If you think beauty salons are the ultimate sanctuaries, you’re dead wrong. These days predators and scavengers of all kinds stalk the corridors and rooms of beauty salons, waiting to pounce on unwary souls. Like hyenas roaming the African safari, these predators have the uncanny ability to sniff out weaker preys. Once they target you, they will harrass you until you succumb to their attacks.
Have you ever experienced this?
Just last week, a relative of mine was attacked by one particularly vicious species.
Lynn was having her regular facial session at a prominent local company which styled itself as a “Total Lifestyle Wellness” service provider. Not content with that, this company also “aspires to be the global leader in spa, face, skin and body care industry”. In short, you will expect to walk out of their doors a happier person. Apparently this particular company found its lofty visions hard to live up to.
After Lynn finished her facial, a staff, whom i shall call Jane, ushered her into another room. It was in this splendid isolation that the assault began. Jane started by telling Lynn how inadequate her current package is. She then went on to sell the benefits of this OTHER package. Nothing wrong with recommending a better product to your customer and there is no better time to do it then after you have performed a service.
Psychologist Robert Cialdini calls this weapon of influence “reciprocation”. The rule of reciprocation says that it is human nature to feel obliged and want to repay in kind what another person has provided us.
In this case, Jane has just given Lynn a facial and even though Lynn had paid for the service, a little piece of her nags, “Jane has just given me a good facial, it is not nice to reject her. Afterall it IS a better package isn’t it?”
Is it?
The upgraded package costs $227 per session compared to $63 per session for the basic one. However when Lynn asked for a comparison between the two packages, Jane replied with a “even if i tell you, you won’t understand”. Superb stuff for customer service trainers out there.
Listen carefully to the “discount”
It is standard practice in the beauty and spa industry to sell such services in packages with a certain number of sessions. Jane explains that the normal rate for this upgraded package is 10 sessions at $227 each thus 10 sessions will cost $2,270. But since Lynn is such a nice customer, the company will “give her a 50% discount”. At this stage, any normal person will be thinking “hmmm 50% discount…that means i’ll pay $1,135 for 10 sessions instead of $2,270″. Wrong. Apparently the people at this company have a warped mind. Jane went on to elaborate that the 50% discount means “instead of paying $2,270 for 10 sessions, we’re giving you 20 sessions”. Sounds familiar? If this is not a blatant, unscrupulous attempt to confuse and misrepresent, i don’t know what is.
Tags: Hard sell