The birthplace of many salon customer complaints is the humble handover, making this a crucial element of your client service, Nergish Wadia-Austin, founder and CEO of the PHAB Service Stars, tells us. Handing over a customer from one service to another and from one salon professional to another can be more complicated than you think.
In salons, this is the sign of a well-managed business. Managers who have trained their teams in this specific area, reduce customer complaints by half. The handover itself is where most misunderstandings take place. Miscommunication at this time can prove disastrous.
This is even more true now in 2025 when asking customers to use electronic booking systems to make their bookings. During this automation, misunderstandings are more likely to lead to complaints before the client even steps foot in the salon or barbershop.
A simple example of where a lack of communication can play a big part is in missed sales opportunities that lead to incomplete services. The handover between stylist and the person assisting with the shampoo service is the point where plenty of upselling can (and should) happen because scalp issues, for example, need to be discussed at that point. Once discussed, the solutions can be prescribed and applied. If there isn't a trained handover in place for that discussion to take place, then the service is left incomplete and cannot be tailor made for each customer.
Most of the time this particular handover seems prefunctory and frankly doesn’t even deserve a mention. Just shouting ‘shampoo please’ seems to be all that is practiced at the time. That is not the way to proceed. Salons who train their teams in this handover procedure benefit greatly from being classed as professionals when it comes to their service standards and etiquette but in addition reap huge rewards from add-on retail sales and the recommendation of new services.
It is the stylist’s responsibility to handover the client for the cleansing service with confidence, a plan and the solutions in place. It goes without saying that if the consultation process is rushed or non-existent, then this handover will always be rushed and uninformed.
Once the consultation has ended and the customer’s needs have been established, the stylist must, using the customer’s language, instruct the shampooist of what is required at the basin on this particular visit. This instruction should be clear and conducted in front of the customer. It should include the name of the shampoo to use, how many times and why.
Then comes the conditioner – what to use, how to apply it and why. All these instructions are heard by the customer who feels reassured that the stylist has listened to their needs and is communicating the bespoke solutions to their colleague.
Most importantly, they’ve heard the names of the shampoo, conditioner and treatments that will solve their particular issues and know that this salon holds the exact solutions to their haircare concerns. Add-on sales start here.
Other places in the business where handovers can result in a customer complaint are reception to salon professional, and stylist to colourist.
Additionally, handovers are crucial when a particular salon professional is going on maternity leave or to travel for an extended period of time. Here, lack of proper handovers cost salons a fortune. This would not be the case if the exiting professional took the time to introduce the customer to the professional who was going to stand in for them during their absence and assured the customer that all their details (colour mix formulas, for example) were handed over to them too. That assurance can only be delivered with a rehearsed and trained handover.
Crucially, each customer complaint has a starting point. In your salon make sure it is not the handovers!
To put it simply, Nergish states: "Get the handover procedure right in your business and watch the complaints disappear."
Nergish can be contacted via her website phabservicestars.com.