Customer Service Policies

[webny99]

Is there some generational thing going on?  Is this like boomers getting exasperated at how my generation and people younger use the word "literally" (as in, "I have literally seen people's heads explode over this")?  Or how one of my high school teachers felt the urge to correct us whenever we used "like" (as in "it was, like, 50 degrees outside")?

I think you and I are, by most definitions, in the same generation, so I'm not sure what you mean by that here.

[vdeane]

Is there some generational thing going on?  Is this like boomers getting exasperated at how my generation and people younger use the word "literally" (as in, "I have literally seen people's heads explode over this")?  Or how one of my high school teachers felt the urge to correct us whenever we used "like" (as in "it was, like, 50 degrees outside")?

I think you and I are, by most definitions, in the same generation, so I'm not sure what you mean by that here.

I wasn't sure if Gen Z had come up with some alternate usage of "stalled for time" like Millennials did.

Incidentally, I usually see the dividing line as being in the 1995-1998 range.  Granted, you're a couple years closer to that line than I assumed, but I'm still firmly on the Millennial side (so Gen Alpha probably considers me older than dirt).

[vdeane]

Is there some generational thing going on?  Is this like boomers getting exasperated at how my generation and people younger use the word "literally" (as in, "I have literally seen people's heads explode over this")?  Or how one of my high school teachers felt the urge to correct us whenever we used "like" (as in "it was, like, 50 degrees outside")?

I think you and I are, by most definitions, in the same generation, so I'm not sure what you mean by that here.

In, like, the same generation, or literally in the same one?

That's what my teacher would say whenever we used "like", except she used actually instead of literally.

[webny99]

So you are just a complainer.

You are more than welcome to think that, but then the owner is even more of complainer for literally complaining to a customer about their review.

Two wrongs don't make a single right in this case.

Whoops, seeing as I missed this earlier, this is hilarious because "two wrongs don't make a right" applies to the second wrong, i.e. you shouldn't retaliate if you feel you have been harmed. So, you're speaking to the barbershop owner on this one, not me. And that is true no matter how you feel about the cancellation fee:

If enforcing the fee was right, then leaving a poor review was the first wrong.
If enforcing the fee was wrong, then leaving a poor review was not a wrong at all.

[kalvado]

So you are just a complainer.

You are more than welcome to think that, but then the owner is even more of complainer for literally complaining to a customer about their review.

Two wrongs don't make a single right in this case.

Whoops, seeing as I missed this earlier, this is hilarious because "two wrongs don't make a right" applies to the second wrong, i.e. you shouldn't retaliate if you feel you have been harmed. So, you're speaking to the barbershop owner on this one, not me. And that is true no matter how you feel about the cancellation fee:

If enforcing the fee was right, then leaving a poor review was the first wrong.
If enforcing the fee was wrong, then leaving a poor review was not a wrong at all.

The first wrong which started the chain of retaliations was being late and not giving an as early notice as possible. So whatever happened after that was second, third and fourth wrongs. Which still didn't add up to a right.

[Rothman]

How many wrongs do add up to a right, then?  I would have thought four would have done it.

[kalvado]

How many wrongs do add up to a right, then?  I would have thought four would have done it.

You should ask your NYSDOT friends how it works. 6 roundabouts at Malta are apparently not enough, so your answer is " no less than 7"

[webny99]

...

If enforcing the fee was right, then leaving a poor review was the first wrong.
If enforcing the fee was wrong, then leaving a poor review was not a wrong at all.

The first wrong which started the chain of retaliations was being late and not giving an as early notice as possible.

It was definitely as early as possible, I just happen to value keeping my job and completing what had to be done before the weekend over getting a haircut, so that happened to not be early enough. Like I said, things started out on the wrong foot by booking for Friday afternoon. Lesson learned.

[Rothman]

How many wrongs do add up to a right, then?  I would have thought four would have done it.

You should ask your NYSDOT friends how it works. 6 roundabouts at Malta are apparently not enough, so your answer is " no less than 7"

I thought that was how many angels could dance on the head of a pin.

[kalvado]

...

If enforcing the fee was right, then leaving a poor review was the first wrong.
If enforcing the fee was wrong, then leaving a poor review was not a wrong at all.

The first wrong which started the chain of retaliations was being late and not giving an as early notice as possible.

It was definitely as early as possible, I just happen to value keeping my job and completing what had to be done before the weekend over getting a haircut, so that happened to not be early enough. Like I said, things started out on the wrong foot by booking for Friday afternoon. Lesson learned.

Do I remember correctly that it was the shop calling you to find out you're running late? If that is the case, you definitely wasn't proactive enough. 

[kphoger]

Thank you, |webny99|, for directing me to this thread.  Here is my take:

I ran late, and while I was on my way they called to ask if I was coming and I said yes, but they soured after finding I'd be close to 15 minutes late.

I offered to rebook, but they were swamped so I couldn't rebook with my usual barber until next week, so I very reluctantly accepted the no show fee (full price) and a rebooking for Saturday afternoon with another barber.

I then called their other location to see about an earlier time slot. They had a Saturday morning appointment that I preferred, so I took it.

Since I typically pay cash, I honestly didn't think they had my card on file to charge, but I checked an hour later and sure enough they'd already charged it.

This is where the story should have ended.  You were late, they charged you a fee, and you booked a new appointment.  That's how things work.

Any other day, they may have been able to fit you in later the same day, but obviously they were too busy for that to be a solution.

I was pretty annoyed by paying almost $30 for nothing (partly my own fault, I'm aware) so I dumped a one star review on Google and figured I'd see if anything came of it.

you are missing the point and clearly lack understanding of the purpose of Google reviews

No, I think it's you who doesn't understand the purpose of Google reviews.  Their purpose is not to strong-arm the business owner into giving in to you demands.  What else could you have meant by "I'd see if anything came of it" than that you wanted your 1-star review to compel the business owner to make the situation better? that you expected them to know it was you who left the review? that you expected them to call you back and make it right?

Within an hour their number called again and I was busy, so I called back later when I got a good chance, still mildly annoyed but optimistic.

See?  Something came of it.  Just like you expected.  (Of course, that's not the purpose of Google reviews...)

The guy I spoke to earlier (who turned out to be the owner) was pretty worked up and confused about why I left one star but then rebooked at their other location, and told me that I wasn't welcome for my appointment in the morning because of the review.

I'm not 100% settled on this take, but I think that was unacceptable of him.  A customer should not be refused service just because he or she left a bad review.  I do, of course, also see the merchant's side of it.

So I got my hair cut without incident yesterday but concluded that the vibes are now so weird that I'm going to find a new barber anyways.

...

And since the owner cared so much about the review, I also left a new *three* star review stating that they were tripping over dollars to pick up pennies and that they valued my review more than my business, so they could have what they valued most, but that I did have a good experience with both of the barbers that had cut my hair. So there you have it.

That's a fair response after all, and it's the only thing you should have done on Google to begin with.  You shouldn't have left the 1-star review but saved your review till the situation was fully resolved.  And it sounds like the later 3-star review actually falls in line with "the purpose of Google reviews", which you later correctly asserted to be that...

Reviews are helpful for informing the public and can be useful as a customer satisfaction metric for businesses

I've been there four times

If you think a business should refuse service to a loyal customer because of a bad review,

You're not a loyal customer.  You've only been there four times.

As far as I know, there's no legal requirement or mandate they employees can't get paid if they're not actively working, so it doesn't *have* to be that way. What about slow days, or appointments that go quicker than expected? It's not like the appointment revenue is going direct to the employee's paycheck - they're two separate things and it's ultimately up to the owners/managers of the company to decide how those situations will be handled.

the owners/managers have control over whether or not to pay their employees in that situation.

In this case, I was talking with the owner. He kept saying "the barbers don't get paid if there's a cancellation", and he could have kept saying it until he was blue in the face, but it doesn't change the fact that not paying them is his choice. He's the owner. He could absolutely pay them and factor it in to the cost of doing business if he so chose, but he chose to protect his profits and enforce the cancellation fee instead.

The barbers and hairdressers may not even be employees, but individual contractors. They rent a chair at the business. They bring their own supplies. They don't have a supply closest, but rather buy certain supplies from the business.

The business may get a percentage of the revenue to the barber. The barbers may make their own hours. They don't healthcare or vacation days or sick time. At the end of the year, they get a 1099, not a W-2.

Either this reply by |jeffandnicole| went unnoticed, or else you have deliberately ignored it.

Back when I was going to the barber shop, each barber was his own independent contractor who rented his space in the shop.  If I took my three sons to get their haircuts, then I had to pay each barber individually.  The owner of the barber shop was not paying them an hourly wage.  So no, if I missed my appointment, then she couldn't just "pay them and factor it in to the cost of doing business", because she wasn't someone who paid them at all in the first place.  When one of the barbers left to set up in a different shop, we followed him, and it worked the same was as the first shop.  I think we followed him through three different moves before his rates got too expensive for our family, and my impression over that time was that this business model is fairly commonplace in the barber shop world.

My wife's salon operates the same way.  Each hairdresser there is an independent contractor who rents her space in the shop.  If my wife misses her appointment and the stylist can't fill it with another customer, then she simply doesn't get paid for that timeslot.  The owner of the salon can't simply keep her "on the clock", because there's no such thing as "the clock".  They're paid directly by the customer.  In fact, because my wife sells Scentsy and her stylist uses Scentsy, my wife often actually pays for her haircut in Scentsy products rather than cash.

[JayhawkCO]

Just seeing this thread. As someone who ran restaurants for years, I side with the business owners every time here. You make policies to prevent you from losing irreplaceable revenue and so should expect your customers to follow them. I had one couple who made reservations for my restaurant every Friday night at 7:00 (aka prime time). There was a two month stretch where they only showed up once and I no-showed them the other seven times. The next time we were calling to confirm reservations the day before, I proceeded to let them know that I wouldn't be accepting their reservation requests due to them not actually showing up for seven of the eight previous Fridays. They pushed back a little bit telling me that I was going to lose their business completely, and I told them, in a moment of less-than-professionalism, that it appeared I already had.

We'd also have private parties book our private rooms, signing contracts and agreeing to a minimum spend and then get grumpy when I'd add a room charge when they didn't meet their minimums. Most of the time I was nice and would let them take home bottles of wine if they were cool about it, but the jerks that weren't? I just met the terms of the contract and got some free revenue.

[SEWIGuy]

A few weeks ago, I had to cancel a dog boarding reservation at the last minute - less than 24 hours. I have to put a deposit down to reserve at this place, and when I asked if I would get that back she said, "not if it is within 24 hours."

When I said "OK, I understand," her response was, "well since you have never cancelled at the last minute before, we would be happy to give it back as in-store credit." I thanked them repeatedly.

My point is that oftentimes businesses will bend their policies if you are indeed a good customer, and are nice about it. Strong-arming them through online reviews doesn't help.

[kphoger]

I work in the telecom business, and our techs are contractors.  If you're moving into a new house and schedule a cable tech to come out and install services for you, but then you're not there when the tech shows up during the scheduled timeframe, then here's what happens:

1.  Our company doesn't get paid.  Depending on the market, we either get paid by the job type or by the point based on individual job codes.  If our contractor doesn't complete a job, then we don't get paid for the job.

2.  Our tech doesn't get paid.  Depending on the market, they either get paid by the job type or by the point based on individual job codes.  If they don't complete a job, then they don't get paid for the job.  Yes, it was our company's decision to employ the techs as contractors and pay them by the job or by the point, rather than employ them as employees and pay them hourly, but this does not negate (1) above.  Even if we paid them hourly, of course, we'd still require them to clock out between jobs if they were just sitting around.

3.  The tech did, however, pay for the gas to get to your house.  He's already at a net-negative.

4.  Because you had an appointment scheduled, your installation was taking up quota for the day.  So it's likely that there isn't another job for the tech to do in the meantime, unless someone else is running behind in his area.  So now he's stuck sitting around, calling other customers to see if they might be available early.  If they aren't, then he can't make money until his next scheduled job, and neither can our company.

5.  The customer is not charged for missing the appointment.  So we lose money, but the customer is not penalized.

[wanderer2575]

Just seeing this thread. As someone who ran restaurants for years, I side with the business owners every time here. You make policies to prevent you from losing irreplaceable revenue and so should expect your customers to follow them. I had one couple who made reservations for my restaurant every Friday night at 7:00 (aka prime time). There was a two month stretch where they only showed up once and I no-showed them the other seven times. The next time we were calling to confirm reservations the day before, I proceeded to let them know that I wouldn't be accepting their reservation requests due to them not actually showing up for seven of the eight previous Fridays. They pushed back a little bit telling me that I was going to lose their business completely, and I told them, in a moment of less-than-professionalism, that it appeared I already had.

We'd also have private parties book our private rooms, signing contracts and agreeing to a minimum spend and then get grumpy when I'd add a room charge when they didn't meet their minimums. Most of the time I was nice and would let them take home bottles of wine if they were cool about it, but the jerks that weren't? I just met the terms of the contract and got some free revenue.

I agree with this.  Along the same line (but not near the $$ impact that JayhawkCO was dealing with), I used to be treasurer for an organization of professionals.  We had monthly dinner meetings where someone was brought in to do an hour-long presentation on a relevant topic.  Registrations were online with a credit card, but we had one person who insisted on bringing a check to the event.  I was willing to handle that additional hassle each time, but then after she no-showed a few times I put my foot down and said she needed to mail us the check ahead of time and we'd register her after we receive it.  She was a little snarky about that.

I was also amazed at the number of people who registered but didn't attend and then wanted a refund because "it's not my fault I had a family emergency/had to work late/had car trouble/etc."  I'm sorry about that, but it's not our fault either.  You don't think you should have to pay for the dinner we reserved and paid for at your direction; why do you think WE should have to absorb the cost?

[JayhawkCO]

Just seeing this thread. As someone who ran restaurants for years, I side with the business owners every time here. You make policies to prevent you from losing irreplaceable revenue and so should expect your customers to follow them. I had one couple who made reservations for my restaurant every Friday night at 7:00 (aka prime time). There was a two month stretch where they only showed up once and I no-showed them the other seven times. The next time we were calling to confirm reservations the day before, I proceeded to let them know that I wouldn't be accepting their reservation requests due to them not actually showing up for seven of the eight previous Fridays. They pushed back a little bit telling me that I was going to lose their business completely, and I told them, in a moment of less-than-professionalism, that it appeared I already had.

We'd also have private parties book our private rooms, signing contracts and agreeing to a minimum spend and then get grumpy when I'd add a room charge when they didn't meet their minimums. Most of the time I was nice and would let them take home bottles of wine if they were cool about it, but the jerks that weren't? I just met the terms of the contract and got some free revenue.

I agree with this.  Along the same line (but not near the $$ impact that JayhawkCO was dealing with), I used to be treasurer for an organization of professionals.  We had monthly dinner meetings where someone was brought in to do an hour-long presentation on a relevant topic.  Registrations were online with a credit card, but we had one person who insisted on bringing a check to the event.  I was willing to handle that additional hassle each time, but then after she no-showed a few times I put my foot down and said she needed to mail us the check ahead of time and we'd register her after we receive it.  She was a little snarky about that.

I was also amazed at the number of people who registered but didn't attend and then wanted a refund because "it's not my fault I had a family emergency/had to work late/had car trouble/etc."  I'm sorry about that, but it's not our fault either.  You don't think you should have to pay for the dinner we reserved and paid for at your direction; why do you think WE should have to absorb the cost?

My most fun "absorb the cost" story from the last restaurant I ran:

We had this one regular who always made early reservations, specifically requesting one of the most popular tables. Her normal MO would be to sit there with a friend for 3-4 hours, drinking one glass of wine and one appetizer. So, she's clearly not a particularly profitable guest.

One night when I was getting ready to leave, my AGM tells me that this woman wants to talk to me, and I knew she had left over an hour ago so was wondering what was up. Turns out she hadn't finished all of the Brussels sprouts that she ordered and took them to go. But, she had put the container in a bag with some fabric samples that she had borrowed from some company, and the box leaked and got all over the samples. She was expecting me to reimburse her several hundreds of dollars because she made a bad decision. I refused on principle, and obviously wasn't going to make an exception since she wasn't a great guest. She kept threatening to get me fired, etc. because I wouldn't budge. Thankfully, she never returned. Rich people not getting their way was the most common headache I had at that place -- most have never heard someone tell them "no".

[webny99]

Thank you, |webny99|, for directing me to this thread.

And thank you for reviving it. I am glad to see that something substantive may come of it.

No, I think it's you who doesn't understand the purpose of Google reviews. Their purpose is not to strong-arm the business owner into giving in to you demands.  What else could you have meant by "I'd see if anything came of it" than that you wanted your 1-star review to compel the business owner to make the situation better? that you expected them to know it was you who left the review? that you expected them to call you back and make it right?

The overall purpose of Google reviews  has been well established here. Reviews are generally informative and beneficial to the general public in the aggregate, but typically hold very little future value to the reviewer themselves, because in most cases, the reviewer has already visited the business - so they have no reason to care about the business's rating, unless they either love the business so much they want their rating to go up, or hate the business so much they want their rating to go down.

As such, the purpose of an individual review can vary wildly from one review to the next. That purpose is typically - but not always - centered around information sharing - because of course everyone wants to share their experiences. But sometimes businesses offer incentives for reviews too, so someone may place a positive review to earn something they want, or, like in my case, place a negative review in hopes of getting something they want.

You are of course welcome to disagree with the *premise* of using a review for a certain purpose, or simply disagree with using a review for any self-serving purpose that doesn't explicitly benefit the general public (any rating posted without content typically doesn't benefit the public much, except as an aggregation tool, and even then, you can bet those reviews have been heavily incentivized or even "bought" by the business, especially if there's a large number of them). But ultimately, the reviewer themself is the only one who can define the "intention or objective" of a particular review.

See also:

reviews are a fickle and ultimately pretty meaningless tool that everyone uses in their own way for their own reasons.

The guy I spoke to earlier (who turned out to be the owner) was pretty worked up and confused about why I left one star but then rebooked at their other location, and told me that I wasn't welcome for my appointment in the morning because of the review.

I'm not 100% settled on this take, but I think that was unacceptable of him.  A customer should not be refused service just because he or she left a bad review.

I agree, and that's why I pointed up the irony of the fact that, of seven one-star reviews I've written, I have ended up being a repeat customer of three of them. All three responded to my one star review in the same manner: with no response at all. Zip, zero, zilch.

Yes, they chose ignoring the review over contacting me to make the situation better. But importantly, they also chose ignoring the review over contacting me to make the situation worse. And telling a customer they can't return always makes the situation worse. If the customer was unsure, it will sway them towards not returning. And if they had already decided not to return, they're going to be even more sure of their decision, they're more likely to tell others about their bad experience, and they're certainly never going to remove their review. They might even add profanity or threats to the review, or worse.

But if the customer already had active plans to return, I can't even make heads or tails of how they are supposed to respond to being told they can't. I couldn't in the moment, and I still can't now: hence why this thread exists.

I've been there four times

If you think a business should refuse service to a loyal customer because of a bad review,

You're not a loyal customer.  You've only been there four times.

Let me ask you this: what constitutes loyalty, and how do you measure it?

If four times isn't enough, let me assure you: I would have become a loyal customer over time. I had found a good barber, liked the way he cut my hair, had a good relationship with him, and certainly had no interest in finding a new one. Whatever your threshold for loyalty is, I had every intention of eventually meeting it, and I'd be two trips closer if this incident did not occur.

Either this reply by |jeffandnicole| went unnoticed, or else you have deliberately ignored it.

Neither one, actually. I noticed it, but I wasn't sure if it applied to this barbershop or not, and since I didn't intend to find out, I didn't have anything to add.

[Scott5114]

And telling a customer they can't return always makes the situation worse.

Eh...not always. There's one customer where I work who managed to spend so much time emailing the customer-service staff that management ran the numbers and found out that, when the wages paid to answer his message were deducted from the profit margin made from him, he was actually costing us money. So management told him not to return.

He's since disregarded that and started buying things again. Management said to fulfill the orders but not to otherwise acknowledge he exists. He left a mediocre review complaining about the lack of customer service, and we're definitely selling him fewer products now, but we're at least profiting from him, which we weren't before.

[jeffandnicole]

Let me ask you this: what constitutes loyalty, and how do you measure it?

If four times isn't enough, let me assure you: I would have become a loyal customer over time. I had found a good barber, liked the way he cut my hair, had a good relationship with him, and certainly had no interest in finding a new one. Whatever your threshold for loyalty is, I had every intention of eventually meeting it, and I'd be two trips closer if this incident did not occur.

Loyalty is relatively undefined, because your definition of loyalty will probably be different from the owner/barber's loyalty.

For me:  I've been going to the same barbershop since, well, my first haircut.  It's a small 3 chair place.  They know me, I know them.  But I also go about once every 2 months.  The shop has regulars that are there every two weeks.  Maybe even every week.  They're ultra-loyal.  If they're going to do something for a loyal customer, they'll do it for them way before they do it for me.

Another example: A bar near me had a Facebook post a while back.  They get frequent requests to donate for various causes.  The owner tries to donate when he can.  Some get pissed when he doesn't, saying they won't frequent his business.  It's a small town bar.  The owner and bartenders know who often frequent the place.  If any of his customers - even his non-frequent customers - ask for a donation, he'll help them out.  If someone walks in and asks the owner if the owner is in, that's usually not a good start.  The owner isn't worried about losing business from someone who lives 20 minutes away and still has the Google Maps directions open on their phone. He's owned the business longer than the person has been soliciting donations.  He knows it's their first and last time they'll step in the place.

And telling a customer they can't return always makes the situation worse.

Eh...not always.

The most obscene example I have of this:  I knew someone who started going to a restaurant, where she would sit at the bar and study.  She would get...a water.  The owner finally told her not to come back. She was pissed, but the place wasn't making a damn dime from her.

[webny99]

And telling a customer they can't return always makes the situation worse.

Eh...not always. There's one customer where I work who managed to spend so much time emailing the customer-service staff that management ran the numbers and found out that, when the wages paid to answer his message were deducted from the profit margin made from him, he was actually costing us money. So management told him not to return.

That's fair enough from a business perspective. I meant it makes things worse for the customer, and generally also the relationship. But obviously, the value of a customer relationship varies quite a bit from one business to another... and often even from one customer to another within the same business.

In this case, it's kind of tough to say if the customer is worse off since I don't know what value they were getting from emailing incessantly, but if they're still buying despite being ignored, it must not have been much.

[CtrlAltDel]

"Purpose" is both a noun and a verb.

The purpose (noun) of Google reviews has been well established.

[...]

As such, the purpose (verb) of an individual review can vary wildly from one review to the next.

[...]

You're using the noun version of purpose in both cases.

It seems like the idea you're trying to convey is retrospective as opposed to prospective.

Either way, your dedication to explaining why you are not wrong is extraordinary.

[kphoger]

As such, the purpose (verb) of an individual review can vary wildly from one review to the next.

That's not how grammar works.  In the phrase "the purpose of an individual review", the word "purpose" is indisputably a noun.  The only verb in your sentence is the verb phrase "can vary".

Let me ask you this: what constitutes loyalty, and how do you measure it?

There's no hard number, and it depends on the type of business.  But four times to a barber is not 'loyalty'.  Loyalty can be measured in different ways, but generally businesses measure it by how long you've been a consistent customer.  I'd posit that four times is barely enough for most barbers to even recognize a customer, let alone consider him to be a loyal customer. 

If four times isn't enough, let me assure you: I would have become a loyal customer over time ... I had every intention of eventually meeting it,

I don't doubt it.  But the phrase you used was "refuse service to a loyal customer".  Whether you would have become a loyal customer over time is irrelevant:  I stand by my assertion that they did not refuse service to a loyal customer.

And telling a customer they can't return always makes the situation worse.

That's fair enough from a business perspective. I meant it makes things worse for the customer, and generally also the relationship.

That only matters to the business if they even want the person as a customer to begin with.

[webny99]

Strong-arming them through online reviews doesn't help.

See, I just fundamentally disagree that leaving a poor review is "strong-arming" in any context. A single review (especially one without an explanation for the public to read that could influence their decision to do business with that company) simply doesn't affect the business in any meaningful way.

And I knew that. I did it anyways because I figured throwing it in the average would make the average slightly more accurate for others. And it did exactly that, even after changing it to three stars.

[webny99]

It seems like the idea you're trying to convey is retrospective as opposed to prospective.

Is that a problem?

Either way, your dedication to explaining why you are not wrong is extraordinary.

Of course it was wrong to be late for the appointment. I couldn't be in two places at once, so tough choices had to be made. But I have long since moved on from that, and you may have noticed that the current discussion isn't even about that anyways.

[webny99]

Let me ask you this: what constitutes loyalty, and how do you measure it?

There's no hard number, and it depends on the type of business.  But four times to a barber is not 'loyalty'.  Loyalty can be measured in different ways, but generally businesses measure it by how long you've been a consistent customer.  I'd posit that four times is barely enough for most barbers to even recognize a customer, let alone consider him to be a loyal customer. 

If four times isn't enough, let me assure you: I would have become a loyal customer over time ... I had every intention of eventually meeting it,

I don't doubt it.  But the phrase you used was "refuse service to a loyal customer".  Whether you would have become a loyal customer over time is irrelevant:  I stand by my assertion that they did not refuse service to a loyal customer.

Ok, fine. I accept that loyalty is conceptual and pretty much impossible to assign a numeric value to, so how about a repeat customer? The specfic number of visits just doesn't make any practical difference here anyways.

And no, the business owner doesn't know me from a load of hay, but my barber knew me plenty well after two visits, not to mention four.

That only matters to the business if they even want the person as a customer to begin with.

And I totally get it when a business selling to other businesses (B2B), doesn't want to sell to a specific customer.

But I don't get it at all for a service business that is founded and built on relationships with their customers. Telling someone "you are not welcome here" should be extremely rare and require a level of offense that is in a different stratosphere than "left a poor review", regardless of the context of the review or even the content of the review unless it was something veritably false.