Terrible experience - Salon Manager SmartStyle Employee Review

1.0
Dec 18, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Absolutely none. This is the worst possible place to work. Walmart is not the location you are going to attract great clients who will invest in their hair and come back for future appointments.

Cons

I had applied for the management position which they call the salon leader, I finished the first face to face interview and then also the phone interview which I was told were the only two. I then receive a call that they wanted another meeting, which at that meeting was told I has another separate meeting the next day with another manager. That is FOUR total. After the phone interview I specifically asked if I had gotten the job when they called, she said YES, I only needed to wait for one more paper before i could start. So you see my frustration when I was called in for two more times. After the 4th meeting I was then called and offered the leader position at smartstyle, where I said I didn't want to be, and eventually transfer to mastercuts but only as a stylist. I was told I don't have any professional leadership skills, which is farthest from the truth, and when I confronted them with the question of why am I qualified to do this job in the smartstyle where you are desperate and not mastercuts, especially after the specific training at that salon, she said all of their salons are equal. Well obviously they're not if I am qualified in one and not the other. I was eventually told they had only one stylist in the smartstyle and she had been driving several hours to cover those shifts, they were very desperate there, which she lied about at first. These people are SUCH A JOKE. I told her how insulting that was and I wasn't going to degrade myself. I wasted SO much of my time with them. There was also a VERY awkward instance with a client during my 3rd meeting with her. A client came in looking for a specific kind of product, she was like a deer in headlights and literally had NO idea what she was doing. I had seen that they carried kenra and approached her to offer my advice on a good product for her, and she ended up buying 2. This "manager" had absolutely no idea what she was doing and was just looking all around like she had never sold a hair product in her life, and yet also so baffled that this salon was losing money. How lovely that their supposed highly trained and experienced management doesn't even know hair care, let alone how to successfully manage their businesses. DO NOT WORK ANYWHERE FOR REGIS!!!!

Explore other reviews about SmartStyle

5.0
Nov 17, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Lenient dress code, ample access to new clientele, video library to expand skills and product knowledge, PTO and benefits

Cons

The salons are almost always short staffed

1.0
Jan 26, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

None, none, none, none, none

Cons

This workplace runs on vibes, guesswork, and unanswered messages. Upper Management had an impressive talent for being completely unreachable while simultaneously expecting miracles. Responses took days — sometimes weeks — but urgency was always your problem. Hiring approvals were blocked or endlessly delayed, leaving teams severely understaffed while leadership sat comfortably on the sidelines asking why things weren’t running perfectly. Accountability flowed strictly downward. Authority? None. Support? Cosmetic at best. Problems were ignored until they became emergencies, at which point they were blamed on the people who had been begging for help all along. Communication was inconsistent, expectations were unclear, and burnout was treated like a personal weakness instead of a predictable outcome of chronic mismanagement. If you enjoy being set up to fail, blamed for systemic issues, and gaslit into thinking you didn’t “try hard enough,” this is absolutely the place for you. Otherwise, save yourself the stress and look elsewhere.

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