Published: Jul 7, 2008
By Renew

Behind Closed Doors

Quick! It’s two in the afternoon and you know where your staff is, but do you know what they’re doing? Are they greeting your guests the way you taught them? Are they following the proper treatment protocols? Are they ensuring those guests are going to be returning? With everything in the spa being conducted in private, it might be hard to get a good read, but a long-time esthetician has created a way. Lisa Martin, founder and owner of Operation Spa, focuses on helping owners pinpoint areas of trouble, or potential trouble, in the spa by “secret shopping” the spa.

With Operation Spa, all the people Martin selects as secret “spa-goers” have been fully trained on the ways of the spa—they know the ins and outs and understand exactly what to look for. The focus of the secret spa-goers varies based on what the owner tells Martin that he or she needs helps with. “For some it’s lack of following spa procedure, for others, it might be following state licensing requirements or working on customer service, sales skills or rebooking.

“It’s really important to have a consistent objective in your business,” says Martin, who also continues to see clients. “You wouldn’t go to a sporting event and not know the score ’til the end of the game. You want to be able to see every play. In the spa, you don’t necessarily know the score, so how can you run a business like that? There needs to be an ongoing system to inspect and measure your service, sales efforts and employees—that way you can catch problems early and make changes and know where to focus training efforts.”

For more information on Operation Spa, visit www.operationspa.com or call 877-677-7248.