When salon clients don’t respect you…

A client shows up for their appointment over twenty minutes late and calmly sits down on the chair, showing no signs of remorse or willingness to apologise. You receive a message in the middle of the night from a customer, requesting to cancel their next day appointment and demanding the colour formula so that they can give it to another stylist of theirs. A client casually asks you what your “real job” is. Do these sound familiar to you?

These situations are so common in the industry that nearly every specialist has experienced at least one of them. But where does this behaviour stem from? In the past, becoming a hairdresser or beautician didn’t require higher education and was commonly performed by women as an additional source of household income, which was not considered a true career. This created the derogatory stereotype of a silly, uneducated girl that does hair, nails or makeup because she cannot do anything else (fixed by popular TV shows or movies, such as “Grease”). Fortunately, nowadays people are finally learning to appreciate beauty service providers - however, the harmful stereotype can still influence some people’s mindsets. Apart from dealing with outdated mind frames - some people are just poorly mannered, selfish, or unaware of their rude behaviour. Tending to dozens of different people daily makes it impossible to avoid running into some bad seeds. To sum it up, some people are just helplessly empty-minded and the best you can do is to ignore their ignorance and continue being awesome. However, sometimes inconsiderate behaviour stems from different places - it may be influenced by the way you communicate with your clients, do your job or present yourself online. To make sure you are not sending your customers the wrong message, it’s good to take a closer look at your daily activities and behaviour.

Time for self-reflection

Are you trustworthy and reliable?

People learn to treat you the way you treat them. If you are late and act like it’s not a big deal, they learn to be careless about their own delays. If you have ever forgotten about an appointment or have double booked clients, they will feel no remorse for being a no-show. If you don’t remember what colour formula you used on them last time, or that they warned you about a certain allergy, you show them that you don’t really care that much - resulting in them treating your business as a one-time stop. You can’t expect clients to be respectful (let alone loyal) if you are showing them little to no consideration. Fortunately, if you are using reliable management software such as Booksy, you no longer risk forgetting about booked appointments and customer allergies - thanks to the system's digital calendar and client records.

Do you hold your tongue?

You just had a horrible client, whose hyperactive toddler had broken your new Dyson. So when the next customer (who happens to be your friendly regular) walks in, you let it all out and badmouth the previous client mercilessly, while the rest of the salon listens in. You forget about the situation… until you notice a decline in the number of clients and the fact that your friendly regular suddenly ghosted you. If a customer witnesses you gossiping about another client, they may begin to wonder what you've said about them behind their back. They may also get the impression that you are petty and obnoxious. Sometimes it’s very difficult to restrain your emotions, but publicly shaming even the most nightmarish of clients can easily backfire on you.

Do you follow salon etiquette?

Chatting with your co-worker while the client sits awkwardly listening to your conversation, delivering harsh opinions on controversial topics, providing a service while wheezing after a cigarette break without attempting to get rid of the smell...… such situations lessen the overall impression clients get from your salon. In their eyes, you just confirm the negative stereotype of a careless beauty services provider - so they don’t feel the inclination to treat you seriously. You can read more about the proper salon etiquette here.

How do you communicate with clients online?

Many beauty specialists complain that people don’t treat them as professionals - for example, they think it’s perfectly fine to ask for a colour formula or to question their prices. It’s easy to accuse someone of a lack of respect when in reality, we sometimes create uncomfortable situations ourselves. If you are talking to your client in an overly colloquial way (no punctuation or capital letters, messy spelling, too many emojis, overly friendly forms) you lose the healthy distance that should occur between the service provider and receiver. In situations like this, it's not the customer being insolent - you're the one who set the tone. You can read more about communicating with clients online here.

Do you keep your social media fan pages professional?

It’s a similar story to the one above. If you post pictures of your kids, dogs, guinea pigs, goldfish and yourself in a bikini on your business fan pages, no one is going to treat you seriously. Publish whatever your heart desires on your private account, but keep the” business” aspect on your business page.

How to respond

Now, there is a difference between clients that lack tact and ones that are downright rude and disrespect you in a major way. For the tactless yet not offensive ones, it’s best to learn how to answer their typical questions and deny unrealistic demands. You can also avoid some unpleasant situations if you write and display your salon policies. They will be your backup whenever a client will arrive late, with a hyperactive toddler as a company, or do not arrive at all - well-written salon policies cover numerous difficult situations.

Booksy offers you several tools useful when dealing with difficult clients as well p from automated appointment reminders to advanced online booking settings that allow you to restrain untrustworthy clients from making an appointment online. For the clients who either keep repeating the same inconsiderate behaviour (like notorious no-shows) or are acting inappropriately (any cases of harassment, insults, discrimination or blackmailing) - it’s time to wave them goodbye. Refusing services and firing customers aren’t things salon owners enjoy doing, however, sometimes it’s the right choice. You and your employees are service providers, not punchbags. Aggression, whether verbal or physical, should never be tolerated.

Being a business owner, you should find a healthy balance between being self-confident and thoughtful. This means that clients’ tactless behaviour shouldn’t affect your self-esteem, but at the same time, should be considered a great opportunity for a little self-reflection. Maybe there is something in the way you present yourself and your business that provokes customers to be demanding or complain? You should never tolerate an actual lack of respect - though it is important to differentiate it from the client's lack of knowledge or social skills, as well as to set healthy boundaries. Good beauty & hairdressing software will help you to do that with ease.