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It disappoints me to have to write about another bad experience in the beauty industry. This time the one I’m pulling up for unprofessional conduct and service is none other than a beauty salon one of the London’s most prestigious areas, Mayfair.
SenS Hair & Beauty is a day spa located in the 5 star Hilton hotel on Park Lane. In June this year, my friend and I bought a Wahanda Mobdeal to spend on any treatment at this spa. Excitedly we booked a range of treatments between ourselves for September but then had to cancel and re-book due to unforeseen circumstances.
SenS Hair & Beauty have created an online booking system and insist you use it to book treatments. The only alternative is to ring the number provided on their website which connects you to a call-centre in West Yorkshire.
After wasting an hour trying to re-book our treatments, we called to speak to a real person and were told there would be an admin charge of £3.5o per person. No weekends were available or Friday evenings. We ended up settling for a mid-week appointment at 5pm last week and booking half a day from our annual leave.
The week before our appointments, I received a text message cancelling our appointments, which said, “”Due to unforeseen circumstances, caused by a major technical malfunction of our computerised booking systems, regrettably, we have to cancel your appointment with us”. Oh really? Whatever happened to good old-fashioned appointment takings with a diary and a human being? What’s with the need for something sophisticated that clearly causes more problems?
No attempt was made to contact us to apologise and rearrange our treatments. Instead we were advised to go through the tiredsome procedure of their online booking system. This time no dates were available for 2010 and their calendar didn’t exceed beyond the end of the year.
I then had to telephone the call centre in West Yorkshire who told me I had to go through the online booking system to re-book the treatments. Strangely enough there was no other way to get through to the actual salon – I tried the main switchboard of the hotel who, after a few failed attempts, advised me to call the same number that connects me to the stupid call centre.
Unfortunately my conversation did not end there. When I wasn’t satisfied with the wishy-washy response from the sales rep, I asked to speak to her supervisor. “I’m the supervisor” was the proud response but the lady in question refused to give her second name, adding for ‘security purposes’ she wasn’t permitted to. With her blunt and rude attitude, she clearly did not act like a supervisor and consequently, tried to fob me off by advising me to contact the salon by email.
I was refused a refund on the booking fee, which made no sense when they had cancelled the appointments and failed to offer alternative dates so right now, they’re still holding onto £7 belonging to me.
I emailed SenS Hair & Beauty immediately and also copied Wahanda in, who, in stark contrast, have acted with such care and professionalism. They responded to my email almost immediately, offered a discount towards my next Wahanda booking and refunded my voucher in full. Not only that, they are investigating the matter with the accounts manager of SenS Hair & Beauty. Unfortunately I haven’t heard from the salon nor have I received a refund on the booking fee which didn’t amount to a booking at all.
You would expect an exceptionally high standard from a business boasting such a fine location and commanding such high prices but instead, SenS have shown themselves up to be truly abysmal and unreliable.
Have you experienced this type of service from SenS?
Sheenie
Absolutely appalling. You wouldn’t expect this kind of service down your local one-man-band salon, let along somewhere so exclusive *reads expensive*
They should totally have you back – at your convenience – for a complementary day of getting whatever the heck you want done.
Precisely! I was immediately reminded of how considerate and reliable other salons have been towards me in re-arranging appointments, some of whom are places local to me that I visit regularly. If they provided such a lousy treatment, I’d have turned my back on them without any hesitation.
Sorry you had such a crappy experience, that really sucks.
However, in the call center person’s defence, as someone who also regularly works on the phone I won’t give out my last name either.
Good luck resolving the problem with the salon though.
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That’s utterly ridiculous! As much as I adore online booking when it’s done right, it’s horrid when it goes wrong. My regular salon uses an online system and it’s great – I can book appointments whenever I feel like it, keep records, and I know *all* of the open slots instead of playing a guessing game with a receptionist of what they have and what I want. But I recently booked an online appointment for a cleaning service that went terribly wrong – they had an error that double-booked appointments, canceled on my work voicemail while I sat at home for hours waiting for them, and then couldn’t be reached. Ugh. I finally got it resolved, but it was a nightmare!
Did you pay the admin charge with a credit card? Do UK cards allow you to make a claim and get a chargeback when a business charges you for something that they didn’t deliver? In the US, I’d be going to my card issuer at this point and asking for a refund from them.
Lau, to be honest I thought it was strange for a salon’s number to connect to a call centre 100s of miles away. Out of interest, why aren’t you allowed to give out your second name?
Sara, I’m all for online booking systems provided they actually work properly! This one is truly the worst one I’ve seen.
I will double check if I can get my money back from the credit card company although it is such a small amount, I’m not sure if it’s worth it if they charge a fee.
Check this out: http://www.wahanda.com/place/sens-hair-and-beauty/reviews/?status=reviewed
It would seem others have experienced similar horror stories to me. The ones who have given glowing reports must have got confused with someone else!
Sorry to hear your experience. But let me tell you mine in a short way.
I stupidly purchased 1 haircut voucher and 6 massage vouchers via Last Minute and this terrible SenS has cancelled on me more than 10 times. 1 of the appointment took me 5 cancellations before I can actually have it.
Also, their service is terrible, not apologetic at all and in fact has a bad attitude towards my appointment regarding I arrived on time and they somehow didn’t have my booking in their system then realised ‘oh it is’ after 10 minutes then gave me alot of bullshxt then told me to come back in an hour after.
Staff were arguing among themselves in front of customers. Plus haircut was just as bad as a kid cutting it for you, massages were ALWAYS end at least 5-10mins early.
I swear to my life I am not lying or exaggerating about any of the things I’ve mentioned.
You seriously didn’t miss a thing besides your lost of that ridiculously stupid booking fee.
Put it this way, you’re lucky to get your voucher refund. Just go elsewhere for treatments is all I can say. DON’T BOTHER WITH SENS ever!
I also bought 2 vouchers via Wahanda for £30 for £100 worth of treatments.
I booked an appointment for a one hour hot stone massage for my mum for when she was going to be up in London to visit me. A week before, I received a text message saying “Due to unforseen cirumstances, caused by a major technical malfunction of our computerised booking sytem, regrettably, we have to cancel your appointment with us”.
I wasn’t happy, but these things do happen so I didn’t worry too much. However, when I was unable to rebook it for the rest of the year, I did get annoyed.
The other voucher was for me. I booked three appts on the same day (done as three seperate bookings) for a total of £100 worth of treatments. All this was in preparation for my holiday. On each page of the booking form, I clearly stated that I had booked two other appts on the same day and if it were not possible, then could someone please advise me. I booked two and a half months in advance.
I was very irritated to get a voicemail from them this week confirming I had an appt for a chocoscrub but they noticed I had also requested an appt for a manicure and pedicure, but there was not enought time to do this – even though I had booked three seperate appts and the condition of the voucher was that all treatments had to be taken at the same time.
I called the spa on the number they left and it just rang out. I then tried the number given by Wahanda which was the automated system. I then callled the Hilton swithboard who informed me the spa shuts at 7pm (I called at 705pm and the website etc says the spa is open until 8pm).
I then sent them an email on Wednesday, detailing my experience and situation and copied Wahanda into it. I wanted to know if they were sure I could not have my other appts seeing as I had actually booked them. No response from either parties. I resent it Thursday and Friday and have still yet to receive an answer. My appts were meant to be today and no-one called to say I failed to attend. Although having now read numerous reviews, there is a very strong chance they would have cancelled the one appt they were letting me have.
To be honest, I was not expecting an answer from Sens, but am disappointed with the lack of response from Wahanda. These mob deals sound great but I don’t think the spas have the capabilities to cope with such high demand. The staff are run off their feet, their commsion rates are poor and they must feel helpless themselves. All this can only lead to unhappy staff giving half hearted treatments leading to dissatified customers.
I had a similar experience with OSpa, although in this instance it was impossible to make an appt as they never answered the phone and they did admit that they were not expecting such a high uptake of the offer. I did get a refund from lastminute but had to chase and chase.
I believe any spas offering such deals really need to impose a limit on the number of vouchers they sell so they can deliver the service they are selling.
Do you think we should collectivley complain to Watchdog?