Spa operators have a conflicted relationship with online review sites. On the one hand, there’s few marketing modalities that are so powerful yet so inexpensive (read: mostly free.) On the other hand, there are few marketing modalities that are so utterly out of your control.
Danny Meyer of Union Square Hospitality Group likened publicity to “riding the tiger.” If you can stay on top, that tiger can take you places. Online review sites are like riding a pit bull. Because the pit bull is so much smaller than a tiger, it’s really, really hard to stay on top. Your feet are always dangling perilously close to that dog’s mouth. And it’s going at a flat-out run all the time. You can fall off. The only thing worse than riding the pit bull is realizing that the pit bull has gotten away and is tearing your business to pieces around the corner.
Here’s the way market leader Yelp describes its site: “Yelp is the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what's great - and not so great - in your local area. It's about real people giving their honest and personal opinions on everything from restaurants and spas to coffee shops and bars.” Sounds harmless and lighthearted enough.
But we all know that review sites are subject to abuse. Competitors can create a pseudonym and post fake reviews trashing your business. This sort of thing makes spa owners crazy. It is exactly this nonsense that makes them throw up their hands and ignore online review sites altogether. I was working with a consulting client the other day who is trying to buy a business on the East Coast.
“What do their online reviews look like?” I asked. It’s a simple way to do some research on a possible acquisition, but just one of many things we look at. We keep the grains of salt close at hand.
“Well, they’re mixed,” replied the would-be buyer, with some trepidations.
“Is the owner actively managing them?” I inquired. The buyer said she’d find out.
In our next conversation, she reported, “She says that she just ignores those.”
I don’t blame her. Unfortunately, sticking your head in the cyber sand is a recipe for trouble.
I have to congratulate Yelp for coming up with programs for businesses that include very useful tools, such as an e mail alert whenever a new review is posted. Many business owners still don’t realize that you can contact Yelpers just by becoming one yourself. (That’s free.)
Because of features like this, Yelp has convinced me to give them money, even as their users alternately torment and delight me. Which means, as I have maintained in my past blogs, that Yelp is simply a mirror of the traditional customer relationship. Treat people well and they will do the right thing. Guarantee their satisfaction with your products and services. Make it right when you learn that you have done something poorly.
I have never asked a Yelper to change a review, no matter how nasty. I have simply contacted them and said, “I wish I’d known about this, and now that I do, I would like to make it right for you. Come back in and have the experience you deserved to have in the first place.” And most of them have responded the way customers traditionally do. They say, “I appreciate the fact that you contacted me. Okay, I’ll give you another chance.” And in every instance where we connected with the Yelper and got them to return, we found that the review was amended or updated. They often mention that they appreciate management’s commitment to customer service.
But wait. Just when I think I have my pit bull walking on a leash wearing a cute little “Preston Wynne Spa” sweater emblazoned with four and a half Yelp stars, I make a disturbing new discovery.
The term “viral marketing” has never been more apt than when describing online review sites. And like a virus, the Yelp community and “Yelpers” are constantly evolving. Of late, I’m worried that there is a new strain of Yelper emerging. I call her the “Super Reviewer.” She is a product, I fear, of too much fawning over the value of “user generated content.”
The Super Reviewer styles herself as a “real” reviewer. Even if she has visited your spa just once, she feels that her flaming is, to quote another famous source of user-generated content, “fair and balanced.” Unlike a normal customer, if she is contacted by the charbroiled business owner, she spurns offers of recompense, equating them to “bribes.” (There’s a worrisome thread in a Yelp community chat in which a couple of these folks discuss their disdain when restaurant owners attempt to curry their favor after a bad review with a redo or a comped meal. How dare we try to change their mind?)
Unlike a real reviewer, of course, the Yelper is spending their own money. How many visits would you make to my spa if you were disappointed or frustrated by the first? Probably just one. That’s another key difference between the amateur and the pro, in the world of reviews. A restaurant reviewer usually visits an establishment several times. (Ruth Reichl’s memoir of her days as the New York Times restaurant critic, Garlic and Sapphires, is a great account of the standards that apply in the “bigs.”)
My recent encounter with a Super Reviewer was a bit surreal. Yelpers often inject a bit of Facebooky “attitude” into their writing, and this review of our cellulite treatment crossed the line from saucy to snarky pretty quickly.
But I take all criticism seriously, regardless of the tone with which it is delivered. Because the messaging interface on Yelp is anonymous, I contacted “Princess” (no joke) with sincere apologies and an offer of a “do over.” This is SOP at our spa, where we guarantee guests’ satisfaction with our treatments. Her reply was polite but firm. The upshot: because of her impeccable standards of objectivity, she would have to stand by her review of our spa. She did offer, inexplicably, to give me an additional “star” for my customer service efforts.
Now this was a bizarre twist. We had taken her money, had not delivered the goods, and I was proffering recompense. I offered to provide her with a gift certificate to use at her convenience. All I needed, I wrote, was a real-world e mail address, and I could send her one of our convenient print-your-own gift certificates.
“Princess” declined once again, but she did suggest that I provide additional training for my employees. Stubbornly, I launched one more message, asking her cheerfully if she could recall the date of her visit so I could determine if her disappointing outcome occurred before or after a recent hands-on skills training for our body therapists. There was no reply. “Princess” had exhausted her patience with this pesky business owner. Her review sits on the website, unaltered, in all its “objective” glory.
During my 15 years in the facial treatment room, I “yelped” to my clients about businesses and restaurants that I enjoyed, hand-writing a page of recommendations when I heard they were visiting a favorite city. Yelp is tailor-made for my natural tendencies as a closet concierge. Yet as I Yelp, I find myself obeying my mom’s admonition, “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” I may make a minor criticism as part of an overall good review, but I can’t shake the visceral knowledge that business I am reviewing is someone’s livelihood. I’m motivated to write about businesses that I really enjoy, and it’s easy to just ignore businesses I don’t like. This does not mean I am a shrinking violet when it comes to customer service. I am more than willing to stamp my little foot in person, but I have not developed a taste for online vigilantism. There are usually ample channels for direct complaints that should precede a public flogging. Call me old fashioned, but “flaming” someone from an anonymous perch just seems cowardly.
One thing about creating businesses: the way we expect people to use them and the way they actually do are often very different. If the Super Reviewer is an incipient trend, a mutation in the Yelp community, it could hijack the “fun” part of their site and sour businesses on the value of the Yelp merchant services model. After all, that’s where the money is—if I’m not mistaken. If I am denied the opportunity to apply real-world customer satisfaction “laws” in the virtual world, my willingness to sign checks for enhanced merchant services will wane.
Yelp provides lots of helpful prompts for businesses who are responding to Yelp reviews. “A three star review means the customer was satisfied. Keep it short and sweet,” advised a pop-up as I began a message to “Princess.” Apparently there are plenty of business owners who freak out the first time they go to the site and read the vitriol that may have accumulated there. In fact, Yelp is so determined to save you from yourself, Ms. Freaked Out Merchant, that it limits you to five messages a day and won’t let you message a reviewer if they have not replied to your last one. It seems that Yelp spends a lot of time thinking about how to protect its users from the folks who operate the businesses they have pilloried.
Thanks to the internet, and its endless supply of free user-generated content, consumer vigilantism has entered a golden age. The sheer reach of review sites flatter users into confusing their opinions with objectivity. One Yelper I noticed this evening has 50 photographs posted on her page, mostly of her. Rampant self-absorption is the heart and soul of every social networking site, but I wonder if Yelp can keep the Beast from co-opting its essential mission.
Consumer narcissism seems to underly an increasingly accepted societal norm: that those of us who operate businesses that serve the public, by this very act, relinquish our rights to be treated with civility. It’s as if someone revised the Golden Rule to exempt anyone accepting money for goods or services.
Maybe Yelp can start an online support group for us.
Showing posts with label customer service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label customer service. Show all posts
Monday, March 24, 2008
Monday, February 25, 2008
The Hard Answers on the Soft Sell
The news from the massage department isn’t good. Sales are down for the third consecutive quarter. Concerned, Mary Sayles, the spa director, calls in her new massage department lead, Josh Neiderman.
“I don’t think we should use our guests’ relaxation time to sell,” Josh says, in response to Mary’s grim report. They’re seated in her small office, next to a defective mag lamp awaiting return. “I believe that a massage should be performed in silence.”
“Do you think that our clients believe that too?” Mary asks.
“Yes,” says Josh. “I do.”
“But,” the spa director continues, “Aren’t there times during the treatment that you have to communicate with the guest? You know, to let them know it’s time to turn over, or ask them if the pressure is comfortable for them?”
“Of course,” replies Josh. “But that’s important to giving a good treatment. And it’s very brief.”
“Might you also ask if a tight area you’re noticing in their body is tender or sensitive?”
“I get what you’re saying,” Josh concedes. “Of course it’s not a 100% silent treatment. But I don’t want to subject our guests to a sales pitch. I don’t think the therapists should talk about products in the treatment room. That’s sacred ground to us.”
“Don’t we use products in the treatment?” Mary pursues, attempting to sound neutral. Her eyes are not focused on Josh, but fixed on the display of beautifully displayed body care products that sit virtually untouched in the spa’s retail area behind him.
“Yes, we use a massage oil blend with aromatherapy, and we use that analgesic gel on the tight areas,” Josh says patiently. “That’s protocol.”
“But you don’t think the client should know what you’re applying to their skin? I know I’m always curious about what’s being used on me,” Mary replies, warming to the subject. “And I bet some of them are very curious about our heat packs. Do they ask about those?”
“All the time,” concedes Josh. “But my job is to help them relax and get out of their head. If we spend the whole treatment talking they’re not going to unwind.”
Mary sighs softly. This is familiar ground for her, after ten years of operating spas. She’s freshly back from a trip to the local mall to inspect the latest lines at Bath and Body Works, where she witnessed a bustling trade in “professional” spa brands that had recently gone to the Mass Merchandised Dark Side.
“Why,” she asks herself, “can everyone but a real spa therapist sell spa products? No wonder these companies are abandoning us. We can’t seem to sell our way out of a wet paper bag.”
Does this scenario sound familiar?
Underlying Josh’s concerns about the client are some larger fears. The assumptions he makes about the client, which he’d likely represent as “intuiting” their needs, are based on his own personal limitations and anxieties. First and foremost, the social style of most spa therapists is not naturally given to perform the act we commonly call “selling.” This is because nurturers, healers and caregivers gravitate toward their work to enjoy a very different interpersonal dynamic. In the case of many massage therapists, their social style led them to a career that would enable them to avoid the kind of stresses, discomforts and conflicts that are common in the world of business and commerce. (Or what many second-career massage therapists call the “rat race.”)
Ask most people what “selling” is, and the terms you’ll hear are negative ones. Try this word association game: ask a few people to associate a word to “Salesman.”
The most common response you’ll get?
“Pushy.”
The predominant social style among massage therapists has been tagged by one popular categorizing system with the moniker “Amiable.” Amiables are relationship-driven and thrive as part of a team. Some of your therapists have a pinch of “Analytical” in the mix. These are the ones who are studying to become physical therapists, and are interested in the mechanics of the body. The friendly and voluble ones have more “Expressive” styles, perhaps garnering the occasional complaint from clients about chit chat in the treatment room, but logging the best retail ratios. You will rarely find the Type A “Driver” in a massage room. (At least, not for long. They’re the ones planning to open their own facility.)
Why does social style matter?
When trying to encourage sales-averse employees to talk about home care with their clients, not to mention long-term programs and other opportunities, it’s important to understand what motivates them, deep down. Mary Sayles is a veteran spa director, which means she’s more results-driven than the people she supervises. While relationships are important to her—the spa industry would have driven her completely around the bend by now, if not—her job depends on delivering measurable results. As well, Mary is probably more willing to take risks. There’s a good chance she views herself as a peer of the spa’s clients, even accomplished, assertive and affluent ones.
Our friend Josh is another story. As a care giver, he may be intimidated by the stressed-out Type A’s that frequent the spa. Like most of us, he projects his own beliefs, fears and limitations on the guests he works with, and overvalues his intuition, or ability to “read” people, in order to justify his reticence. He believes that Mary doesn’t understand what it’s like in the treatment room.
How can Mary meet Josh halfway and accomplish her goal of ensuring that there is a dialogue about home care in the massage experience?
1. Demonstrate viscerally “why” home care supports the therapeutic experience. The Amiable employee must understand how the relationship will be enhanced by this behavior. Mary knows well that handing her Amiable massage therapists a piece of paper with their sales goal on it and declaring “make it so!” is the quickest way to incite a stampede for the exits. Not much more effective is the exhortation “You need to educate your clients!” An effective learning modality is to give the employee a treatment and demonstrate the desirable behavior. The employee will have an opportunity to experience how good it feels when it’s done properly. Give a role play demonstration of what to say and when to say it, during a massage session. Demonstrate what it means to “educate”, then have the massage therapist switch roles and do it themselves.
2. Make the scary familiar with role playing. When law enforcement officers are being trained, they go through intense role-playing exercises called “scenarios” that enable them to experience the scariest, most heart-pounding situations they’ll encounter on the job and rehearse them. Mountain climbers practice on climbing walls. Include role-play scenarios in your training process.
3. Narrate. Mary has already included a variety of home care products in the massage treatment, the first step. It is the therapists’ responsibility to introduce the formulas being used and explain their purpose and benefits. This is a natural entrée for opening up a discussion of home care rituals at the end of the session. Josh quietly says, while applying the product, “This Sage Analgesic Balm will soothe these sore muscles.” Then, after a moment, he’ll check in and ask softly, “How does that feel?” It would be a curmudgeonly client indeed who’d object to this type of benefits-driven and personalized interaction.
4. Automate the process. Good design supports good salesflow. Mary can add tantalizing visual merchandising in the service areas to stimulate the guest’s shopping urges. A checkout “lounge” would ensure that her guests pause before departing, enabling the spa to present the home care and rescheduling opportunity while giving them a gentle way to transition from spa mode back to reality. Sampling, custom blending and play areas encourage even more engaged interaction with the spa’s products. The longer guests stay in the spa, the more money they’ll spend—and the more value they’ll feel they got from their experience.
5. Get everyone involved. Most therapists are receptive to the idea of a split commission with the front desk staff if they know they’ll be getting a piece of a larger pie. Getting the support team on board increases their income and job satisfaction, too. Most spa software enables you to create customized split commissions.
6. Find the words. Excessive reliance on scripting has gotten some luxury properties a bad rap lately, but if Mary doesn’t offer a “lexicon” of great words and phrases for her team to use, they may not be able to extend the invitation persuasively. After all, they weren’t hired on as copywriters. People that are wonderful with their hands are often a bit less wonderful with their mouths. Mary can provide a valuable service when she helps them overcome awkwardness with helpful phrases. If she’s smart, she’ll post them in her prep areas so they’re easy to master.
7. Encourage the team to share success stories. Mary probably has therapists on her team that have some wonderful personal “scripting” that would work for Josh, with perhaps a tweak or two to make it his own. Round table conversations at team meetings are one of the most valuable forms of training. Mary “can’t be a prophet in her own land”—in fact, it’s more like being the invisible adult in the Charlie Brown cartoon. All employees hear from her when she tries to explain “how easy” it is to recommend home care is “Wah wah wah wah wah.” When another therapist offers a tip or technique it’s much more likely to be accepted and adopted.
8. Inspect what you Expect. Mystery Shopping is an indispensable tool for monitoring performance. Mary must make sure she devotes plenty of energy catching people doing things right, too.
9. Value sales behavior appropriately. Since home care is significantly more important to an esthetician’s success than a massage therapist’s, it’s important for Mary to pick her battles. We’ve all been taught since childhood that we need to devote most of our time to fixing our weaknesses, and managers invariably spend the bulk of their time dealing with the shortcomings and issues of their poorest performers. This is one of the biggest productivity traps in any business. Our highest return comes from increasing our strengths. As Jim Collins points out, it’s not just important to have the right people on your bus, but they need to be in the right seats. If Josh is fantastic at retaining customers for the spa, Mary might just find someone else on the team to ensure that they get the opportunity to learn about and buy the spa’s fabulous home care offerings.
It’s six weeks and two coaching sessions after Mary and Josh’s frustrating exchange; the spa director stops to congratulate him on his increased retail ratio as well as his higher client retention ratio. Josh feels less harried by Mary, who has stopped issuing vague exhortations to “sell more,” in favor of supportive coaching and improved salesflow processes.
Josh seems to be blossoming. Mary has observed that the front desk employees are more attentive to the therapists and the clients alike, and truly acting like teammates. By pooling the concierge team’s sales commissions, she’s been able to keep their eye on the customer service ball, and not let their new incentive devolve into an overt competition with one another for sales.
“Yeah, Jennifer likes to joke that we’re “in business together,” says Josh, referencing the engaging spa concierge who has been racking up “assists” for him at checkout. “Splitting my commissions has actually doubled them.”
“That’s great,” she responds. “You deserve it.”
“I don’t think we should use our guests’ relaxation time to sell,” Josh says, in response to Mary’s grim report. They’re seated in her small office, next to a defective mag lamp awaiting return. “I believe that a massage should be performed in silence.”
“Do you think that our clients believe that too?” Mary asks.
“Yes,” says Josh. “I do.”
“But,” the spa director continues, “Aren’t there times during the treatment that you have to communicate with the guest? You know, to let them know it’s time to turn over, or ask them if the pressure is comfortable for them?”
“Of course,” replies Josh. “But that’s important to giving a good treatment. And it’s very brief.”
“Might you also ask if a tight area you’re noticing in their body is tender or sensitive?”
“I get what you’re saying,” Josh concedes. “Of course it’s not a 100% silent treatment. But I don’t want to subject our guests to a sales pitch. I don’t think the therapists should talk about products in the treatment room. That’s sacred ground to us.”
“Don’t we use products in the treatment?” Mary pursues, attempting to sound neutral. Her eyes are not focused on Josh, but fixed on the display of beautifully displayed body care products that sit virtually untouched in the spa’s retail area behind him.
“Yes, we use a massage oil blend with aromatherapy, and we use that analgesic gel on the tight areas,” Josh says patiently. “That’s protocol.”
“But you don’t think the client should know what you’re applying to their skin? I know I’m always curious about what’s being used on me,” Mary replies, warming to the subject. “And I bet some of them are very curious about our heat packs. Do they ask about those?”
“All the time,” concedes Josh. “But my job is to help them relax and get out of their head. If we spend the whole treatment talking they’re not going to unwind.”
Mary sighs softly. This is familiar ground for her, after ten years of operating spas. She’s freshly back from a trip to the local mall to inspect the latest lines at Bath and Body Works, where she witnessed a bustling trade in “professional” spa brands that had recently gone to the Mass Merchandised Dark Side.
“Why,” she asks herself, “can everyone but a real spa therapist sell spa products? No wonder these companies are abandoning us. We can’t seem to sell our way out of a wet paper bag.”
Does this scenario sound familiar?
Underlying Josh’s concerns about the client are some larger fears. The assumptions he makes about the client, which he’d likely represent as “intuiting” their needs, are based on his own personal limitations and anxieties. First and foremost, the social style of most spa therapists is not naturally given to perform the act we commonly call “selling.” This is because nurturers, healers and caregivers gravitate toward their work to enjoy a very different interpersonal dynamic. In the case of many massage therapists, their social style led them to a career that would enable them to avoid the kind of stresses, discomforts and conflicts that are common in the world of business and commerce. (Or what many second-career massage therapists call the “rat race.”)
Ask most people what “selling” is, and the terms you’ll hear are negative ones. Try this word association game: ask a few people to associate a word to “Salesman.”
The most common response you’ll get?
“Pushy.”
The predominant social style among massage therapists has been tagged by one popular categorizing system with the moniker “Amiable.” Amiables are relationship-driven and thrive as part of a team. Some of your therapists have a pinch of “Analytical” in the mix. These are the ones who are studying to become physical therapists, and are interested in the mechanics of the body. The friendly and voluble ones have more “Expressive” styles, perhaps garnering the occasional complaint from clients about chit chat in the treatment room, but logging the best retail ratios. You will rarely find the Type A “Driver” in a massage room. (At least, not for long. They’re the ones planning to open their own facility.)
Why does social style matter?
When trying to encourage sales-averse employees to talk about home care with their clients, not to mention long-term programs and other opportunities, it’s important to understand what motivates them, deep down. Mary Sayles is a veteran spa director, which means she’s more results-driven than the people she supervises. While relationships are important to her—the spa industry would have driven her completely around the bend by now, if not—her job depends on delivering measurable results. As well, Mary is probably more willing to take risks. There’s a good chance she views herself as a peer of the spa’s clients, even accomplished, assertive and affluent ones.
Our friend Josh is another story. As a care giver, he may be intimidated by the stressed-out Type A’s that frequent the spa. Like most of us, he projects his own beliefs, fears and limitations on the guests he works with, and overvalues his intuition, or ability to “read” people, in order to justify his reticence. He believes that Mary doesn’t understand what it’s like in the treatment room.
How can Mary meet Josh halfway and accomplish her goal of ensuring that there is a dialogue about home care in the massage experience?
1. Demonstrate viscerally “why” home care supports the therapeutic experience. The Amiable employee must understand how the relationship will be enhanced by this behavior. Mary knows well that handing her Amiable massage therapists a piece of paper with their sales goal on it and declaring “make it so!” is the quickest way to incite a stampede for the exits. Not much more effective is the exhortation “You need to educate your clients!” An effective learning modality is to give the employee a treatment and demonstrate the desirable behavior. The employee will have an opportunity to experience how good it feels when it’s done properly. Give a role play demonstration of what to say and when to say it, during a massage session. Demonstrate what it means to “educate”, then have the massage therapist switch roles and do it themselves.
2. Make the scary familiar with role playing. When law enforcement officers are being trained, they go through intense role-playing exercises called “scenarios” that enable them to experience the scariest, most heart-pounding situations they’ll encounter on the job and rehearse them. Mountain climbers practice on climbing walls. Include role-play scenarios in your training process.
3. Narrate. Mary has already included a variety of home care products in the massage treatment, the first step. It is the therapists’ responsibility to introduce the formulas being used and explain their purpose and benefits. This is a natural entrée for opening up a discussion of home care rituals at the end of the session. Josh quietly says, while applying the product, “This Sage Analgesic Balm will soothe these sore muscles.” Then, after a moment, he’ll check in and ask softly, “How does that feel?” It would be a curmudgeonly client indeed who’d object to this type of benefits-driven and personalized interaction.
4. Automate the process. Good design supports good salesflow. Mary can add tantalizing visual merchandising in the service areas to stimulate the guest’s shopping urges. A checkout “lounge” would ensure that her guests pause before departing, enabling the spa to present the home care and rescheduling opportunity while giving them a gentle way to transition from spa mode back to reality. Sampling, custom blending and play areas encourage even more engaged interaction with the spa’s products. The longer guests stay in the spa, the more money they’ll spend—and the more value they’ll feel they got from their experience.
5. Get everyone involved. Most therapists are receptive to the idea of a split commission with the front desk staff if they know they’ll be getting a piece of a larger pie. Getting the support team on board increases their income and job satisfaction, too. Most spa software enables you to create customized split commissions.
6. Find the words. Excessive reliance on scripting has gotten some luxury properties a bad rap lately, but if Mary doesn’t offer a “lexicon” of great words and phrases for her team to use, they may not be able to extend the invitation persuasively. After all, they weren’t hired on as copywriters. People that are wonderful with their hands are often a bit less wonderful with their mouths. Mary can provide a valuable service when she helps them overcome awkwardness with helpful phrases. If she’s smart, she’ll post them in her prep areas so they’re easy to master.
7. Encourage the team to share success stories. Mary probably has therapists on her team that have some wonderful personal “scripting” that would work for Josh, with perhaps a tweak or two to make it his own. Round table conversations at team meetings are one of the most valuable forms of training. Mary “can’t be a prophet in her own land”—in fact, it’s more like being the invisible adult in the Charlie Brown cartoon. All employees hear from her when she tries to explain “how easy” it is to recommend home care is “Wah wah wah wah wah.” When another therapist offers a tip or technique it’s much more likely to be accepted and adopted.
8. Inspect what you Expect. Mystery Shopping is an indispensable tool for monitoring performance. Mary must make sure she devotes plenty of energy catching people doing things right, too.
9. Value sales behavior appropriately. Since home care is significantly more important to an esthetician’s success than a massage therapist’s, it’s important for Mary to pick her battles. We’ve all been taught since childhood that we need to devote most of our time to fixing our weaknesses, and managers invariably spend the bulk of their time dealing with the shortcomings and issues of their poorest performers. This is one of the biggest productivity traps in any business. Our highest return comes from increasing our strengths. As Jim Collins points out, it’s not just important to have the right people on your bus, but they need to be in the right seats. If Josh is fantastic at retaining customers for the spa, Mary might just find someone else on the team to ensure that they get the opportunity to learn about and buy the spa’s fabulous home care offerings.
It’s six weeks and two coaching sessions after Mary and Josh’s frustrating exchange; the spa director stops to congratulate him on his increased retail ratio as well as his higher client retention ratio. Josh feels less harried by Mary, who has stopped issuing vague exhortations to “sell more,” in favor of supportive coaching and improved salesflow processes.
Josh seems to be blossoming. Mary has observed that the front desk employees are more attentive to the therapists and the clients alike, and truly acting like teammates. By pooling the concierge team’s sales commissions, she’s been able to keep their eye on the customer service ball, and not let their new incentive devolve into an overt competition with one another for sales.
“Yeah, Jennifer likes to joke that we’re “in business together,” says Josh, referencing the engaging spa concierge who has been racking up “assists” for him at checkout. “Splitting my commissions has actually doubled them.”
“That’s great,” she responds. “You deserve it.”
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Food for Feedback
FOOD FOR FEEDBACK
I don’t talk to many spa owners who feel their customer service is sub-substandard. Many already use customer-feedback tools, including customer comment cards and even in-house or professionally conducted surveys. The more vigilant spas are monitoring their buzz on online review sites like Yelp! And Citysearch. According to the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, customer happiness is at its lowest point in two years.
Getting into our customer’s heads has turned into an obsession. What are they thinking? What are they saying?
Turns out, there’s one simple question that will not just tell you what they’re thinking, but predict its impact on your bottom line. A system called the Net Promoter Score measures the likelihood of a customer recommending you to others—which proves to be a very accurate indicator of business success.
Fred Reichheld, a business consultant and author, recently released his book The Ultimate Question, which explains the Net Promoter Scoring system. The system, which the author has used for three years, was also described in an article in the Harvard Business Review last year.
The question is very simple: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us?”
A score of 9-10 indicates a delighted, loyal customer who is willing to promote your company. 7-8 suggests satisfied customers who are “passive”, or non-promoters, and 6 or below is an “active detractor,” someone who is promoting you to others—in the wrong way.
In other words, the only customers who will build your business are the ones who give you 9’s and 10’s. To get your Net Promoter Score, you subtract the percentage of detractors from promoters. Reichheld says that most companies he studied actually scored between 10 and 20, with the “A Players”, appropriately, racking up scores over 80%.
The author tested many similar questions before hitting on this one. For some reason, the Ultimate Question crystallizes feelings about customer satisfaction almost perfectly, creating a highly accurate indicator of a company’s ability to win new customers and retain existing ones.
Best of all, it’s simple. You can implement this system tomorrow at your spa. Place cards with this question at your front desk and have your concierges graciously invite each departing guest to complete one. It will take about ten seconds. We added two questions, with the same 0 to 10 scale, asking guests to rate their individual therapist’s “recommendability” and their satisfaction with our facilities and amenities. We also give them a space for comments under each. This helps us pinpoint areas for improvement. We also discreetly note the guest’s name on the card after they’ve departed, so we can address specific situations that need to be rectified.
We review our score at each week’s management Progress Meeting.
If you’re new to customer feedback tools, take heart. For years, I ran my spa without explicitly asking for people’s honest feedback. It’s easy to get complacent, or assume you’re doing the best job you can. No one wants to go looking for trouble. But like any long-avoided cleaning chore, once you roll up your sleeves you’re glad you got into it. Though no one likes to be criticized, “outing” customer problems and frustrations ultimately empowers you and your team, improves your business and increases everyone’s confidence.
I’ll never forget reading our early comment cards—it wasn’t fun, but I was grateful to finally have the bag off my head after five years in business! The first time you pick up a stack of comment cards from your front desk, you may get butterflies. Then it becomes routine, even something you look forward to. Customer feedback provides the crucial course corrections you need to make sure you keep your business steaming confidently through the spa industry’s choppy waters.
Visit netpromoter.com for more information on how you can use the Ultimate Question in your company.
I don’t talk to many spa owners who feel their customer service is sub-substandard. Many already use customer-feedback tools, including customer comment cards and even in-house or professionally conducted surveys. The more vigilant spas are monitoring their buzz on online review sites like Yelp! And Citysearch. According to the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, customer happiness is at its lowest point in two years.
Getting into our customer’s heads has turned into an obsession. What are they thinking? What are they saying?
Turns out, there’s one simple question that will not just tell you what they’re thinking, but predict its impact on your bottom line. A system called the Net Promoter Score measures the likelihood of a customer recommending you to others—which proves to be a very accurate indicator of business success.
Fred Reichheld, a business consultant and author, recently released his book The Ultimate Question, which explains the Net Promoter Scoring system. The system, which the author has used for three years, was also described in an article in the Harvard Business Review last year.
The question is very simple: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us?”
A score of 9-10 indicates a delighted, loyal customer who is willing to promote your company. 7-8 suggests satisfied customers who are “passive”, or non-promoters, and 6 or below is an “active detractor,” someone who is promoting you to others—in the wrong way.
In other words, the only customers who will build your business are the ones who give you 9’s and 10’s. To get your Net Promoter Score, you subtract the percentage of detractors from promoters. Reichheld says that most companies he studied actually scored between 10 and 20, with the “A Players”, appropriately, racking up scores over 80%.
The author tested many similar questions before hitting on this one. For some reason, the Ultimate Question crystallizes feelings about customer satisfaction almost perfectly, creating a highly accurate indicator of a company’s ability to win new customers and retain existing ones.
Best of all, it’s simple. You can implement this system tomorrow at your spa. Place cards with this question at your front desk and have your concierges graciously invite each departing guest to complete one. It will take about ten seconds. We added two questions, with the same 0 to 10 scale, asking guests to rate their individual therapist’s “recommendability” and their satisfaction with our facilities and amenities. We also give them a space for comments under each. This helps us pinpoint areas for improvement. We also discreetly note the guest’s name on the card after they’ve departed, so we can address specific situations that need to be rectified.
We review our score at each week’s management Progress Meeting.
If you’re new to customer feedback tools, take heart. For years, I ran my spa without explicitly asking for people’s honest feedback. It’s easy to get complacent, or assume you’re doing the best job you can. No one wants to go looking for trouble. But like any long-avoided cleaning chore, once you roll up your sleeves you’re glad you got into it. Though no one likes to be criticized, “outing” customer problems and frustrations ultimately empowers you and your team, improves your business and increases everyone’s confidence.
I’ll never forget reading our early comment cards—it wasn’t fun, but I was grateful to finally have the bag off my head after five years in business! The first time you pick up a stack of comment cards from your front desk, you may get butterflies. Then it becomes routine, even something you look forward to. Customer feedback provides the crucial course corrections you need to make sure you keep your business steaming confidently through the spa industry’s choppy waters.
Visit netpromoter.com for more information on how you can use the Ultimate Question in your company.
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