explain to the client why they have been blocked from booking online and mention that you have addressed this multiple times before.

What’s the worst that can happen?

So you have spoken with the customer and discussed the reason for them being fired. There’s a chance that they suddenly turn over a new leaf and become loyal regulars - miracles do happen! But if they decide to go their separate ways, you and your staff will have to deal with a lot less stress and will have more time to focus on clients who love your business. Expect fewer no-shows, late cancellations and customers who make your work more difficult than it has to be!

You and your team may be faced with a few negatives, such as client loss (the difficult ones), negative reviews on your salon (from difficult customers) and subsequently forcing your former clients to go to another salon. Though these negative side effects may be a temporary thorn to your side, look at it this way - if a customer is being difficult, let them create problems for someone else!

You work hard to maintain a comfortable work environment for staff and a place to relax for clients - so don’t let a few difficult customers ruin it for everyone! With the help of Booksy beauty & hairdressing software, easily identify the culprits and keep them from continuing their mischievous ways! Grab your free virtual assistant today!