Chopshop

Why aren't barbershops tracking customer preferences?

I have never, not once, felt confident enough to point at the barbershop haircut charts when sitting down to get a trim. I suspect I'm not alone. 

I've also never had a regular enough barber to develop any degree of aesthetic understanding and trust. This leaves me in a tricky position. I want to look good, and I want my barber to have some creative input. I want a stylist, really, but without a long-term relationship with my haircutter, that's difficult to establish.

It's only recently that I decided to load my phone with photos of haircuts I liked before getting a trim. It was somewhat effective, but it has this basic problem: those guys aren't me. And telling my barber that I want to look like him isn't really true. I want to look like the best version of myself.

So. An app that integrates with my barber's POS. When I'm done with my cut - right after they take the stupid mirror and show me my neck (in fact, the app should replace the mirror) - they take a quick GIF showing me from a bunch of angles. It's saved in my customer file, and accessible by my barber when I come in next month. It's something we can discuss and point at - a jumping off ground for experimentation. My haircut becomes a work in progress instead of a one-time gig. 

For the customer: Consistency. For the barber: The opportunity to develop a long term relationship that can transcend staffing changes.  The app becomes a whiteboard for discussing style.

Am I missing something? For the right kind of customer and shop, I think it'd be a killer match.