Welcome to the new year! The older I get, the more New Year’s Day reminds me of the movie Groundhog Day; I can’t believe it’s here again, already! The fact is, the more quickly the years tick by, the more urgency you may have as a business owner to avoid procrastinating in regards to […]
The recession may have battered the spa industry and shut down many facilities, but we’re finally seeing a resurgence in startups–many of whom aren’t even using the “S” word (that would be “spa”) to describe themselves. “Wellness” is a watchword for many of these next-generation businesses, but other trends inspiring spa entrepreneurs include co-working and organic lifestyles. […]
This year’s Global Wellness Institute Summit in Mexico City will highlight Workplace Wellness as a key issue. Spas are all about wellness, right? We’re exemplars, right? The reality is, a spa is a mentally and physically demanding environment that is built on the profit-challenged business model of selling services. Right there, you know that employee well-being may […]
We’ve been talking about Core Values, the nutrients that “feed” your company’s customer experience. Now it’s time to move up and actually construct a system that can consistently deliver great experiences. We’ve all heard about the road to hell and what it’s paved with. If your organization is all about the core values but you have no systems […]
Have plans for all the money you received for selling gift cards over the holiday sales season? Not so fast, it’s not your money yet. . . The gift card phenomenon began in the US about 30 years ago, and has continued its upward trajectory ever since, topping $124b (that’s BILLION!) in volume in 2014. Salons and spas are popular gift card destinations, and […]
We believe that there’s a formula for great Customer Experience, or CX. There are three key ingredients. Like any deceptively simple recipe, it’s highly dependent on the “cook.” Like whipped cream, it may have just a couple of ingredients, but it’s still possible to get it completely wrong. The three ingredients we’ll be cooking with […]
Customer experience, or “CX” in industry parlance, is the real-world outgrowth of UX, User Experience. While this seems ironic, if not absolutely bass-ackward, the big players in the consumer space figured that if online user experiences were so important, maybe offline user experiences might matter, too. For decades big business has been paying lip service […]
It’s time to talk about the final component of World Class CX: Art. The dessert. The frills. The fun stuff. You can’t have a successful business without these first two ingredients: 1. Core Values: the “soul” of the business, what you stand for, your commitment to your customers 2. Structure: the “body” of the business: […]
Most companies today recognize the need to articulate their core values. Core values provide the compass that guides the business. While business strategies should constantly be evolving, core values, like true North, don’t change. In stormy times of stress and change (hello!) Core Values provide a secure anchor. They can remind us of who we are when […]
Spa directors speak the word “Groupon” with the same distaste that they once reserved for “Yelp.” I don’t think the barrage of social media discount ideas will stop anytime soon. And, as ever, there are great ideas to be gleaned from companies that we love to hate. First of all, the Groupon “concept” is much […]