I have consistently observed the dilemma of my Naalya Barber. He used to be employed. Then one day, his bosses sold out to new owners. The new owners didn’t give him the same flexibility and treatment as the old owners. He thus made the bold move and went into self-employment.
He rented out a barber chair in one of the barbershops nearby. He pays for a section of the barbershop. Now here is his dilemma. Most of his customers tend to all arrive at peak hours or on peak days. This is usually in the evenings, early mornings, weekends and public holidays. A hair cut takes about one hour. When his customers arrive, many wouldn’t want to spend time queuing.
And while some may queue, it also adds extra pressure on him as he may have to rush through hair cuts thus compromising the quality of service. Thus, he can’t do much on speed of the hair cut. He also can’t convince most of them to wait, so some end up postponing the hair cut. Unfortunately, majority of the time are off-peak moments when there’s limited activity. How would he solve this dilemma?
- One of the ways could be to adopt an appointment system. But this would require a customer cultural shift. Because there’s still a number of walk-in customers. Perhaps he could have an incentive for those that set up appointments
- He could deliberately choose to build a community of his customers. Form a whatsapp group of all the customers and then he can manage appointments over there and also update them on new offerings. Challenge is that some people may prefer their privacy. But he could market this as a men’s grooming group.
- He could offer discounts for off-peak hours. If you come in during the off-peak hours, perhaps you earn a 10 percent discount.
- One of the things he’s done is to hire an assistant, a lady that helps with cleaning, combing and oiling the hair post the hair-cut.
- He also could consider outsourcing to some of his colleagues in the barbershop. However, men tend to be loyal to their barber.
Let’s hear from you, how would you solve the barber’s dilemma and enable them to scale.
Photo Credit: Gold Rush Unisex Salon