Ms. Borgman

Spas, Health & Fitness

Measuring Employee Productivity in the Hotel Spa

By Peggy Borgman, President, Preston Wynne, Inc.

Or are they? Not all "stay" spas are the same. A business-driven hotel will actually have high repeat clientele. Spa utilization may run toward a single treatment, such as a massage or a manicure, rather than all-day indulgences. A resort may attract the same guests year after year, especially if they've had a memorable and satisfying experience. These guests may visit the spa more than once during their stay-a form of retention that is little acknowledged. The distinction here is the visit interval-not whether a guest returns, but when. Understanding typical guest behavior can enable you to create realistic measurements of guest retention by spa employees.

For example, a hotel guest enjoys a massage during their visit, and decides to book a pedicure for the following day. Is this actually customer retention? You bet! If the guest had a negative experience with their massage therapist, they are much less likely to enjoy another treatment. So "retention" measurements should take into account how often a guest who works with one technician, also returns to the spa for additional appointments.

The hotel spa employee is a part of a complex and multi-faceted guest experience, but the spa experience, it's been shown, is one of the most impactful elements of a stay. This shouldn't come as a surprise; after all, there are few other situations in which a guest will be in such personal and physical contact with an employee. As well, there are few situations more fraught with expectations and intimidation than the spa visit. Guest expectations are incredibly high, and at the same time, they're concerned that they may not be "worthy" of the services they're receiving. Spa guests routinely fret over their physical appearance, in a way that restaurant guests do not. Seldom does a dinner guest apologize to a waiter for the burden of having to serve him, but that's exactly what happens when that same guest gingerly places her feet in the hands of a pedicurist. This self-consciousness can also manifest itself in over-sensitivity to imagined slights. So a successful spa experience is far from the slam dunk that we often imagine it to be. The "moments of truth" in a typical spa appointment are endless.

An article in Harvard Business Review in 2004 reported that a link between customer satisfaction and bottom line profit is measured most accurately by a very specific question. In the study cited, many different forms of customer satisfaction questions were posed, but the one that showed the most precise correlation with profitability was this:

"On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to refer someone you know to our company?"

The study showed that scores of 9 and 10 were indicators of healthy profit, but that scores of 7 or below meant serious trouble: even a score of 7 indicated that a customer was an "active detractor," energetically badmouthing the business.

This simple question is marvelously easy to integrate into your spa quality management program. A card provided for departing guests can quickly be completed, and the results tracked for individuals ("on a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to refer someone you know to your spa therapist today?") as well as the spa overall. Given the power of this question to predict profit, and the ease of tracking results, it is an ideal indicator of individual employee effectiveness and productivity.

Finally, the stay spa employee has traditionally been presented with many obstacles on the road to retail sales productivity. I've even seen spas in which employees were literally forbidden to mention home care products to guests, even when those products were (putatively) sold by the spa and employed in the treatments.

More often, retail impediments take the form of maddeningly weak merchandising. The classic situation entails a "boutique" well sequestered from the treatment areas, where clients are left to their own devices to locate and purchase products. Few hotel spas utilize any sort of new guest profile to perform a basic needs assessment, and fewer still offer written home care recommendations to guests following their services. The belief that retail doesn't happen in the hotel spa is virtually assured by a general lack of systems or processes to drive retail sales. Many hotel and resort spas content themselves with the incidental sales that occur when guests browse their boutiques. However, our research indicates that 93% of spa customers who buy home care products in a spa do so because of the recommendations of their therapist or service provider.

Is it fair to include retail productivity in your assessment of employees? Only if the hotel or resort is willing to provide the basic requirements for a sound retail program. The basics: compelling merchandising, recommendation tools that are integrated into protocols and a commitment to providing time and resources for home care recommendations. Scheduling treatments on the hour, not surprisingly, is not usually conducive to strong retail sales. In such a situation, an educated and motivated home care advisor can be employed to help close sales of products recommended by therapists. Software such as Millenium by Harms enables the spa to split commissions between recommending therapists and closers.

Employee productivity, then, is a combination of three elements, each as unique as the property itself:

To measure accurately, it's crucial to amass historical performance and then set standards based on this real data. Each property is unique and its formulas must be, as well. Each spa management software product, too, has unique algorithms for calculating such seemingly straightforward statistics as retention, making it imperative to create your own benchmarks.

To ensure that the program is as fair as possible, assign a value to each behavior (retention, customer satisfaction, and retail) that produces a combined score. Remember, value must be tied to profitability. Service sales and retail sales drive different gross profit. For example, estheticians will have a higher value on retail, since it's a bigger part of their revenue production than massage therapists. Yet greater gross profit is driven by service sales, so they are weighted more heavily overall. A combined productivity score also permits "different strokes for different folks," a way to achieve the desired level of contribution through a uniquely personal mix of behavior. A massage therapist who is not a strong retailer may be a great retainer and receive high satisfaction marks. He still keeps his "seat" on your team. You may have a massage therapist who is great at home care sales and still developing his retention abilities. His combined score enables him to retain his "seat", as well.

Creating a system of measuring productivity in your hotel spa will enable your operation to continuously improve its profit and its value to the property overall. As we know, what we can measure, we can improve.

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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