The color client who taught me to shut up and listen at my chair in Dayton
A woman sat down in my chair two years ago and told me her last stylist quit returning her calls after she asked for less warmth, so I just asked questions for ten minutes before I touched her hair. Turns out she wanted three shades cooler and a shadow root, and she still books with me every 6 weeks, so how do you all handle clients who have been burned before?
Listen for the story behind the story, not just the color request. When someone says their last stylist stopped calling, that is rarely about hair. Maybe they felt rushed, maybe a stylist kept pushing what they wanted instead of what the client asked for. I had a lady once who kept saying "just make it look natural" and every time I asked a follow up she got a little less tense. Four questions in she admitted her old salon made her feel dumb for not knowing the words to describe what she wanted. So I started naming the terms for her, lowlights, root smudge, gloss, and she relaxed right away. Sometimes the fix is not a better formula, it is giving them the words so they feel like they are in charge.