Whether you know it or not…
You’re on stage one-hundred percent of the time.
And the smallest word or action can become something wonderful or something devastating.
How to Get Rid of Customers
One hot July Arizona morning about a year after my dad had sold his barbershop I was in about a half hour before the shop’s standard opening time of 8 am to get my hair cut by mom.
Mom still cuts my hair to this day. It’s great one-on-one time for us.
It was about 10 minutes ’til 8 and customers had started to arrive outside. The front door was locked and the other barbers were getting their back bars and cash drawers in order for the day. One of them was lacing up their shoes in his chair.
One of the customers saw me in the chair getting my hair cut and rattled the door. No one responded. It was no longer my parent’s place. New ownership had been in place for a year so things weren’t done the way they used to be…
The customer went back and sat in his car where he could let the engine and air conditioning run…
In Arizona, in July, when you go out to get your morning paper from the driveway at 6:30 in the morning you’re greeted by definite heat when you open your front door. It’s not unlike the heat you feel when you open your 325 degree oven door to check your Thanksgiving turkey. It was certainly hot at 7:50am that day.
A couple minutes later the same customer came back and rattled the door again. ..
Still locked…
And no response to open it.
He went back to his car, got in, fired it up, and drove away…
What the new owner said next is something that I will never forget as long as I live. It was the moment I knew that barbershop would cease to prosper.
What NOT to Say
In front of all his employees he said, “What? He couldn’t wait 5 more minutes for us to open?”
In that exact moment with that exact sentence was when I knew that shop was dead.
And it was all I could do to keep quiet. The rules of etiquette said it wasn’t my place to bring up his fatal error. I looked at my mom and she gave me a look that reminded me this wasn’t our shop anymore.
In front of his team of barbers he had just placed his clients in a distant third place, not even second place…
With that one sentence he had just shown his team how he expected them to treat their clients…
I agree that employees are valuable and it’s okay to have a start time, but would it have been so hard to let the fellow in?
What would have been so wrong with opening the door, inviting him in and explaining that everyone was still getting ready for the day but as soon as they were ready he’d be the first haircut of the day?
Would that have been so bad?
If he’d been in the waiting chair, you’d have known you were going to start making money as soon as the day started. Perhaps you could have had polite conversation with him. He could have enjoyed the morning paper while waiting in the air conditioning…
It’s a little thing that done one way wouldn’t have cost a single penny. But done this way, the wrong way, it began to cost the new owner his business.
Years have gone by since that morning. The shop is rarely open past five. It barely supports the owner and two other barbers. A serious operator would call it a two-chair shop.
He’s resorted to all sorts of gimmicks to gain business but nothing works. He’s tried things like “buy 9 and the tenth one’s free”. Nothing works.
The barber business, or for that matter any business tied to a person’s appearance is as much about how a client is treated as it is about how they look when they hand over the cash. Clients want to be treated well and when they are they reward you with their cash.
How Customer Service Builds a Business
My dad spent three decades building a small six chair barber shop on the back of some of the best customer service you could get. He never had a marketing budget over $50 a month in 30 years. Not once…
That small shop paid our mortgage; allowed dad and mom to raise two boys; put food on the table; it allowed mom and dad to save for retirement; and it was the jumping off point for other business ventures as well.
Just like so many small business owners, that shop was like having a third child…
The shop’s normal closing time was 5:30pm Tuesday thru Friday and 2:30pm on Saturdays.
The shop was open on Saturdays instead of Mondays because that worked better for the clients. And if you were in a waiting chair when the closed sign was turned for the day you got your hair cut before my dad went home for the evening…
I can’t tell you how many stories my dad has about just getting into his truck when a customer pulled up and dad would get back out of his truck, unlock the shop door, turn on the lights, and cut that fellow’s hair. Dinner was served late plenty of nights while we waited for dad to get home. But that shop was never short on clients…
One Easter one of my dad’s customers called the house. You used to be able to look people up in the phone book…
The client’s mom had just passed away and he needed a haircut before he got on the plane to attend her services. My dad told the man he’d meet him at the shop in ten minutes.
At the end of the haircut the client looked at my dad and asked, “How much do I owe you?” My dad looked at him and answered, “Herb, I don’t work on Easter.” Dad refused to be paid and that was that.
That client never sat in another Barber’s chair the rest of his life. Years later the client gave, yes, gave my dad a rear quarter panel to repair a ’57 Chevy that my dad had built into a trophy winning show car. The car was a daily driver and had been rear-ended on the way home from work two days before Christmas – the year it was supposed to take First Place – Dad already had a Second Place the year before.
I grew up understanding that you take care of your clients and you give them value because their patronage takes care of you. Even at $9.00 per haircut.
The shop didn’t have a grand facade from the street, but it still paid for everything.
After three decades dad sold the shop, signed a non-compete, and said he’d stay on as one of the staff barbers for a couple years to ensure everything went well.
With the exception of when my mom spent several years building up and selling another shop, she barbered in the same shop with my dad for about two of those three decades. My brother had even become a Barber; fourth generation in fact.
This shop was a family man’s shop. Most of the cuts were a regular man’s cut, a flat top, or maybe a high-and-tight for one of our country’s servicemen.
A guy could take his boys there on a Saturday and they could all get cleaned up while watching the game. A mother could bring her sons in and not worry about foul language.
For three decades, whether or not my dad cut your hair you were greeted with a “hello”, and personally thanked by him when you left. Whenever somebody new came in he was especially certain to greet them and acknowledge that they were new and welcome to try any barber in the shop.
Whenever he had a new barber on staff he was certain to suggest that new clients give them a try. He wanted to make sure that new barber had a shot at being successful.
Poor Customer Service or Bad Leadership
Your team watches everything you do and listens to every word you say. How does your approach to customer service get modeled by you for your team?
I’ve always run my businesses with a set of values. One of those values states that every person who works for my business must always respect the client’s right to have their needs fulfilled somewhere else by someone else.
In the Net Promoter Score system there is only one question that matters. Would you refer us to your family and friends? Here’s what the question is really asking: Would you like me to treat your family and friends the way I just treated you?
I’m sure you know in your gut that companies with good customer service last longer than those that don’t and companies with bad customer service fail faster than those with good service. If you’d like to read the latest data on the value of customer service you can find it here.
What little things can you do to add value to your customer’s experience with you? How can you make their lives just a little bit easier so they don’t even think about going somewhere else?
I’m not saying you have to open on Easter. That’s certainly going an extra 10 miles and in 30 years my dad only cut one head of hair on a holiday. But what little things can you do to add value to your customer’s experience with your business?
Don’t just think of it as a single transaction. You want to be absolutely certain that you’re maximizing the lifetime value of that client. In the barber business, my family often cut hair for three generations in one family.
Clients have freedom of choice. You shouldn’t do anything to encourage them to use it.
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