"Northern Quarter Barber" is probably one of the many barber shops in Manchester, this one in…read moreparticular, has reasonably cheap haircuts for the city centre, costing about £10, but still the service still was very poor, and made me feel, they were taking the mick, and not running a business at all.
When I first arrived, the experience was quite pleasant, as it is quite a cool barbershop, with wallpaper of London and New York, in quiet a cool, colorful design, mainly consisting of yellow and orange, and they also did let me charge my phone, in one of the empty plug sockets at an unused barber point.
The waiting situation in this shop confused me, in a negative way, they were 2 barbers working, however it seemed only one was cutting hair, and one was just either watching him or walking around the store, I understand training is a good idea, but he didn't even seem to be training him, and he just seemed to be useless being there, and he really should have been doing something, such as cutting someones hair as they was a reasonable queue, or at least offering drinks to waiting customers.
My long wait for a barber took around 40 minutes, and that was basically for him to serve 2 people, meanwhile the other barber just sat and watched basically, hence after a time like this, I'd expect them to pick up the pace and at least get another barber on and offer me a beverage.
After waiting a good amount of time, the barber took a break to have a cigarette, still with 3 people waiting, and I personally think this was taking the mick, he only asked the "next person", to the point where they basically had no choice and he was telling them, rather than asking them. I think it is basic common sense and customer service skills to have breaks, whether it be for food, drink, cigarettes or just to relax, when no customers are waiting, but he decided to do it, when they was a line of 3.
When I finally got in the barber chair, the barber did seem nice, however he offered no apology for a wait, and neither did his friend, he told me about the origins of this barbers, with them originally coming from Israel, which I found interesting, and he did talk in arabic a reasonable amount, during my haircut to his friend.
My haircut was quite a nice haircut, but compared to other ones I have had it was barely average, although towards the higher end of average, he did catch me a few times, being very heavy handed with his razor, at times he " hit me on the head with it " , and he wasn't very light handed with the scissors too, which for people which are "head-sensitive" like me, can be a little painful.
Even though they was some minor positives, such as the haircut being reasonable, they did let me charge my phone and the barber being nice, I still feel like 1 star is the highest I can go for this barbers, with the main reasons being the very slow service and the "break" my barber took, the lack of an apology about the wait, incidents with the barber catching me, and simply the confusing, annoying and pointless nature of having another "barber" just walking around the salon, not helping out, when they is a lot he could have done, even if not cutting hair, to increase the customer experience.
