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owlI always feel awkward when I'm getting my hair cut because I never know how much talking I'm meant to be doing. The young girl who washes the hairs generally starts off with 'Going anywhere tonight?' (I usually get my hair cut on Saturdays) and progresses to 'You getting away this year?'. The answer to both questions is usually 'No', after which we have to fall back on the weather and 'You want conditioner?'
The woman who does the actual cutting doesn't do the patter, and stops after 'How much do you want off?' Now it's rather restful to sit in silence while someone messes around with your hair, but I can't help feeling that perhaps I'm not doing what is expected of me. She does seem to talk to other customers, and my mother takes hours to go to the hairdresser because of the chat and gets an enormous discount, apparently on the basis of having been to the same hairdresser for thirty years. Now her hairdresser is closing, and she's going to come to mine and discover how I am the fail at hairdressing etiquette. She'll know more about the place in one haircut than I know after two years.
The woman who does the actual cutting doesn't do the patter, and stops after 'How much do you want off?' Now it's rather restful to sit in silence while someone messes around with your hair, but I can't help feeling that perhaps I'm not doing what is expected of me. She does seem to talk to other customers, and my mother takes hours to go to the hairdresser because of the chat and gets an enormous discount, apparently on the basis of having been to the same hairdresser for thirty years. Now her hairdresser is closing, and she's going to come to mine and discover how I am the fail at hairdressing etiquette. She'll know more about the place in one haircut than I know after two years.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 06:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-08-25 07:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-25 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 08:59 pm (UTC)No, I think I'm me.
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Date: 2007-08-25 08:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 09:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-26 04:25 am (UTC)I've been seeing mine for years and she and I have no problems chatting. She's got a small salon in the back of her house, so it's always just the two of us and we chatter away while she's working. It's never anything major, but it is fun. Prior to seeing her, I had a couple of sessions with someone who was good at her job, however I wasn't really comfortable with her. We'd discuss my hair, but we didn't really chat all that much.
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Date: 2007-08-29 09:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-27 06:09 pm (UTC)There's no real good answer for this. I came from a sales background before I started doing hair, so I *had* to be comfortable talking to people. In beauty school, they told us that 90% of our job is communication, and that how we make our clients look has a lot to do with their lifestyle as well as other preferences. I'm not psychic, so I can't figure that stuff out unless I *talk* to my client. As a hairdresser, I *do* try to engage my customers in conversation about various things so I can get an idea of who *they* are, as well as try to make sure that they have a pleasant experience while in my chair. We are also taught that it isn't so much our skills that we sell, it's *ourselves*; that a mediocre hairdresser is more likely to get repeat business if he or she is confident and friendly, but a fantastic hairdresser who is cold and unfriendly (or somehow unprofessional) is less likely to get repeat customers. And it's true, I've seen it happen.
What's awkward for me is when the client *doesn't* talk. You never know if they're just like that, or if they have some kind of objection to you, or what. Other customers take it to the other extreme: what they don't tell their therapists, they either tell to their bartender or their hairdresser. I've had clients tell me things I wish they didn't, lol, like the lady who gave herself lead poisoning by smoking pot from a home made bong. Yikes. I did NOT want to know her like that.
Remember, this is a US perspective, though. There may be a cultural difference in how we're trained, but honestly I don't think so, I think the principles of good customer service are pretty much the same wherever you go. Hairdressers are as unique as their customers, however based on the way I was trained, my off the cuff reaction is that your stylist isn't doing her job by just asking a couple of questions about your hair and keeping quiet the whole rest of the time. If the customer indicates to me that he or she is tired and just wants to rest quietly with eyes closed, I'll respect that, but otherwise I try to show interest in the client by asking questions, or minimize the awkward silences by discussing current events. I try to have a broad range of things I can talk about, and with most customers I can eventually hit on something we both relate to. I also try to frame my questions in a way that will encourage them to do a lot of the talking so I can concentrate a little more on what I'm doing but still interact because I'm not so worried about what I'm going to say next.
This probably didn't help much, but maybe it's easier knowing it can be just as awkward behind the chair as it is in it, lol.
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Date: 2007-08-29 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-30 03:45 am (UTC)