It's the 3rd or 4th time that I've received a call from Jonsson to redeem a free trial hair care session and the 'excuse' this time round was SG50. See...I told you that more people were jumping onto the SG50 bandwagon.

Pardon the horrible photo above. Don't know why it didn't turn up as landscape. Anyway, I finally caved in for this session at Jonsson for 2 reasons: I wanted to do a comparison between as many hair loss treatment centres in Singapore and the telemarketer assured me that there wouldn't be any hard selling. She also told me that it would take only 1.5 hrs to 2 hrs.

I arrived at 11.15 am and it started off well enough with the usual procedure where they take your profile and ask you tons of questions regarding your hair history:

• Have you sought other treatments? Yes, I've gone to Trichokare, Yun Nam, Bee Choo and am using Phyto shampoo and cold laser.
• When did you start noticing your hair loss?
• Do you like spicy and oily/fried foods?

Yadayadayada...anyway, onto the scan!
  

Compare the above to the one that I took at Trichokare:

Me wonders whether the sales consultant at Jonsson zoomed in onto the thinning portion on purpose. After the scan, I heard the usual spiel about how my scalp is oily and that I need to control the oil before hair regrowth could be tackled. So far so good.

I then listened for the next 45 min (yes, I looked at my phone's clock) about how hair follicles work and how Jonsson uses a special protein named VE protein to target hair regrowth. Apparently, the VE protein molecules are so small that the hair follicles will absorb them upon application. Cue the eye roll because as we all know, protein can only be 'absorbed' by being broken down into amino acids and then your body decides where the amino acids are going to and what sort of proteins it'll build. If the protein in this serum is really 'absorbed' by the hair follicles, I reckon its more like nutrients rather than protein.

So...in that 45 min "consultation" period, there was a bit of naysay-ing against Bee Choo by the sales woman (Bee Choo might be quite irritated to know that said sales consultant said that Bee Choo uses henna) before I was marketed a package of 10 sessions for the grand price of $1.5k or so. I gave my usual line of "it's too expensive" and they countered by asking me to get 5 sessions instead. To which, I replied that I don't like make up my mind even before the trial treatment is finished! A little more back and forth before she relented the hard selling (I was starting to get a bit pissed off) and brought me to the treatment room at about noon.
 

Oh look! I've got my own private room! I later learnt from the assistant consultant that they have a couple of private rooms for Muslim females who do not want to reveal their hair to the public/men and it's also useful for those who just want to sleep while their heads are getting massaged and steamed. I found this really thoughtful! This is something that I have yet to see at the other places that I've been to.
This consultant gave me a really awesome shoulder and head massage *thumbs up*, which helped me really start to relax after the slightly distasteful hard selling by her senior. This was their special shampoo to cleanse the oil from the scalp.

After the shampoo was washed off, a serum of sorts was applied onto my scalp with a brush before I went under the steamer.
I was quite amused by the boxy steamer which has a cloth 'wrap' and again, the design made sense because this eliminated dripping along my face.
For refreshments, I was served a glass of their protein drink and the nice consultant naively told me that the protein in this drink goes immediately to the hair. If you have a stunned face before breaking into laughter, that was me (minus the laughter) and I went on to explain to her the basics of digestion of protein to amino acids etc. Despite my scientific explanation, she didn't believe me. I wonder what they've been teaching their consultants and then to their clients...what a sharp contrast to what Trichokare's senior consultant, Alysha Ng, said during WellnessYogi RESET on Saturday.

Everything was really fine until they took this moment of my head being steamed to try and hard sell me once more! The sales woman tried to sell me the package again and said things like "I know that money is an issue so I've spoken to my manager and we can get you a smaller package where each session is only $56." Dodgy, no? How are you able to suddenly drop your session from $150 to $56 if there's no special promotion?

With my look of disbelief, Ms. Hardsell shoved me a book of all of their testimonials and the typical before/after photos. I honestly do believe that their treatments are probably effective for most of their customers and getting testimonials from them is a piece of cake. However, she forgot that she's trying to market to a marketer, which is something that I had blatantly told her right from the start when she asked me what my occupation was (Marketing Manager).

Now, I had 2 work crises happening at the same time at the very same moment although I was on leave. Moreover, I had promised to meet my biz partner at 1.30pm. It was already 1.15pm when they started bombarding me. Stressed me kept emphasising that I needed to leave and meet someone at 1.30pm and guess what was her reaction?

"That's why I'm here discussing with you while you're having your treatment. Just pass me your credit card and I'll process it for you. All you need to do is to sign and then once we're done you can just leave."

*Jaw drops*

Again, I told her that I didn't want to buy ANY package and that I prefer to pay each time I visit the store. I also mentioned that I was very stressed and therefore, was not in the right frame of mind to make any decisions when it came to this. Goodness knows how many times we both repeated our usual lines. What really took me off the edge was when she told me that I needed to "give myself a chance". My response? Yeah...I'm giving myself a chance, which is why I'm here in the first place? Moreover, I'm giving myself LOTS of hair regrowth chances by all the various products that I purchase. Oh...so she changed tactics and said that I needed to give Jonsson a chance. Uh huh...isn't the fact that I'm there trying out their treatment equaling the fact that I'm giving them a chance to prove their treatment's awesomeness to me? (-_-)

So...with my super black face on, she realised that there was NO way that I was going to buy a package from her so Ms. Hardsell decided to be really cute and tried selling me their hair tonic and shampoo. For the very lovely price of $190-something. Seriously?

She repeated her whole "give me your credit card..." line. I kept quiet. I thought my resting bitch face would be enough clue to her that I'm not buying that stuff. If you can't convince, then confuse - that was her final strategy. She went, "So ok? Just pass me your credit card and I'll pack this up for you." I was angry but I controlled myself as my hair was being blown dry by the young consultant. When I remarked that I really didn't like being forced to buy something, her reply was one of slight shock before going, "Not forcing!! Forcing is like putting a knife to you and making you buy!" Tell me...what's the difference with her hard selling/ guilt-tripping sales strategy and resorting to selling me tonics? Isn't it obvious that her bottom line was that she MUST make a sale then and there, whatever the tactic was? Aiyoh...how much is her comms? Maybe I should've told her, "I'll just pay you the comms to shut you up, ok?"

I had to make a phone call in the midst of her hard selling and the hair blowing to try and resolve one of the work crises. They finally left the room to give me some privacy. This made me also think whether that is why they put me in a private room - to try to sell me something and if I throw any tantrums, none of their regulars will be affected. Hmm.

Anyway, as it was already 1.35pm, I couldn't be bothered with my half-blown hair and proceeded to walk out of the room. To their shock, they asked me to go back to the room as they hadn't applied the tonic. I thought that she'd relent and stop with the hard selling but she persisted and still asked me to give myself a chance. *Groan* I've gotta give it to her for persistence though.

Honestly, this is pretty similar to a lot of spa salons and other treatment centres and the industry really needs to change their sales strategy! This is also another HUGE factor as to why I started Passhen. I want this hard sell culture to end. I want consumers to feel safe and free of hassle when they want to try quality services/products from merchants.

Needless to say, I'm not going back to Jonsson's anytime soon.

Jonsson Protein's website: http://www.jonssonprotein.com.sg/