Spa Success Factors Spotlighted - How Secret is the Customer Experience?
Are you intrested in spa success factors? What do customers expect when they visit a health spa? Ruth-Anne Boyd explains:
Walking down a cobblestone path under beautiful green trees that seemed to form an arch over my head and nestle me with comfort, I gasped with excitement as I passed through an opening and realized that I had arrived. After years of yearning to experience Ste. Anne’s Spa I was finally here.
During the summer of 2004, I had the opportunity to visit Ste. Anne’s Spa in the Haldimand Hills Spa Village, nestled on 230 hectares of gorgeous, green rolling hills about an hour east of Toronto. My stay proved to confirm some of the very things that I help my clients achieve as a customer experience expert. Read on if you want to learn some of the secrets to delivering an exceptional experience to your customers. While you may not work at a spa, these practices can be applied to any type of business.
spa success factors
As soon as I was visible, I heard a friendly “Hello. Let me help you” from one of the amazing staff at Ste. Anne’s. I think she realized that I was struggling to carry my luggage, more than I would ever need since everyone walks around in white, terry robes provided by the spa. As she helped me inside, the first customer experience secret was revealed to me.
spa success factors Secret #1:
Make your clients’ lives easier
You don’t have to be working at a spa to understand that most of us wish that someone would make our lives just a little bit easier. The small gesture by the staff member to help me with my luggage really made me feel good.
What can you do to make your clients’ lives easier? Can you simplify a process so that there are fewer hoops for clients to go through? Can you make an on-line form easier to fill out? Can you send them some value-added information that will help make just one decision just a little bit easier? The secret to making your clients’ lives easier is to slip on their shoes and look at the world from their vantage point. What do you clients experience when dealing with you? How does it make them feel?
spa success factors Secret #2:
Create an environment that helps you serve your clients
As I made myself comfortable and looked around the reception area, the second customer experience secret revealed itself. The environment at Ste. Anne’s is warm and comfortable, a perfect way to deliver the “home away from home” experience that they are famous for. Beyond that, though, it’s obvious that they’ve designed their processes and organized their staff teams to guarantee that they deliver what they promise.
Do you create an environment that really helps you deliver on your brand promises? Have your processes been developed in a way that helps you deliver exceptional customer experiences? Are your staff teams organized in a way that makes it easy for them to help your clients? These may seem like simple questions but the answers often reveal ‘the little things” that either make or break the customer experience.
spa success factors Secret #3:
Provide “WOW” moments
After I finished checking in, a staff member helped me to my room. As we reached the top of the stairs and stepped slowly into my room, I blurted out ‘Wow’ and the third customer experience secret was revealed. One of the best ways to get your clients to do your marketing for you is to make them feel so good about you that they want to tell all of their friends about you.
How often do your customers feel like saying ‘Wow’ when they’re dealing with you? There are so many ways to go beyond what your customers are expecting and make them feel as though you really want their business. Giving just a little bit more helpful information than a client is expecting is one way. Taking them to their destination instead of just sending them there is another way. Having a sincere interest in your customers is another way that doesn’t even cost you any money.
spa success factors Secret #4:
Ensure your staff can ‘walk the talk’
Over the next couple of days I enjoyed spa services, delicious meals, and scenery like no other place I’d ever been. One of the most obvious customer experience secrets revealed to me was the importance of making sure that your staff ‘walk the talk’. You can do all of the marketing and advertising in the world but if your staff members don’t deliver on your brand promises, you’re sunk!
At Ste. Anne’s Spa they have precisely defined the experience that they want their guests to have and they work hard to make sure it happens. New staff members go through extensive customer experience training to help them understand the spa experience and how they can personally contribute to every client’s wonderful stay. Have you defined your customer experience? How do you help your staff understand what you are trying to achieve and how they can help you?
There were many times during my spa stay that I felt as though I had been whisked away to a magical place. I was definitely more relaxed when I left and have told many people about my experience. And that’s music to any organization’s ears.
Have you had an experience that made you say ‘Wow’? Let me know.
Ruth-Anne Boyd is the Business Development Director at The Customer Experience Company, a firm that helps companies build and deliver exceptional customer experiences. She is an award-winning writer, consultant, speaker and trainer with over 15 years experience in communications and workflow simplification. Ruth-Anne is a guest instructor at the University of Toronto, delivers corporate training and speaks at Lunch ‘n Learns and Web seminars. She has won 11 awards for her communication material. Ruth-Anne is a member of PLAIN (the Plain Language Association International), Canadian Women in Communications (CWC) and Digital Eve.
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There you are - the key spa success factors! Now you have an insider's view on what it takes to be truly spa success factors.
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