Customer Experience Experts Wanted

Customer Service: Mastering Complaint Resolution and Service Recovery

You can find this training in our Learning Academy listed as

Part 4 of our Spa Concierge Finishing School.

Get your team trained in “extreme customer service” (just in time for the holiday rush.)

  • Are you confident in your employees’ ability to resolve guest complaints?
  • Do they know how to handle the inevitable issues that arise in a busy spa operation?
  • Are you certain that guests leave your spa satisfied?
  • When was the last time they received training in complaint resolution?

A great reputation has always been the best way to market a spa. But the internet has made superior customer service a crucial survival skill.

Web search is one of your top marketing modalities, and negative reviews can cost you thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

Our employee training webinar, “Moments of Truth: Mastering Complaint Resolution and Service Recovery” can give you a chance to economically and quickly get your team up to speed. The webinar is co-presented by Lisa Starr and Peggy Wynne Borgman. We include time for your questions at the end of the presentation.

Don’t let another month pass without inoculating your front line team against mediocre customer service, and common errors.

“The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled,” said the founder of Neiman Marcus. This webinar is designed to enable your front desk team to manage the inevitable mistakes and mishaps of a busy spa operation, while strengthening customer relationships and improving customer service. The adrenaline-charged moment when an upset customer complains is a make-or-break event for your business. Make sure your team doesn’t hide their heads in the sand–ensure that they will ride to the rescue of your reputation!

Agenda:
• Why your team must treat complaints as an opportunity
• 96% of your guests won’t complain; how to treat the 4% who do
• Using complaint resolution to improve relationships
• How online review sites have magnified the power of unhappy guests, and what to do about it
• Managing the “fight or flight” response when confronted by an upset customer
• The five steps to masterful complaint resolution
• Cultivating awareness: the ounce of prevention
• How to ask questions that get real answers from your guests
• Making it easy to complain
• How and when to apologize
• Helping the guest realize you’re “on their side”
• Avoiding the common mistakes of complaint resolution, including explaining, blame and scapegoating
• How to effectively manage a “venting” guest
• Techniques to improve your listening skills
• How to tell the difference between an upset and an abusive customer–and what to do about it
• Restoring a guest’s faith
• Making amends without giving away the store
• What most clients really want from “amends”
• The hidden danger in giving refunds too quickly
• What to do when your offer of amends is rejected by an upset guest
• How to prevent problems from recurring

Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for our offered trainings.

 

Seven Steps To Abundant Sales And Stellar Customer Service

WEBINAR: Mastering the Mindset of World Class Service

Registration for this webinar is closed. 
You can find this training on our Learning Academy page as
Part 1 of the Spa Concierge Finishing School.

World class service is no accident. The first step toward achieving this elevated level of guest care is to ground team members in the unique “mindset” that inspires top service organizations. Are you concerned that team members don’t always exhibit the right attitude, or don’t seem to be inspired, about delivering superior customer service? This webinar is a great way to kick off a service improvement project, meeting, or coaching session. This fast paced webinar, recorded live with Lisa Starr and Peggy Wynne Borgman, will inform, engage and inspire all spa personnel, regardless of their role. Recommended as a “core course,” it’s the perfect prelude to our skills training programs, such as “Mastering the Reservations Call.”

  • What is “world class” service?
  • What do customers value most and why is it so hard for most spas to deliver this?
  • How staging experiences differs from delivering services or filling orders. Getting out of the “transaction” mindset.
  • Guest expectations of their spa experience: are you prepared to deliver?
  • The three key components of world class service: Values, Systems and Art
  • The core values of great service providers
  • Structure: the sacred geometry that holds your spa together
  • The Power of Consistency: how Systems drive world class service
  • Art: How World Class service providers create delight
  • Understanding social styles and how they affect our communication with others–coworkers and clients alike
  • Techniques for achieving rapport quickly
  • Moments of Truth in World Class Service: how to survive the test

Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for our other offered trainings.

Mastering Complaint Resolution And Service Recovery

Mastering Complaint Resolution and Service Recovery

This training was offered as a webinar and is currently available online as Part 4 of the Spa Concierge Finishing School and also accessed on our Learning Academy page.
Below are the topics which are covered. 

Join us for this employee training session, co-presented by Lisa Starr and Peggy Wynne Borgman. We include time for your questions at the end of the presentation.

  • Are you confident in your employees’ ability to resolve guest complaints?
  • Do they know how to handle the inevitable issues that arise in a busy spa operation?
  • Are you certain that guests leave your spa satisfied?
  • When was the last time they received training in complaint resolution?

A great reputation has always been the best way to market a spa. But the internet has made superior customer service a crucial survival skill.

Web search is one of your top marketing modalities, and negative reviews can cost you thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

Our employee training webinar, “Moments of Truth: Mastering Complaint Resolution and Service Recovery” can give you a chance to economically and quickly get your team up to speed.

Don’t let another month pass without inoculating your front-line team against mediocre customer service, and common errors.

“The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled,” said the founder of Neiman Marcus. This webinar is designed to enable your front desk team to manage the inevitable mistakes and mishaps of a busy spa operation, while strengthening customer relationships and improving customer service. The adrenaline-charged moment when an upset customer complains is a make-or-break event for your business. Make sure your team doesn’t hide their heads in the sand–ensure that they will ride to the rescue of your reputation!
Download for unlimited use within your business.

Agenda:
• Why your team must treat complaints as an opportunity
• 96% of your guests won’t complain; how to treat the 4% who do
• Using complaint resolution to improve relationships
• How online review sites have magnified the power of unhappy guests, and what to do about it
• Managing the “fight or flight” response when confronted by an upset customer
• The five steps to masterful complaint resolution
• Cultivating awareness: the ounce of prevention
• How to ask questions that get real answers from your guests
• Making it easy to complain
• How and when to apologize
• Helping the guest realize you’re “on their side”
• Avoiding the common mistakes of complaint resolution, including explaining, blame and scapegoating
• How to effectively manage a “venting” guest
• Techniques to improve your listening skills
• How to tell the difference between an upset and an abusive customer–and what to do about it
• Restoring a guest’s faith
• Making amends without giving away the store
• What most clients really want from “amends”
• The hidden danger in giving refunds too quickly
• What to do when your offer of amends is rejected by an upset guest
• How to prevent problems from recurring

Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for our offered trainings.
Seven Steps To Abundant Sales And Stellar Customer Service

Mastering Complaint Resolution and Service Recovery

 

  • Are you confident in your employees’ ability to resolve guest complaints?
  • Do they know how to handle the inevitable issues that arise in a busy spa operation?
  • Are you certain that guests leave your spa satisfied?
  • When was the last time they received training in complaint resolution?

A great reputation has always been the best way to market a spa. But the internet has made superior customer service a crucial survival skill.

Web search is one of your top marketing modalities, and negative reviews can cost you thousands of dollars in lost revenue.

Our employee training, “Moments of Truth: Mastering Complaint Resolution and Service Recovery” can give you a chance to economically and quickly get your team up to speed.

Don’t let another month pass without inoculating your front-line team against mediocre customer service, and common errors.

“The road to success is paved with mistakes well handled,” said the founder of Neiman Marcus. This training is designed to enable your front desk team to manage the inevitable mistakes and mishaps of a busy spa operation, while strengthening customer relationships and improving customer service. The adrenaline-charged moment when an upset customer complains is a make-or-break event for your business. Make sure your team doesn’t hide their heads in the sand–ensure that they will ride to the rescue of your reputation!

Agenda:
• Why your team must treat complaints as an opportunity
• 96% of your guests won’t complain; how to treat the 4% who do
• Using complaint resolution to improve relationships
• How online review sites have magnified the power of unhappy guests, and what to do about it
• Managing the “fight or flight” response when confronted by an upset customer
• The five steps to masterful complaint resolution
• Cultivating awareness: the ounce of prevention
• How to ask questions that get real answers from your guests
• Making it easy to complain
• How and when to apologize
• Helping the guest realize you’re “on their side”
• Avoiding the common mistakes of complaint resolution, including explaining, blame and scapegoating
• How to effectively manage a “venting” guest
• Techniques to improve your listening skills
• How to tell the difference between an upset and an abusive customer–and what to do about it
• Restoring a guest’s faith
• Making amends without giving away the store
• What most clients really want from “amends”
• The hidden danger in giving refunds too quickly
• What to do when your offer of amends is rejected by an upset guest
• How to prevent problems from recurring

Visit our Learning Academy and click on “Spa Concierge Finishing School“. The 4th unit in this online class will help you tackle these challenges.

spa client reception

Front Desk Training: Checkout that Maximizes Rescheduling & Retail

Registration for this webinar has closed.  Below are the topics which were discussed.  Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for our offered trainings.

Your biggest moment of truth in a spa or salon takes place, not in a treatment room or at an employee’s station, but when a client is checking out. This is the moment you must ascertain whether a guest is satisfied, when your guest is invited to reschedule, and when they are invited to make home care purchases. Your challenge? To do all this while checking out guests as quickly and as accurately as possible.

Because your reschedule/retention rate is the most critical metric in business success, this “moment” must consistently ensure the best possible outcome. Being friendly and efficient is important, but it’s only the beginning.

Join us for this webinar, the third in our series for front desk employees and their managers. Presenters Lisa M. Starr and Peggy Wynne Borgman of Wynne business, veteran spa consultants and educators, pack the hour of instruction full of use-it-tomorrow, down to earth content. Jessica Zike of Coyle Hospitality Group, the premier mystery shopping company for the hospitality industry, will kick off the session by providing eye opening real-world performance data from their Mystery Shoppers, as well as anecdotes about front-desk experiences that missed the mark.

Participants will learn:

– The importance of the front desk team in building the business
– The hidden opportunities of checkout
– Who is supposed to do what? Understanding roles and responsibilities in this transitional zone
– Recognizing the guest at checkout; what to do when you don’t know their name
– Creating a smooth “handoff” from a service provider to the front desk
– Creating a smooth transition from the locker room to the front desk
– How to effectively gauge guest satisfaction at checkout
– The most inspiring home care recommendation strategies
– What to do when you’re asked a question you can’t answer!
– How to respond to “objections” such as “I already have something like this at home”
– Building the sale with “bumps”
– The recipe for persuasive invitations to return
– What to say when the guest says, “I need to check my calendar”
– The most neglected step in the checkout process

 

Inspiration For Spa Leadership Challenges

Productivity Secrets of Busy Spa Directors

Registration for this webinar has closed and below are the topics which were discussed.  Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for our offered trainings.

You only have so many hours in a day. And in a busy spa operation, you lose lots of those to crisis management. How can you cross more items off your “to do” list while not losing sight of the bigger strategic picture, and ensuring that your team gets the “care and feeding” they need? In this era of downsizing, with many spa directors spending more time on the operations floor, can you really increase your effectiveness?
 

 

This fast, free webinar will help you get much more out of your next day at the spa, and every day to come. The session is just 35 minutes, with a 10 minute live Q & A.
 
Joining me will be guest panelist Tatia Davenport of DeluxeSalonSupply.com. Tatia is an amazing businesswoman who operates two successful California spas, is Business Development Executive for DeluxeSalonSupply.com, and a former executive at e*trade. Her insights into productivity, gleaned from real-world experience operating spas and from corporate America, will help you take control of your time. This is a great webinar to share with your supervisors, too.
AGENDA
  • How your “to-do” list is sabotaging you–and what to do about it
  • The common task that starts most people’s workday–and why it should never start yours
  • The biggest source of “rework” and how to improve it
  • Process improvement made simple
  • Are you constantly interrupted, or constantly interruptible? Managing communication with others to protect productive time
  • Avoiding phone tag/e mail tag with a few simple techniques
  • “They can’t do anything without me!” Avoiding the trap of being the Answer (wo)Man
  • Delegation: the three-step process you must use so that items you delegate don’t end up back in your lap
  • “Inspect what you expect”
  • Block and Tackle: “batching” tasks
  • Good e mail “hygiene”
  • Simplify the Buy: why the way you source may be all wrong
  • The magic of Five-Minute Meetings
  • Time-saving (and easy to master) technology tools
  • Understanding the “highest and best use” of your time and energy
Strategic Vision Sessions Planning

“The Brave New World of Spa PR,” a webinar with Kim Marshall, Principal of the Marshall Plan Public Relations, and David Victor of Boomcycle Online Marketing

Registration for this webinar has closed and below are the topics which were discussed.  Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for our offered trainings.

A great public relations program is more important than ever, and there are more outlets for public relations than ever before–including online review sites, Facebook and Twitter! But which modalities are working best for spas in the era of social media?  Which are a waste of time? Are you in control of your brand’s reputation, or is it careening out of control? Kim Marshall, a veteran public relations professional who specializes in spa, hospitality and wellness businesses, takes you on a journey through this fast-changing, sometimes hair-raising, and highly competitive landscape.

This fun, fast-paced webinar, designed to help you separate urban myth from reality, will help you to focus on the marketing tools that “move the needle” and to avoid wasteful experiments. Find out what editors really want–including the topics that travel and beauty editors are interested (and not interested) in right now. Kim has the ear of a diverse array of media professionals, and will share with us exactly what they’re telling her! Gain a valuable understanding of the key components of a compelling public relations campaign–and an insider’s perspective on how public relations actually works–from one of the pioneers of the spa industry.

Moderated by Peggy Wynne Borgman

Mastering The Reservations Call

Moments of Truth: Mastering the Spa Reservations Call

Registration for Moments of Truth: Mastering the Spa Reservations Call webinar has closed and below are the topics which were discussed.  This training is available online as Part 2 of The Spa Concierge Finishing School. Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for this and more of our offered trainings.

Guests who are calling you for reservations are not just looking for appointments, they’re seeking a “preview of coming attractions.” Does your team handle your reservations calls like ho-hum, routine transactions, or do they strive to create a positive and memorable experience for every guest? This training session for front desk and reservations employees and their supervisors is an eye-opening journey into what it takes to provide five star reservations service while growing sales.

Agenda:
• Are you “filling an order” or “creating an experience” for your guests?
• Moments of Truth and why they’re so important to guest satisfaction
• The Three Elements of every great service experience
• Getting the Greeting right
• Finding your voice: what your guest wants to hear
• Creating rapport with callers who have different “social styles”
• Making the best possible first impression
• Essentials of telephone etiquette
• The do’s and don’ts of the “hold”
• Using the guest’s name effectively
• How to answer those tough or tricky questions (like “who’s your best massage therapist?”)
• Shortcuts for creating rapport quickly
• Active listening techniques
• What your returning guests need from the reservations call
• What they’re really saying when they ask, “How much are your facials?”
• Spreading the love around: how to make sure all your guests get great care
• Offering alternatives when their selection isn’t available
• Upgrading gracefully
• The best way to discuss “gender preference” for massage appointments
• How to communicate your cancellation policy without ruining the mood
• Helping ensure a smooth first visit: pre-arrival orientation
• The Fond Farewell

Seven Steps To Abundant Sales And Stellar Customer Service

Webinar: Mastering the Mindset of World Class Service

Registration for this webinar: Mastering the Mindset of World Class Service has closed and below are the topics which were discussed. This training is available online as Part 1 of The Spa Concierge Finishing School. Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for this and other trainings.

Every spa wants to believe it gives outstanding service, and many claim to offer “world class” and “five star” customer care. But do you really? Does the massage therapist you just hired, who’s never patronized a world class spa, know how to deliver that level of service for a guest? How about your spa concierges?

Good news. It’s important to hire for aptitude and attitude; the rest you can teach. This foundation webinar is designed to help spa employees in every position, and at every level of experience, work closely as a team to create a stellar spa experience.

We’ll help your team understand how world class service is created, from the ground up. We’ll explain the vital importance of each of the three “ingredients” of legendary service: values, systems, and art. When these three ingredients are properly integrated by your team, guests have the sort of experiences that convert them to raving fans.

Your team will learn about:

• What customers value most
• The guest expectation of a five star spa experience
• The power of consistency, or why Systems drive all world class service
• How right-brained spa professionals can learn to love the “sacred geometry” of Systems, Rules, and Processes
• Process improvement and quality management skills for everyone in the spa
• Communication skills and easy, low-stress problem solving
• Understanding Social Styles
• Why “going above and beyond” starts with “mastering the basics”
• Unleashing the “Service Artist” within
• The magic of Deep Teamwork

 

Spa Management Consulting

Moments of Truth: Guest Checkout that Maximizes Retail and Retention

Registration for this webinar has closed and below are the topics which were discussed. This training is available online as Part 3 of The Spa Concierge Finishing School. Please check the Events and Learning Academy pages for this and other trainings.

Your biggest moment of truth in a spa or salon takes place, not in a treatment room or at an employee’s station, but when a client is checking out. This is the moment you must ascertain whether a guest is satisfied, when your guest is invited to reschedule, and when they are invited to make home care purchases. Your challenge? To do all this while checking out guests as quickly and as accurately as possible.

Because your reschedule/retention rate is the most critical metric in business success, this “moment” must consistently ensure the best possible outcome. Being friendly and efficient is important, but it’s only the beginning.

Join us for this webinar, the third in our series for front desk employees and their managers. Presenters Lisa M. Starr and Peggy Wynne Borgman of Wynne business, veteran spa consultants and educators, pack the hour of instruction full of use-it-tomorrow, down to earth content. Jessica Zike of Coyle Hospitality Group, the premier mystery shopping company for the hospitality industry, will kick off the session by providing eye opening real-world performance data from their Mystery Shoppers, as well as anecdotes about front-desk experiences that missed the mark.

Participants will learn:

– The importance of the front desk team in building the business
– The hidden opportunities of checkout
– Who is supposed to do what? Understanding roles and responsibilities in this transitional zone
– Recognizing the guest at checkout; what to do when you don’t know their name
– Creating a smooth “handoff” from a service provider to the front desk
– Creating a smooth transition from the locker room to the front desk
– How to effectively gauge guest satisfaction at checkout
– The most inspiring home care recommendation strategies
– What to do when you’re asked a question you can’t answer!
– How to respond to “objections” such as “I already have something like this at home”
– Building the sale with “bumps”
– The recipe for persuasive invitations to return
– What to say when the guest says, “I need to check my calendar”
– The most neglected step in the checkout process