You're fired.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 by
Clifford Last week, I was sitting in a chair at the salon. The lady, who cuts my hair, seemed a bit preoccupied and slightly irritated. More than a few times, I thought my ear was going to wind up on the floor.
The receptionist approached her and asked, "So what are you going to do with that lady?"
"Fire her." the stylist replied.
I chimed in, "You're going to fired a client?"
It blows my mind just how much money women are willing to spend on a hair cut. I gripe because I have to pay $20 but some of these women stylists go upwards to $200.
Now it's understandable that if you're going to pay $200 for styling for your hair that you should rightfully expect a $200 styling. The client-business relationship states that the more you pay, the higher the level of service. This applies to anything, be it clothes or cars.
So what happens if you pay the $200 and the service sucks? Demand your money back? Refuse to pay? Maybe. Odds are the one action you would take would be to never, ever return. After all, why would I pay an additional $200 for another crappy hair cut from the exact same person?
Well my stylists had a customer who did exactly that. For years, she would come into the salon and do nothing but complain about how awful her haircut was "the last time". And every time she came in, my stylist would be mentally drained. Now to give you an idea of how psychotic this customer is, my stylist has changed locations four times in the last 8 years. During each move, my stylist alerts her customers to her new location EXCEPT this lady. She somehow tracks down the stylist and resumes her badgering.
In this tough economy, where everyone is cutting back on their expenses, my stylist made the command decision and fired this client.
Good for her.
I've always balked at the phrase "The customer is always right." Tim Ferris took this concept to task in his book and I agreed whole-heartedly.
No matter what you do, a certain small percentage of the population is going to nit-pick every detail and do everything they can to run you into the ground. I'm not sure if this is some deep rooted issue stemming from a spoiled childhood or insecurity issues. All I do know is that it thrills me to no end that customers have a choice and businesses have a choice.





