Barbershop Customer Service Tips!

There are many challenges to gaining and keeping customers with you. In today’s world we are bombarded with choices. When you get a chance do some research and find out how many barbershops within a 5 minute drive from your barbershop of places a person can get a haircut. In the United States alone there are about 225,000 licensed barbers and about 2,250,000 cosmetologists. Still think you are irreplaceable?
A barbershop customer service tip that works really well is keeping the wife, girlfriend, or mother of your customer happy. Make sure to ask your customer as well as their significant other their opinion when they are present. This will go a long way to showing you really care and are committed to keeping your customer happy. I know sometimes it can be difficult concentrating with someone watching closely over you when you are providing a haircut or service. They are just there because they want a good haircut for the man in their life or their child. Any of their anxiety will go away with a good haircut. One of the things we should try to do is find humor in the situation.
 A couple came into the shop that were getting married that weekend and the wife to be asked me if I could freshen up the waves and taper the sides and back of her husband to be, I told her it was my specialty, because this style was my favorite haircut that I wore and cut on myself in my earlier years. She looked at me and said, “That is what everyone has told me and he hasn’t gotten a good one yet.” I gave her my grin of confidence, with all the years of wearing this type of haircut and providing this haircut for others I was up for this challenge. She stood so close to me while I was working I barely had enough room to work. Within a few minutes of starting the haircut she left the shop to go wait in the car. My many years of being in business
 (since 1997) and experience has taught me that a customer can gain or lose confidence in you long before you finish the haircut.
There was no way I was going to let her off that easy. When I finished the haircut I walked out and told her she had to come back in to look at my masterpiece. I worked hard on this haircut and wanted at least half of a smile from her which I was not sure was possible based on the way she acted when they first walked in. She was all smiles when she saw her husband to be and she told me had they not been here just visiting parents and friends, they would have became repeat customers for as long as they lived in the area...

How To Greet Your Customer

Creating customer loyalty is the key to long term success in the barber industry. Short haircuts are back in a big way and are here to stay. Classic barber tapered haircuts are also back in a big way and are here to stay. Fortunately for barbers these customers need there haircut every 1-4 weeks to maintain these styles.
  Greet your customer, this is more than just asking them how they want their haircut. It starts when they walk in the door.
1. Is the barbershop or salon reception/waiting area clean?
2. Is the receptionist or the first face the customer sees smiling when they walk in the door?
3. Is the customer greeted with a good morning/afternoon/evening?
4. Is the next question “How are you doing today?”
If you look at these questions closely you will notice that I haven’t even talked about the customer’s barber greeting them yet. It is so important that the customer walks into a clean environment, is greeted with a welcoming smile, and asked how they are doing. Customers notice everything and are forming an opinion about the barbershop and you long before you pick up a scissor or clipper.
Next is the final part to greeting the customer and making them feel welcome no matter how long you have been cutting their hair. Do this every time you cut their hair. Look them in the eye, shake their hand, and greet them by name with a “How are you doing today?, How have you been?, or It is nice/good/great to see you today.”
Everyone likes to feel important and welcome. Let your customer know you care about them and you will have a customer for life.