T’Dye For Hair
1464 Ottawa Street
Windsor, ON N8X 2G2
(519) 252-2394‎

So here’s my story…

I was new to Windsor, Ontario, & in search of a really good hairdresser, so  I asked several people which hair salon was really good in town.

T’ Dye was recommended a few times, so I decided to call them up & book an appointment.

I was given the prices of 2 different hairstylists that I inquired about, & I decided on Ben.

I was told Ben would charge me $95 for a colour & cut. I told the girl I was looking for highlights, not colour, but she said it didn’t matter, it’s the same price.

Strange as this isn’t how it is done in Toronto, but that’s fine, each city is different.

So I go into see Ben & I told him right off the bat that the last guy in Windsor I had do my hair didn’t get all the gray out, so I needed him to make sure he would get it all. Normally what they do is they put a permanent colour on me & then the highlights on top.

He said sure, no problem.

The service went okay until closer to the end, when he went off to handle someone else’s hair while I was under the hair dryer & when I was done, he wasn’t done with the other customer, so I was kept waiting. I was patient about that.

Then at some point he raised his voice at me for something I said, & I was shocked. I blew it off, we finished & I went to go pay.

I was surprised when I got to the counter & the girl over charged me more than what I was told it would be.

When I told her I was told $95, she said NO, Ben charges $115 (I can’t remember the exact amount). I wasn’t going to argue, but I wasn’t happy.

THEN when I asked for a receipt I was told there is no receipt, just the receipt you get for paying by debit or credit. I was shocked again. How could a real professional company not give you a detailed receipt of what you just paid for.

I’ve never heard of such a thing.

Also the girl was very rude & was giving me attitude. I wondered if she knew how to smile even.

I shrugged both those things off too, but I was starting to regret going into this hair salon, & I wasn’t sure if I’d be going back to see Ben or what.

Ben had been nice enough to give me a sample of the L’ Oreal conditioner he recommended for my hair, but I do remember him having to think about it, as if it was a BIG deal to do this. That also made me feel uncomfortable. If you have to think about giving a sample to your customer, that tells me they are stingy.

A few weeks later I decided I liked the conditioner, so I called up inquiring about it & the price & said I would be there in a day or two to pick it up.

I get to the salon & the “attitude” girl is there. I just ignore her attitude & I try to get the product I want. She tries to tell me that this tub of something was the leave in conditioner, but I had a feeling it wasn’t & voiced my opinion. I mean come on, this girl is like half my age & no young adult is going to scare me, but I also realized that arguing with this chick would have been useless, as people like that always think they are right & don’t listen to others.

Just then Ben came around the corner & said NO, that’s not the right product & he went to go look for it.

He came back saying they had none left, which did irk me because I drove all the way over there for nothing & since I don’t live right in Windsor, this is a big deal for me. He was nice enough to give me what remained in the bottle they use, so that made me happy.

While the girl didn’t apologize, you could see she was shocked that she had made this mistake.

She told me that the conditioner would be in next week & she would check to see if it she could get it in later this week. I was glad she was being helpful.

I paid for it then & there because I didn’t want to have to come up with the money the following week.

I got busy with work & getting ready to travel to my sister’s, & I totally forgot about the conditioner until a few days before I was supposed to leave to travel to her. I suddenly realized that no one had called me regarding the conditioner & not only had 3 weeks had passed, but I would be left with no conditioner. On top of all the other things I had to do to plan for this travel, this wasn’t something I wanted to concern myself with.

I was now getting teed off, so I decided to speak to the owner Jeffrey. I mistakenly thought that he would want to know about all the problems I was having. Of course I also forgot the other rule of thumb… if a company has staff who aren’t nice, or the company has issues like this that crop up all the time, than the owner is responsible for the company being in this mess. Always look to management & the owner, their staff is a direct reflection of them.

Anyway, I didn’t hear back from Jeffrey after I left him a message on their voice mail, so when I was in the area, I drove over, & when I got there, no one was at the front desk, so I peaked around the corner & saw Ben. I said is Jeffrey here? No he wasn’t. I said I’m still waiting for my conditioner. Ben said something about how it hasn’t come in yet, but he doesn’t know about it. I could see he didn’t care, he was too busy with the client he was doing.

Just then a girl comes from the back (not the attitude girl) & she says is this yours? She shows me the conditioner with a note underneath it. Looks like it was sitting there for god knows how long & I was never called.

I told her I had left a message for Jeffrey & she said there was no message that she knew of, but she had just gotten there a an  hour ago. The other girl had something come up & had to leave suddenly. I gave her a message again to give to Jeffrey & left with my conditioner.

The next day there was a voicemail message from attitude girl saying she was just going to call me because that product had just come in that day (yeh right, like I believe that one, & why didn’t she ever call me to apologize for the delay). She also acknowledged my message & said that Jeffrey was out of town on vacation. I think she said if I wanted him to still call I should call back, but I don’t remember right now.

Anyway, I was busy for the next month going on vacation & such & never did receive a call from Jeffrey. I also suddenly noticed that I had a lot of gray hairs near my temple which surprised me. My hair really takes to colour. I usually don’t have to get my hair highlighted until 8-12 months after it’s been done, yet around 1 1/2 months later I’m seeing tons of gray, so I figured Ben never caught those, but I couldn’t be sure if it was just me & if it was just me, why weren’t there tons of gray on the top of my head?

I debated on whether to call Jeffrey from T’ Dye again, but thought hey, it’s my job as an entrepreneur to help other entrepreneurs better their company as I would want someone to do that for me.  You can’t run a good company if you don’t know about problems & what your customers are thinking.

So I call up & leave another message for Jeffrey. I was wondering if he would receive it, & if this girl would even remember who I was, but he did call me back & almost from the minute I answered the phone I got a stone cold treatment. I had to ask HIM how he was doing just to try & get him to warm up to me, that is how cold he was treating me.

I told him I had to go downstairs to my computer to get the list (yes, I like to be prepared).

While I was walking, I told him I thought he would want to know what I experienced from one entrepreneur to another & then he asks me (as if this is the reason he has soooo many problems), if my kind of business deals with the public every day.

I said sometimes, yes.

Jeffrey, if you don’t like your clients, then GET OUT of business. Sure come customers are hard to handle, but if most of them are, that means you are either not handling them properly, or your business sucks (which is what I was experiencing & to think I read that they are about to give this guy an award as being the best hairdresser LOL).

So I started telling him the first point about being overcharged & he right away starts defending himself as if I’m the problem. He said, “hairdressers don’t know how much it’s going to cost until the customer comes in.” I said, “then I should be told that when I’m being given prices.” If you give someone a flat rate, that’s what they expect to pay, not a penny more.

If they ran a nice professional salon, attitude girl would have pulled Ben aside & asked him to explain to me why there was the difference in the price, but SHE told me that was his price, nothing to do about length of hair, work involved, nothing.

Then Jeffrey has the NERVE to tell me that no one in 8 years has ever complained about this. LOL, umm, I didn’t know exactly what he was referring to. If he was talking about the price, I complained about the fact that I was charged more after being told a lower price. Had I been told $115, when I called up, then I wouldn’t have been surprised, & customers should NEVER be surprised about cost. That’s terrible customer service.

And if no one has ever complained, maybe that’s because they either don’t care about money, or are too scared to complain. I don’t care what the reason is, when a manager or owner tries to justify their actions or behavior with that line, “no one else has ever complained.” not only is that rude & disrespectful, it tells the client that you don’t care about them, you are trying to take what they are saying & turn the tables making them out to be the problem. There’s no validation in there, it’s a totally immature response.

Also, the person using this line is usually lying about the fact that no one else complains. I mean 3 minutes earlier Jeffrey was asking me if I worked with the public, as if me not working with the public means I can’t put myself in his shoes, so clearly he does have problem with “his” public.

It’s just a canned line that will ALWAYS get the customer’s back up.

So then I told Jeffrey (I’m paraphrasing here because I don’t remember my exact words, but I was put on the defensive here…) that I don’t care about other people, I care about what I experienced & asked him if he doesn’t care about what I have to say.

He then said THE most rude thing ever, “Go on, I don’t have all day to listen to this.”

I laughed out loud. I couldn’t believe how this guy just talked to me. I spent what I consider to be a lot of money at his hair salon & this is how he treats me as a customer?

So I told him, “no, I won’t continue, there is no point, now I know why your staff is so rude, because you are, & the staff is always just like their managers.” I then hung up the phone with him.

So, that was my lovely experience with T’Dye in Windsor, Ontario.

Just thought you all should know.

Michelle