Do You Know When To Let Go?

This morning a story on Facebook has gone viral, with dire consequences for the business concerned.

A woman has taken to Facebook to vent as a result of being humiliated at a hair salon in Western Sydney.

Now I can see the salon’s point of view…..

The woman, who has never used the salon before, has turned up and had a service but because of a mix-up, has left her purse, with cash and cards, at home.

Easy to do.

Here’s her post right here:

 The lady is able to find $15.00 of the $30.00 service fee, but the salon has insisted that she stay put and get someone to bring the remaining $15.00 down to the salon.

We’re talking $15.00….

Not fifteen thousand!!!

As the woman tells in the story, she has asked if she can transfer the money [using her phone] into the salon’s account.

Answer: NO! [from the salon]

Well heck, why NOT?

What was the problem with that for the salon?

There’s the problem right there…the salon is not accepting of a reasonable solution.

And so the salon has just invested $15.00 in a bad media campaign.

Poor option.

Very poor option.

Simple fact is that the salon is part of a bigger multi-location organisation, and so the manager is not the owner.

And the manager has shown that she’s not the right person to be in charge.

Because although she’s probably followed company “policy” to prevent a runner, what she’s ended up doing is purchasing a very irate customer for the business.

And I know it’s not fair.

And I know that the customer has made and created her own mistake.

And I know that this business has probably suffered runners in the past.

But the customer did offer to leave her bag, and mobile phone as security as she went home to get her purse.

But the manager dismissed this as a solution.

Silly manager.

Sadly, this customer’s predicament, which is really not the salon’s fault, has escalated into the salon’s problem, in the same way that the Seinfeld characters ended up in prison for failing to obey the Good Samaritan Law when it needed to be.

 The salon manager needed to be on damage alert.

But she was not.

I’ve written about this sort of issue before.

Sometimes you have to let go.

And you have to know WHEN to let go, and when it’s worth more to let go.

That’s what should have happened here.

Sadly, the salon has bought itself a whole heap of bad publicity.

Maybe enough bad publicity to go out of business…

For $15.00??

In this day and age of social media amplification, there’s no winning, even if you are in the right.

Which wasn’t the case here….

Really, the manager should have let go….in just the same way that I dropped the rope in my previous blog post.

There’s a serious lesson here for all businesses.

You really do need to know when to let go, for your own sake.

Kenny Rogers sang it so eloquently:

“Know when to hold ’em. Know when to fold ’em”

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