Being ‘Present’ – Giving Spa Guests Your Full Attention

How we treat and communicate with our guests in spas or salons is a critical factor in their impression of the experience. It has a major influence on how they feel about their visit to your business. But how do we give them our full attention? What are the specific things we can do to demonstrate to the guest that they are the most important person to us in that moment?

There are many techniques that can help you to convey that you are giving the guest your full attention, and these same techniques actually do make you give the guest your full attention! When you employ these techniques, you will find yourself engaging with your guest in the best possible way. Here, being present-giving spa guests your full attention

Be Prepared for Your Spa Guests

You can only give your guest your full attention if you are prepared to do so. It starts with being on time, and continues with being organized throughout your day. Are you able to manage your working time efficiently? Manage your time effectively by planning ahead, setting goals, determining priorities and, minimizing interruptions.

Make sure your space, supplies and equipment are all prepared in advance so you are not distracted by setting up. Convey a professional appearance with appropriate clothing and cleanliness. It demonstrates a respect and commitment to your profession and lets the guest know that you take your work seriously.

Before your guest’s arrival, be prepared by knowing as much about them as you can so you can greet them properly and not need to ask them about past treatments or services: you will be better able to focus instead on their present needs. This includes knowing what services they had, what product they used, and yes: what they spent with you. With repeat guests, make notes about the guest and the conversations you had. Read over those notes before the guest arrives. By refreshing your memory about a guest’s planned travel or event, you’ll be able to ask them about their trip or how that anniversary party went.

Being properly prepared can contribute greatly to a positive guest experience.

Your Spa Guest’s Arrival

It’s show time! Make sure you make eye contact, greet them warmly and avoid distractions. It’s the guest’s turn for attention — ignore your cell phone and whatever is going on in the room, and focus all you attention on your guest.

Even the posture you have when you greet your guest matters. Our body language ‘speaks’ volumes about our attitude, energy and focus. Standing up straight conveys that we are interested and attentive.

Maintaining control over your own emotions is very important in good customer service. Do your best to put aside your own personal stresses before your guest arrives. Keeping your emotions in check will help you to deal with on-the-job surprises, changes in schedule, and negative or angry spa guests.

If you’re not ready and in the right frame of mind, they will sense that you are too distracted to give them your full attention. Make sure you’re ready so that things start off on the right foot.

Get into the mindset that you will treat each guest independently from any other guests that day. Don’t let a negative comment from an earlier guest affect the way you treat your next guest. Each interaction with the same guest must also be treated separately. They may be in a different mood, or have different needs. Responding appropriately to the way they act and what they say on that particular day will demonstrate that you are giving them your full attention.

Listening to Your Spa Guest’s Needs

Listen carefully to the guest’s requests and needs. Ask questions to verify and clarify what you’ve heard. This shows that you were truly listening.

Refrain from sarcasm and critical comments, and be patient with your guest as they may not be clearly expressing their needs, or they may be unsure.

By paying close attention, you may be able to detect hesitation or uncertainty in what they are telling you.  If you pick up on those cues, take the opportunity to question them further and hopefully they will reveal their true thoughts about the service or treatment you are going to do. Maybe they just need a little more information to make them comfortable about trying a different service, treatment, haircut or colour.   

Give them thorough responses to questions, and make sure that the answer you gave actually answered their question.

When an element of personalization is introduced to your guest, it helps them to feel special. Know the client, products, and services well enough that you can present them to the client in a personalized way – how that product or service is good for their particular needs or how a treatment can be done to best suit the guest.

Being a persuasive speaker can dramatically improve your customer interactions. The secret of persuasive speaking is putting the verbal focus on the target of persuasion (the customer), rather than on the speaker. In practice, it means calling a customer by name, using action-oriented words, the active tense in words or phrases instead of the passive tense and avoiding prefacing statements (like ‘I think’ or ‘I believe’) that express your personal thoughts or opinions. Putting your customers at the centre will make them feel more respected and appreciated.

Communicating with other staff and management

The same principals we discussed regarding how to interact with your guest applies also to your engagement with other staff and management. Use these same strategies with your co-workers in order to foster a positive work environment. You are either a positive contributor to your work space, or not.

Mental Discipline

You can use all the techniques above to help you stay in the moment, but often it is your own mental discipline that can be your greatest asset. When your mind starts to wander to other areas of work or life, your ability to come back to the present is critical. These mental wanderings can distract you from the technical competency of treating your guest. In fact, they also impact your guest in a subtle but powerful way. You quite likely know the difference of how it feels when someone is completely focused on you or not focused. Two massage therapists can perform the exact same massage, but the one who stays ‘present’ with their guest will always get greater results and long term loyalty. Being present indicates care for the guest, and that is truly what they are looking for and deserve.

Give your guests your full attention, get ‘present’, and they will give back the gift of their loyalty and dollars.

Need help getting results in your spa? Contact Spaformation at www.spaformation.com here. or reach out at [email protected]

SKY HIGH Customer Service

Spa customer service

As spa consultants we always get asked what makes one spa better than another, what services do I need to implement to be on top, how do I outshine the competition? The answer is an easy one…. Dazzle your customers with great customer service. It sounds simple doesn’t it? 

The concept of great customer service is a simple one, but unfortunately it seems to be difficult to implement because so many places have a really hard time being consistently great at it.

We believe that investing in training your staff on how to properly service your clients is a better investment than the latest technology or even re-decorating your spa. 

Elevating your customer service standards means going beyond being the order taker. It means you have to go above your customers expectations and set an impression that they will talk about for years after. 

In this article we will address 5 steps towards achieving great customer service. The key is to manage this philosophy each and every day.

5 Simple Steps to having SKY HIGH Customer Service:

1. Treat Every Customer as 10 Potential Customers:

Always remember the multiplier effect the minus 30 rule, plus10 rule. What this means is people who have a bad experience are likely to tell 30 other people about that experience, but if they have a good experience they will likely spread the news to 10 other people. In the spa world word of mouth is the biggest form of advertising, so it is important to remember the 10 multiplier. Remember for every customer that walks through your doors, you are not just serving them you are serving their friends and family that they will tell about their experience.

Therefore make every interaction count and make it exceed all their expectations. Address this multiplier affect in your next staff meeting. By bringing it to your teams attention, they will be more aware of their actions when servicing your clients.

2. Training and Education is Key:

Do not expect your staff to know your standards through osmosis. You need to continually train your staff on what exactly your customer standards are but also give them specific examples of how to deliver it. For example: be specific regarding the ways in which to greet a customer when they walk in the door. Greet the guest before the guest greets you. Have a standard welcome. Many times spas have a standard greeting on the phone but they don’t have a standard greeting when the guest walks in the door. In fact many times when the customer first arrives we notice the standard fall apart. How many times have you walked into a spa and the receptionist was too busy to greet you right away? Don’t get caught having this happen at your spa.

Education is also essential. Your staff needs to be aware of all the products and services you offer. This means that they should be able to talk with confidence about every product you sell, right down to the benefits and some key active ingredients of each.

Your staff should have experienced all the services you offer so they can talk to your guests about them fluently. Could you properly describe a fabulous meal if you had never eaten it? Your staff can make your menu sound delicious if they have had a chance to experience it.

The better educated your staff is, the better they can serve your customers. When your staff is properly versed concerning all the ins and outs of your spa, it builds customer trust and loyalty. Your customers will feel like their needs are being met and they will feel safe.

Set up training with your product reps at least every quarter to ensure all team members are up to date with the lines you carry. Also have the product Reps perform frequent and regular training on the treatments you offer and make sure there are protocols to follow so there is consistency. 

Remember training is not a one time thing and should not only be for new hires. Especially in the spa business with changing technology and trends, it is so important to keep a head of the game. This means that all team members, service providers and reception team members, and even the most seasoned veterans, need to be continually trained and educated. This will give them the tools to best service your customers.

3. Set Sky High Standards and then Evaluate your staff

Take time to go through your operation and set standards for each and every instance where you team comes in contact with the guests. When setting the standards make sure you understand what a good standard is and then decide what a SKY HIGH standard is. You can differentiate your spa from the competition by doing the little things better than everyone else.

Once you have set the standards you want to insure that customer service a part of your staff’s job performance evaluation. It is essential that your team is constantly reminded of how performing sky high customer service is an important part of their job. Having this as part of the evaluation process will keep them on track and consistent. 

Make sure you encourage customer feedback in order to give your team tangible feedback. The best way for your staff to know how they are doing is to hear it from the customers.  Make your customer feedback forms easy and attractive to fill out. Have a monthly draw for your customers to win by participating in giving feedback.  The more advice and feedback you get from your customers the better you can evaluate your team. We always recommend having evaluations set every six months. This is a manageable time for managers and it gives a good period of time to make a detailed assessment on the team member’s performance.   

4. Reward their Performance:

Recognize outstanding customer service performance amongst your team. This can be through verbal praise in private or at a team meeting.  You can also give rewards such as gifts, products or dinners etc.

You can also join the team member’s exceptional performance to their pay. Once an evaluation is done you can give them a customer service bonus that needs to be re-earned every evaluation period. This will keep your team motivated and act as a constant reminder regarding the importance of providing excellent service. 

Score Evaluation System:

You can have a score system in place where they need to achieve a certain score in order to earn a pay bonus. You can set these standards and decide what this pay bonus is going to be. We recommend it being anywhere from $0.50- $1.00 or 2-3% service commission, in order to manage your labour cost and it must also be significant enough to make a difference in their pay. 

5.  Service them out of the treatment room:

Sometimes we forget that the customers spa experience is not just what happens in the treatment room but also the before and after. This means we need to service the customers from the first phone call before they book their service, to making a follow up call after the service is long over and they have gone home. 

In order to leave lasting impressions it is important to show the customer you really care and appreciate their business. Give them the time they deserve when making a booking and then show them you care by contacting them to see how they enjoyed their services, or even to inquire about any post treatment questions they may have.

Have a customer service checklist provided for your staff that informs them in detail how every interaction with the customer should be outside the treatment room:

Example:

  • Standard Welcome greeting when the guest arrives. Greet the guest before the guest greets you.
  • Taking them on a tour of the spa before the service
    • Make it part of your policy to show the guests around on a mini tour so they are aware of the facilities and where they are required to be after they get dressed. At this time it is also a good idea to ask them if they have any questions.
  • Greeting them for a treatment in the waiting room
    • Have a standard greeting with a hand shake and make sure they look the guests in the eyes. 
  • Escort them back to the waiting room
    • Always offer and serve them water or tea
    • Indicate that it was your pleasure to have them and you hope to see them again
  • Checking out and paying their bill
    • Ask them how everything was and look them in the eyes
    • Ask if they have any questions about products
    • Thank them for their business and say you look forward to serving them again
  • Follow up calls the next day
    • This is a great way to show your customers you care after the visit is over. Ask them how everything was and if they have any questions.  State again how it was pleasure to have them.

Dazzle your customers with SKY HIGH service and you will not need to worry about the competition.  Customer service does not cost money, but it does take commitment and dedication from the whole team in order to ensure its success. Every team member needs to be on board because you are only as strong as your weakest link. Make sure you make this a priority in your interview process. Hire people based on their customer service skills, it is easier to train them on the technical part. 

When you give your full effort towards creating and sustaining a culture of SKY HIGH customer service you will see the smiles on your customer’s face and SKY HIGH bottom line. To book a consult please email [email protected] or a Discovery Session here.