For this article, I have chosen four key points that are always vital to your Spa Success. These are issues that should be closely and frequently monitored for optimum results.
1 Reception Matters!
Reception staff provide the first and lasting impression to your guests. An investment in time and dollars in your reception staff can have a great impact on your guest’s experience.
Reception staff tend to be the lowest paid, and have the highest turnover rate of any category of spa employee. There are several benefits of recognizing the importance of the role of reception staff through higher wages and more training. Aside from the benefit to the guest’s experience, the most important benefit is that your reception staff will stay in the job longer, and therefor save the owner money by reducing time spent hiring and training a replacement.
- The key areas of training include:
- Proper phone and in-person ‘script’ or process on how to greet and interact with guests.
- Proper presentation – speech, body language, attire, personal grooming and smile.
- Technical knowledge – training on services, service standards, staff capabilities, products and software.
Remember that your reception staff really can have a positive impact on both the guest experience and your bottom line.
2 Rebooking Counts!
When I travel around to spas, I hear a lot of ‘lip service’ given to the idea of rebooking your guests. Hearing comments from staff like, “We ask them but they say no”, are common. Does that sound familiar to you in your business?
The change starts with a change in mindset. Your number one job is what? Selling services, selling home care, and creating a peaceful experience? Yes, but, more simply, making people look good and feel good. We all know more visits to the spa will help the guests to look better and feel better, right? So a constant and focused approach to remind your guests of this is required. It will help them achieve their beauty and wellness goals while returning a fair and reasonable reward to you and the spa in terms of loyalty and profit.
Said another way, NOT recommending a return visit means you’re not really focused on your guest’s best interests of looking and feeling as good as possible. You owe it to them to suggest when they should come back and why it is important to them.
I realize not everyone can come to the spa on a regular basis, but by sharing your best professional advice with them, you can earn their trust and a future visit. This advice includes how to care for themselves at home, home care (retail products) and when to come back to continue their goals.
This is also one of the fastest ways to grow your business. How much you ask? A guest that comes back on an eight-week schedule then moves to a six-week schedule results in 2 more visits per year. If you have an average ticket of $50 and a guest list of 200 people it will mean $20,000 more revenue per staff member.
The missing piece we see most often is training. Train you staff to rebook. Who trains your team on what to say and how to say it? Do you have a script so each team member can practice and become proficient? Be specific and detailed so they can work to change the response they get from their guests and you’ll see your revenues soar.
3 Marketing Plans Get Results!
Many Spa owners have no marketing plan and just ‘wing it’ with sporadic promotions and inconsistent messaging within their digital marketing.
Other spa owners do have a marketing plan, yet do not follow it so do not gain the financial benefits of the time they have invested in creating the plan.
A third category of spa owners follow a plan, deliver consistent, targeted messages on a set schedule – and reap the rewards!
Which category do you want to be in?
Make marketing a priority and schedule time to work on it. Plan ahead to have promotions tied in to holidays and things like wedding season. Schedule them ahead of time so it’s not a too-late-last-minute-panic-rush deal.
Make sure your website and social media pages are up-to-date and that you add new messages and information on a regular basis. Put it on the calendar and get it done. Tweet, post and update. Often!
Start with a plan. Define who your top 3 specific target audiences are: Are they business women with no kids? Are they stay-at-home moms with kids? Are they men?
By defining who you want your audience to be, you can begin to focus your marketing activities and messages on who you want to attract. I know you want to attract everyone, but start by looking for those most likely to use your services, and the most profitable ones too.
4 Know Your Business – Know Your Numbers
You can’t survive in the industry just by hoping you’re making a profit! Do you know what your costs are? Are your staff being paid appropriately? Are you losing money due to product wastage and mysteriously shrinking inventory? Are you missing out on revenue because of under-used treatment space?
Understanding and learning to track your financial information is something you may be able to do yourself, or with the help of a financial or business consultant. Either way, it needs to be done.
Numbers have the ability to reveal what we cannot see by simply observing the day-to-day activity of the spa. Trends in income and spending can develop over time. Sometimes it takes the examination of months or even years of financial activity to make a problem evident.
A small increase in expenses due product wastage and shrinkage monthly can add up over time to a significant amount on a yearly basis. Remember: saving $50 a month in a normal spa business is the same as selling $6000 a year in services. Which is easier?
A small loss of income due to an under-used treatment room will seem much more significant when a calculation is done to see what revenue could have been generated over a year.
Look at these bigger areas:
- Service Revenue
- Home Care Revenue
- Labour Cost
- Retail Cost
- Professional Product Cost
- Profit
Do you have intimate financial knowledge of how you are performing on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis? Stay close to the numbers of the business and they will tell you almost everything you need to know.
Need help getting results in your spa? Contact Spaformation at www.spaformation.com or reach out at [email protected]