Juniper
As I was saying in my previous post on a Groupon deal, I can’t wait to redeem the other 2 vouchers. Well now that I have, I am more than ever convinced that I will not be purchasing another Groupon for services as the last few seriously sucked in every way. Maybe the deals for dining aren’t as bad but then again, one can never tell.
Last week, I redeemed a voucher for hair rebonding. As soon as I sat down on the chair in the salon, the hairdresser took one look at the state of my hair (I will admit it’s dry) and the look on her face said it all. I have never seen such horror on any hairdresser’s face. She said it was so dry that my hair would fall off if she proceeded with the rebonding without any hair treatment. I asked her how much the hair treatment would cost (not included as part of the deal) and she quoted RM80. I did not have that much on me since I didn’t expect to spend more than what I’d paid for the Groupon voucher. She said she didn’t dare touch my hair for fear of breakage and that if I insisted on the rebonding, the salon wouldn’t be responsible for any damage to my hair. I told her I would absolve them of all responsibility.
I think we all know the state/condition of our skin as we do our hair and I know my hair isn’t in the best condition but I don’t think my hair deserves the kind of mock or genuine horror look that was on the hairdresser’s face. When she started combing my hair, she made a dramatic gesture of dropping a chunk of my hair from the comb. Well if I was to comb my hair as hard as her, I am sure a chunk would come off too.
In the end to appease her, we came to an amicable agreement that she would only rebond a few inches of my hair from the roots. The whole process took a mere 2 hours which is the shortest time I have ever spent in a rebonding session. A few days after the rebonding, I went back to my regular hairdresser and had my hair treatment for RM30.
My other Groupon was for a classic manicure with gel polish. No sooner had I sat down to have my nails attended to, the manicurist started introducing their mani/pedi package to me. The gel polish shades they had were varied and I did not lack for choice but when I asked her what brand they were using (the deal stated that there were more than 100 Harmony Gelish to choose from), she stated that the products were their house brand.
Okay, never mind that. At least the stickers I could choose for my thumb were quite nice but after I’d chosen the one I wanted, another manicurist came up to my table and whisked away the entire selection of stickers and presented me with much lower quality stickers which were mostly cartoon characters. Even to my untrained eye, I could tell these stickers were a whole world of difference from the first lot.
How to convince me to sign up for a package when the nail polish/products used on my nails were their “house brand” and my initial choice of sticker was abruptly taken away? Moreover, the nail work wasn’t that well done as the nail polish on the thumbs look streaky and it doesn’t look like the edges have been completely covered.
I wonder if I am the only one who has had less-than-pleasant experiences with group deals. If the purpose of group deals is to retain me as a customer, then these establishments have failed miserably. I’ve got to stick to deals for dining from now on.
gosh, really lousy service. She thinks just because it is cheap, customer should be serve lousy as well. Too many lousy service out there.
Me and my friend attended a makeup workshop once from Groupon for RM50 each. When we arrived, the location was setup to look like a makeup class which I was very pleased. The class was for 1 hour and did not really teached us much, other than the things I can learn from you tube. They even insisted we learn to apply the foundation using the foundation sample from RMK which was way to fair for anybody. Everybody looked like ghost! At the end of the class, they kept pestering us to purchase their own makeup line which I thought were cheap in quality!
Thanks for sharing, I like to read about other people’s experiences. First impressions are most important & if it wasn’t a memorable one for the right reasons, then the customer will never come back to you.
I have redeemed groupon deals for massages(few times), hair coloring(once), digital perm(once), and manicure/pedicure(once) before. All was ok except for the hair colouring where nobody could see a visible difference at all. Maybe I just chose a color to close to my own hair color.
Usually after the treatment, the shop will try to sell you similar treatments for offer price and they always say there is no expiry.
I guess it really depends on yr luck whether the shop serves badly.
Yup, it depends on your luck but some merchants really don’t know how to retain 1st time customers as repeat customers. I guess you have never signed up for a package after the 1st trial?
Actually I did sign up for an extra manicure/pedicure as it was for only one more session at the same groupon price. The ladies there were ok and not much pestering. Also signed up for more massage sessions as the massage and foot reflexology were done quite ok and there was also not much pestering.
Interestingly, both saloons I went for coloring and perm didn’t even ask me for further sign ons and they were acting ok throughout, although I did do an extra hair treatment for 30 bucks.
I must say though, I avoid the beauty houses like the plague even though the massage offers are good. I always believe those places really pressure clients to sign on for costly facials etc.
For goods deal, I think groupon tends to sell less of those fake items like bags, makeup brushes, etc. Dealmates sells alot of fake stuff and I nearly bought a lovely looking set of Bobbi Brown brushes until I read that they are definitely fake.