New Jersey woman asked for a refund after her $400 hair looked nothing like what was agreed on. Then salon owner couldn’t even pick up the phone

A salon from New Jersey is going viral on TikTok for all the wrong reasons. What started as an innocuous complaint by a customer about a hair dye that was slightly not up to her liking ended up turning into a pile-on directed at a specific hairdresser called Ashley.

This is not the first time people have taken to TikTok to air out their complaints about a service they received that wasn’t up to par — it’s not even the first time someone has complained specifically about a hairdresser. What’s clear is that the problem is never really about what happened; everyone understands that mistakes are inevitable. Especially at the workplace, one slip of concentration and you end up looking like a rookie. Even top sports personalities and political leaders have bad days at work. The issue is how people respond to it.

Customer care is something a lot of people can agree is slipping away from the service industry. TikTok creator @itsnancymedrano told her followers about her experience at her local hair salon. In her post, she showed her followers the hair color she wanted and then what she actually got. The result was slightly off. Nancy even found the $375 bill to be reasonable despite it not being exactly to her liking, so she only wanted a partial reimbursement.

That’s when she says she started getting rude and slow responses from the salon. She then turned to TikTok with the full story, mainly urging people to try and be better with customer service. The response was split. Partly because people in the local area actually know Ashley and claim to have only had great service from her — and others agreed with Nancy.

One user wrote, “Been going to Ashley since before she opened a pretty little studio and she has always been professional and amazing. No need to publicly post and slam someone’s livelihood and tell ppl not to go there! Trippin.” Another wrote, “I manage a large salon and I don’t understand why they didn’t offer to have you come in and fix it. & if that didn’t fix the problem, give you a partial refund.” Another stylist gave her a personal tip, writing, “I’m a hairstylist in Matawan and this post is really insane, girlfriend. Let’s normalize HONESTY. Speak your mind in the moment instead of slamming someone online.”

Whenever you have a rapport with someone who does maintenance on your hair, a lot of those businesses are highly reliant on return customers. It’s not out of the question for barbers, nail technicians, hairstylists, and everyone in between to put everything aside to make sure they fix what they messed up. Sometimes they would even offer a partial refund, because in jobs like that, word of mouth can make or break your shop — especially now with TikTok.

From the outside looking in, we might never know how this ended up affecting Ashley’s livelihood. One thing is for sure, however: she needs to reach this customer so they can have a heart-to-heart, because the TikTok she posted just keeps racking up more views.