Ms. Borgman

Spas, Health & Fitness

Three Key Ingredients of a World Class Spa Experience

By Peggy Borgman, President, Preston Wynne, Inc.

Ingredient #1: People whose core values nourish the service organization.

"Getting the right people on the bus" is essential to making any company successful. A spa, more than any other hospitality operation, must recruit and retain people with core values that support outstanding guest care. The potential for disappointment in the spa is greater than in any other aspect of a stay. The customer-care bar is set particularly high here because many guests are intimidated by spas.

Your company's core values must align with those of the employees you hire. Discussing your values frequently, and using them as a frame of reference for coaching, ensures that they are a living part of your service culture. (Verne Harnish, a business consultant and author, says that you should repeat your important themes so often that your team starts to poke fun at you!)

At Preston Wynne, our core values are:

Core values like mutual respect, a passion for delighting others, empathy, fairness and impeccable personal ethics are absolutely essential to ensuring that guests feel valued. But you can't teach this! Your employees' personal values are hard-wired into them.

Naturally, employment candidates will promote themselves as having highly desirable core values. Interview questions that include "scenarios" are important in determining their actual values.

One scenario question we use is this: A client emerges from the treatment room and declares to you, "that was the worst facial I ever had." What do you do? We tell the candidate, "You make up the rules; this is your company. How would you handle the situation?" As they respond, we role-play, and increase the intensity of the client's disappointment. We listen to how they react to a deeply unhappy customer. I've been amazed at how many times the would-be employee refuses, for example, to refund money! Even if the candidate thinks that this is the response you want, which they often say in the debrief, this in itself is a window into their core values: I will compromise my 'values' if I think that's what you want to hear.

Why is "build and protect a fun and harmonious work environment" one of our core values? Because the quality of the guest experience will directly reflect the quality of the internal dynamic between your employees.

Discussing an employment candidate's interpersonal relationships with coworkers is also telling. Some employees are wonderful with clients and management but absolutely awful with co-workers. In an interview, an esthetician may lament the "incompetent" reception staff at her last spa. This is a red flag! Probe further and you may discover that your candidate lacks the core value of "mutual respect"; instead she will selectively respect others.

Ongoing skirmishes between "front of the house" and "back of the house" are common in spas. This condition is caused by hiring technical and therapeutic staff for "experience" rather than for their personality strengths and core values. Experience is one of the most overrated qualities of employment candidates, and worthless to you if the employee does not have the right set of personal values.

But great values, like good intentions, do not ensure success. Another essential ingredient must be added to make sure guests experience world class service.

Ingredient #2: Structure

Now we have a wonderful team in place, eager to deliver fantastic service to your guests. But without leadership, instruction, procedures and protocols, these well-meaning spa employees will fail. The personality style of the spa employee causes them to focus on relationships and people, not processes or results. Worse yet, you don't get to observe what they're doing behind closed doors.

Spa employees appreciate how work environments with clear rules and firm procedures ensure their guests' satisfaction. Personality surveys will help you identify employees who are more likely to follow rules, as will interviewing around the topic.

The most crucial element of Structure is management. Is there enough supervision and support for the staff? Some spa managers in small facilities work in a treatment room. Naturally, there is little or no "direction" being provided by someone who's sequestered in a treatment room. Spa employees are not usually strong improvisers and they dislike working in an uncertain environment. They enjoy the comfort of a predictable routine that enables them to focus on taking care of the guests.

In addition to a spa manager or director, we use a "team coordinator" to see to the logistical needs of their coworkers. For example, a body therapy team coordinator will make sure equipment is functional, supplies are stocked, retail inventory is on order and workflow is efficient in the treatments. A team coordinator can be a part time position for a detail-oriented member of the therapeutic staff. It does not include supervisory responsibility; that remains firmly in the hands of the spa manager or director.

Training is a vital part of Structure, yet training programs are notoriously weak in spas. A good spa manager insists on a regular program of training and continuing education. Busy managers often abdicate this responsibility to vendors. A good training program is "owned" by the spa; vendor training should be utilized as a supplemental resource. Strong generic skills and knowledge are key to excellence.

Experience is also often thought to be a viable substitute for training. Spas that hire only "experienced" staffers and skimp on training inevitably disappoint their customers. Ten years of experience may be the same year repeated ten times. Seven years in a mediocre spa will not prepare an employee for the level of excellence required to deliver World Class Service. Skills evaluation, testing and certification are important elements of Structure.

Developing an in-house trainer for each team is an excellent way to build a strong service Structure. This person can be a hands on service provider, and again, there is no supervisory responsibility. A Program Coordinator is a specialist; an esthetician, nail technician, or massage therapist. At Preston Wynne, our Program Coordinator is responsible for conducting trainings and coordinating training by outside educators as well as other team members who have advanced skills.

Quality management and Structure go hand in hand. Collecting customer feedback is crucial to continuous improvement. Documenting service anomalies helps ensure that they don't recur. Listening to the customer and not discounting complaints is critical. Empathic listening is driven by a core value of appreciating others, but documenting those comments and acting to address the issue is part of creating a strong, healthy Structure.

Ingredient #3: Aesthetics

Many spa operators start here when they think about World Class Service. Aesthetics are the special touches that create a sense of delight in a guest, such as a beautiful environment or a plush robe. Aesthetics only matter when Values and Structure provide a sound foundation for delight. There's no robe plush enough to offset the disappointment of an icy greeting at the front desk. These luxuries will ring hollow if a guest feels they don't even belong in your spa.

Aesthetics also include such special touches as remembering a guest's name and using it frequently, or keeping track of their treatment or product preferences. Writing thank-you cards or offering a farewell gift are other examples.

Creating fabulous Aesthetic touches is fun, but can never take precedence over effectively managing Values or Structure. Unless you've mastered the basics, a high level of Aesthetics can make your spa appear ridiculous, ostentatious or pretentious. Aesthetics does not mean hiring a spa concierge simply because she's a stunning beauty.

The Synergy

Anticipating a guest's need before it has even entered their perception is the most potent source of customer delight. Anticipation is probably the greatest hallmark of World Class Service. Happily, we don't need to have psychic abilities to "read" our guest's minds. We combine Core Values like empathy and a desire to serve others, with a sound Structure that methodically collects customer feedback and implements continuous improvements. We add artful Aesthetic touches that delight the senses, and voila! This equation appears to the guest as pure magic. Not only will they be thrilled, they'll eagerly recount their wonderful experience at your spa to anyone who'll listen. In spa's today, world class service is a given. Building an outstanding service infrastructure is the spa manager's most essential mission.

Peggy Wynne Borgman is President and founder of Preston Wynne, Inc., which operates day and hotel spas as well as Preston Wynne Success Systems, a spa consultancy and training organization. PWSS seminars train management employees for the top tier of the international hospitality industry, as well as independent salons and spas throughout the US and Canada. Ms. Borgman is a frequent speaker at events such as the IESC and ISPA conferences and author of Four Seasons of Inner and Outer Beauty (Random House). Ms. Borgman can be contacted at (408) 741-1750 ext 30 or pwb@prestonwynne.com Extended Bio...

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