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What services do they provide?

Image: The salon provides a product of a finished hairstyle - it is the stylists' responsibility to 'add value' and ensure that clients leave with a style that suits them.

The business provides a service as a hairdressing salon but it is also providing a product - the finished hairstyle. Customers may come into the salon with an idea of what sort of style they want - it may be that they require something simple like a basic cut, it may be that the style they require is something different to the one they have currently - a perm, highlights, hair colour, hair extensions and so on, and the customer may have some idea of what it might look like - they may bring in a picture of a celebrity or someone in a magazine that has the sort of style they are looking for. The finished product, therefore, is what people walk out with at the end of the session.

The service comes in the relationship that the business builds with its customers; this can be more complex and can be where the business might be able to add value. Adding value takes place as customers go back to the same stylist who 'understands' their hair type, what it will do, what it will not do, what it will take and what it will not and also the experience the stylist has in being able to advise on styles in relation to the shape of the customer's face, bone structure, body shape, eye colour and so on.

When the customer walks out of the shop, they are exposing themselves to the view of the whole world. If someone walks out with a style that is inappropriate for that person and gets ridiculed they are unlikely to return. The understanding of customers' needs, therefore, is an important part of the service that is provided.

Another aspect of the service is that the customer may well go to the hairdressers for an 'experience'; this experience might be an opportunity to be pampered and looked after for a short time, to relax and let someone else take the strain, to read a magazine, have a cup of coffee and have a chat. The service also has to ensure that people feel that they have had a complete experience therefore - it is not just a case of get them in, do the job and get them out as quickly as possible - it is all about how to add value.

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