Mr. Henkin

Spas, Health & Fitness

Five Little Things that Make A BIG Difference in Spa Customer Service

By Gary Henkin, President & Founder, WTS International

In today's highly competitive hospitality environment, an inviting spa can create a truly memorable guest experience. To that end, there are any number of "small items" that can make a big difference in how your spa is perceived by both a guest and non-guest population. These areas include several basic initiatives with your staff and with the guest that will assist in providing impeccable guest service while energizing the spa.

Celebrating positive initiatives taken by your staff, communicating and sharing information on a consistent basis, empowering your personnel, fostering wellness and paying attention to intuition are just a few of the small but critical items necessary for your staff to produce the kind of guest and customer service ethic that will delineate your spa from others.

Creating a healthy spa culture is vitally important in contributing to a positive experience on the part of the consumer. In order to develop this culture, staff need to be on board and well trained in all aspects of service delivery. Pay attention to the spa items and reap big dividends in your spa operation.

Customer Service - Cornerstone of Excellence in Hospitality

Given the number of customer service seminars, training manuals, scripts and programs that promise to improve customer service in the hospitality industry, it is a formidable task to choose just one that will work for you and your company. Sadly, many of us in the spa industry actually spend more time educating ourselves and implementing programs than the tenure of many of our staff members. Yet, for leaders in one of the most service-intense sectors of the hospitality industry, spa professionals know that customer service levels are as important as standards and expectations for facility operations. When guests visit our spas, they demand, expect and deserve impeccable service and spa treatment prices reflect that. Thus, customer service is the cornerstone of our business.

Guest Feedback - A Starting Point

Many top spas have detailed systems for collecting guest feedback, and it is critical to evaluate this information. Guest comments and suggestions help the Spa Director to improve by focusing on all the little things that guests and other spa patrons see and remember and by forcing us to make the changes necessary to improve areas of weakness. Guest feedback is crucial to advancing and perfecting the spa experience.

Let's consider what spa guests have to say in more detail. Typically, they will comment about the facility in broad, general terms. For example, we often hear that spa was "beautifully designed" or "I loved the colors". The experience itself is often described as "relaxing" or "my skin feels wonderful," comments which tend to be positive, short and rather vague. However, when spas receive commentary about staff, guests tend to be far more specific, and they will tend to critique personnel (including key managers) in detail.

In other words, the spa experience is only as good as the staff that guests will encounter. Beautiful facilities and delineative design features have their place, but if the guest doesn't have positive interaction with the staff, the experience will likely be a negative one but one they do indeed remember. Fortunately, the opposite is also true. If guests have a very positive staff experience, they will tell their friends and return to the spa time and again.

No Quick Fix - The Challenge

Attention to guest comments and responsive, appropriate action, however, aren't quick fixes. All the best intentions including consistent staff training and standards don't automatically result in excellent customer service. For example, staff should be trained to repeat a script when checking in a guest; the Spa Director can (and should) set exact standards for therapists to follow and staff should review typical customer service and operational scenarios. Role playing is a very useful tool in this training process. Yet, despite management's efforts to prevent problems, a staff member's negative interaction with a guest (or even another staff member) can leave an indelible negative impression. Customer service glitches often result from these little "accidents". For example, when guests (or staff members) arrive late for appointments, just one person can ultimately make or break the guest's experience. We know that this type of situation can throw the operational flow into frenzy. We've all witnessed the frustrated spa receptionist who welcomes a tardy guest with the reprimand, "you're late for your appointment" instead of with a friendly smile. When that happens, all the scripts, training and role playing exercises may not matter - the guest's day at the spa has been damaged, and it will be both difficult and expensive to correct.

That said, customer service training manuals, role playing, and ongoing staff education are certainly important in developing exceptional customer service within the spa. However, there are several small items that can make a big difference in creating a positive and memorable experience, and they are not necessarily a direct result of training. Instead, they are the consequence of creating and sustaining the right spa culture.

Five Little Things - Energizing Your Spa's Culture

Impeccable guest service is fueled and reinforced by the culture created within the spa. Quite simply, a spa's "energy" needs to remain true to the mission - sustaining a healthy atmosphere which permeates the staff and the services they deliver. This means that the spa staff must clearly understand the mission and agree to be its vocal ambassador. When staff understands and lives that commitment, a spa's unique culture becomes sacrosanct. It is the Spa Director's responsibility to instill that understanding at the time of the first interview for any position at the spa and then to constantly reinforce and support this commitment.

Here are a few things that can be done to create and sustain the right culture for your spa:

1. Ensure Celebration

Spa staff typically choose to work at a specific venue. In today's highly competitive job market, they can work for someone else just as easily, and they may even be able to earn more in doing so. Thus, you should celebrate your staff's collective and individual professional successes frequently. Celebrate good deeds staff members do personally in the community. When you do, you celebrate the mission of your spa. So much time is spent on staff professional development that we sometimes forget to look back and give credit where it's due.

2. Create Awareness

Keep employees in the loop. Communicate. Share information. Awareness leads to enthusiasm which is usually infectious. Enthusiasm (or lack thereof) is probably one of the best indicators of the positive or negative "energies" a spa can have. Talk with staff about challenges, talk to them about upcoming marketing promotions and events, listen to their comments, and keep them aware of everything that is going on. Many employers talk about their spa staff as "family" but many families don't even talk at the dinner table anymore.

3. Support Power

Your spa's success truly depends on power you permit the staff to share. In other words, your success is quite literally in the hands of each employee. So, like the information (awareness) you provide them, don't forget to empower them to make decisions and be prepared to support those decisions. Recognize decision makers and celebrate positive results as they come.

4. Foster Wellness and Well Being

Spas are in the "wellness" business. Therefore, they should champion this concept. Encourage the staff to eat well, to rest, laugh, exercise and develop friendships. Spa guests will absolutely take notice. Spas with a friendly, mutually supportive and amicable staff are infused with a wonderfully contagious atmosphere. The energy will be warm and inviting.** **

5. Listen to Intuition

Don't you know when something just doesn't seem right? You get that feeling in your gut that something is off. Over the course of time, we learn to "cover-up" that feeling and as well-trained (and stressed) managers we bury or ignore our healthy and insightful intuition. In our daily "busy-ness" it takes a special talent to stop and listen to your intuition. Do it anyway. Therapists are most attuned to this in the work they do. Take advantage of that fact and learn from it. Encourage all staff to listen attentively and sensitively to guests - and to their own intuition. That's just one way to keep one step ahead of what your guests need because healthy intuition is anticipatory; it allows staff to respond in advance to their guests and each other's needs.

Putting It All Together

Customer service is the cornerstone of spa excellence. A healthy spa culture is the most important contributor to a guest's positive experience, and spa professionals need to do the little things that can make a big difference. Neglecting the big things like appropriate maintenance, establishing service levels and ensuring proper staff training will clearly damage your spa's business and negatively impact the guest experience. But paying extra attention to five "little items" - celebration, awareness, power, wellness and intuition will create the culture that all spas need to thrive in today's competitive and customer-focused marketplace.

President and Founder of WTS International, Gary Henkin has 30 years in the planning, design and management of health clubs, spas and athletic facilities. He has developed feasibility and needs assessment studies for spa and/or health club properties. WTS has become one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing leisure consulting and operating firms. The firm has about 1,000 employees worldwide and provides services to hotels, resorts, luxury residential properties, exclusive golf and country clubs, day spas and real estate developments throughout the United States and overseas. Mr. Henkin can be contacted at 301-622-7800 or ghenkin@wtsinternational.com Extended Bio...

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