Cut & Color Studio Hair Design

Business Response /* (1000, 13, 2014/12/22) */
Thank you [redacted]
Please find our response below:
The voucher that was presented by the customer in this case was expired. When this happens, we allow the voucher to be used toward any regularly priced product or service in the amount of...

its face value (in this case $119). The $99 service being referenced in the complaint is an in-store special that we give to first time customers only. It is approximately a 60% discount (the regular price for that service is $240). When a customer uses the Living Social voucher, our company actually gets less than half of what was paid as revenue (Living Social takes the other half) which means that the actual revenue generated by the service would be less than $59.50 (for a $240 service). Once our company takes its share, the person who ends up losing is the stylist. On top of that, since it was a $119 voucher, we would still have needed to pay the customer an additional $20 (the difference between the $119 paid and the $99), if we had allowed that discount, thereby making it a $39.50 gross revenue transaction for a $240 service. This is why we have a policy that one can not use these coupons or vouchers on already discounted products and services. The policy I'm referencing is posted clearly everywhere that one of our specials are advertised (for example here on our website http://www.cutandcolorllc.com/weekly-specials-1.html, in the phrase "...Not valid with other offers. No double discounts please..."). These disclaimers are also found on the advertisements posted in the store and on the VIP discount cards. This is the reason the manager correctly said that the voucher could not be applied against the $99 service.
Having said that, we did offer to honor the voucher against a regularly priced service with the customer only having to pay the difference. Since the customer only wanted to $240 Keratin treatment, this would naturally result in her having to pay approximately $120 extra. Because she did not want to pay additional money, another option was presented in which the customer could return the voucher and then we would honor the in-store special of $99 since it would then not violate our double discount policy.
We are working to ensure everyone on our staff is able to CLEARLY articulate our policies and options so that there will be no confusion next time. We are also working to understand how it is that our customer was able to believe that a voucher was valid for 5 years (we never issue vouchers with such a long redemption period), as this was the genesis of the entire misunderstanding. We very much regret that a potential customer left our salon unsatisfied, however, we are not able to override our policies that were designed to make the entire business model viable. Our goal in this case was to try to find a way to allow the customer to get the value that was paid for given the fact that she was working with an expired voucher. We regret that we were not able to do so in this case.
We are still willing to honor the voucher, within our policies, and would gladly invite the customer to come back to any of our locations so that we can earn her business.
[redacted]
Owner & Director of Business Development
Cut & Color LLC
www.cutandcolorllc.com
[redacted]