To get a firsthand look at the quality of customer service
in salons and ascertain how the tanning business was
faring this season, we’ve traveled the U.S. posing as tanners and asking for a salon tour. I’m sorry to report
that many salon operators aren’t working very hard to
“woo” potential tanners. Could we have visited YOUR salon?

Thanks to Renee Lofland who visited salons in Minnesota, North Carolina, and Indiana, Melissa Van Buskirk who visited salons in Iowa, Missouri, and Texas to add to my recent salon visits in New York, Michigan and Illinois. Here’s our undercover report.

• About half of salons we visited don’t want to give a salon tour, even when we asked. (“Do you want to give her the tour, or should I?” asked the staff at a not-very-welcoming big chain salon in Indiana).

• Salon tours consist of an explanation of sunbed features, but not the benefits of that equipment to the tanner. (“This is our top bed with 20 1,000-watt high-pressure lamps, shoulder tanners and it costs $35 for 15 minutes,” stated the staff at a Minneapolis suburb salon. But what will the bed do for me?)

• The staff at virtually every facility we visited mentioned the word “burn” several times on the salon tour and mentioned “cancer” at least once. (“UVB rays are the burning rays and you don’t want to burn, as that is what causes cancer.” At this statement from the staff in a St. Paul, MN college area salon, our secret shopper’s jaw dropped!)

• Over half the salons in the U.S. are still providing their clients with “community goggles” by leaving them in the tanning room, and over half the tanners aren’t wearing those goggles. (“We have to provide them in Texas, but we aren’t responsible if tanners don’t wear them,” we heard salon staffs say repeatedly in Fort Worth.)

• Salon retail areas feature great lotion displays, but don’t display eye protection. (“The gold stickers, let’s see…they’re here somewhere…ummm, if you buy a package, we’ll find them for you,” said the staff at a salon frightfully close to our offices in northern Indiana.)

• A very small percentage of salon staff ASK to see eye protection or lotion when a tanner enters the salon. (We were thrilled at a Michigan franchise to be asked, “May I see your eye protection and the lotion you’ll be using today?” Tanners walk into the salon with both in hand, knowing they will be asked every time.)

• At no salon we visited was it explained that tanners who own goggles must keep them clean! (Holding them in your hand contaminates them; they need to be washed with anti-bacterial soap and stored in a clean container such as a Ziploc bag to avoid picking up debris and contaminants in a gym bag or purse).

• Very few salon staffs explained that disposable eye protection needs to be folded into a cone shape, not worn flat like a sticker. (A Minnesota salon used the eye protection display box to explain how it’s made into a cone on the model and pointed to the direction panel on the side of the box. An even better idea: display a properly folded cone on the top of the box, like a big chain in New York state does).

Our “Secret Shopper” team also observed the following:

• Almost all the salons providing “community goggles” left them out in the open on a towel at the front counter, or lying on the sunbed where they were exposed to airborne contaminants.

• In-salon signage rarely mentioned the importance of eye protection.

• Many salons selling eye protection do not offer disposable styles to tanners who forget their goggles and instead, “loan” a pair of used “community” goggles that are not cleaned between uses, since the salon no longer has sanitizing containers and disinfectant.

What will we find when we “secretly shop” at YOUR salon? For our next report, we’re heading to Washington State, Canada, England, Italy, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and…not telling – it’s a secret.