Growing you spa business during difficult economic times requires adding value to your customers' experiences. Spas that invest time and energy into creating a unique experience for their customers' are more profitable and stable through recessions. Create excitement in your lobby/retail area. Make it more inviting, relaxing, educational, interesting, or whatever your philosophy might be. The restaurant chain Crackel Barrel comes to mind when I think of a successful business creating an experience for their customers. Crackel Barrel's CEO Michael Woodhouse reports the average ticket for the 600 restaurants is $8.60, 3 percent up from the year before. Woodhouse also estimates one in three customers makes a retail purchase with the average price of the retail ticket at $4.00. While restaurants are complete different businesses than to spas and salons, the principle still applies. Most people believe Crackel Barrel to be a restaurant, when in reality they are a gift shop that serves food.
Like Crackel Barrel has done, analyze how you can get 20-30% of the people who come in for food (or in your case a spa treatment), make a purchase as a gift or for themselves in retail products. Is your spa an escape from reality to your customers? Evaluate how your retail lobby/retail area makes your customers feel. What is the first thing your customers see? What is the temperature relative to outside? What does it smell like in your entrance? Is there too much or too little light in the store? Music playing? All of these things make gigantic influences whether people will make a retail purchase in your spa or not. Take a huge inventory of everything about your lobby/retail area and create an online survey through http://www.surveymonkey.com/, blast that survey to every email address you have. Take the data and act! For example, if you figure out you must increase your gift purchases by 15% next quarter, have a free elegant gift wrapping service with purchases of $20 or more. Do away with all of the not so good impressions of your spa, and replace them with better experiences for your customers. Certain habits or things we force ourselves to stop doing are sometimes the most cost effective way of increasing sales for your spa retail store. Good Luck & please share your success stories with us!
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economy. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Stress in the Spa
A recent survey from the American Massage Therapy Association found that 59 percent of Americans are more stressed this year than last year. Stress is also the reason most Americans got their last massage. The number of Americans who received massage for stress has jumped from 22 percent to 36 percent this year. The International Spa Association shows similar findings as massage being the most requested spa treatment. Stress relief is still the No. 1 reasons people go to spas.
So why do people visit your spa? To relax? Freshen up? Calm down? What are you trying to convey your spa brand to be? If you are striving to make your spa a serene place for stressed people to come, chances are you are getting through the bad economy better than most. If you are not creating a stress free atmosphere, you need to find out what value you add and do it better than any other spa.
If stress is the No. 1 reason people attend spas, why aren't all of the ever increasing stressed population knocking down your door? Spa's need to get rid of everything that does not convey a stress-free environment (if stress-free is part of your philosophy). What creates negative impressions and messages in your spa that can give your customers anxiety and stress? Is it too bright or loud? Is your staff too pushy on retail sales? Spas need to address all of the negative impressions that may come up with every customer. If you find that people have a hard time finding your location-that is a negative impression which creates more stress. I recently came across an International Spa Association study surveying why people don't go to spas. 19 percent of people feel out of place, 19 percent don't know exactly what to expect, & 12 percent felt that a hard sales approach made them feel uncomfortable at the spa.
So why do people visit your spa? To relax? Freshen up? Calm down? What are you trying to convey your spa brand to be? If you are striving to make your spa a serene place for stressed people to come, chances are you are getting through the bad economy better than most. If you are not creating a stress free atmosphere, you need to find out what value you add and do it better than any other spa.
If stress is the No. 1 reason people attend spas, why aren't all of the ever increasing stressed population knocking down your door? Spa's need to get rid of everything that does not convey a stress-free environment (if stress-free is part of your philosophy). What creates negative impressions and messages in your spa that can give your customers anxiety and stress? Is it too bright or loud? Is your staff too pushy on retail sales? Spas need to address all of the negative impressions that may come up with every customer. If you find that people have a hard time finding your location-that is a negative impression which creates more stress. I recently came across an International Spa Association study surveying why people don't go to spas. 19 percent of people feel out of place, 19 percent don't know exactly what to expect, & 12 percent felt that a hard sales approach made them feel uncomfortable at the spa.
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