It’s a new year. Your spa sold Instant Gift Certificates throughout the holiday and now recipients will come to your spa with high hopes and a yearning for an extraordinary experience. Each Instant Gift Certificate recipient represents an opportunity to establish a new repeat customer in 2009.

The goal then, is to establish each Instant Gift customer as a client who will utilize your spa services consistently during the year. This is a proactive plan with a specific target coupled with an active and organized strategy. These customers represent a wealth of untapped potential. Spas that take advantage of that potential and work creatively to develop them as repeat customers will cushion their business this year.

What is your target?

In her blog, Peggy Wynne Borgman describes how she counsels spas to develop a specific performance target focused on repeat customers. She understands that establishing goals is critical to success and also creates a stabilizing effect within a spa. It is an important baseline from which to focus your goals.

Take Charge.

Take charge of these Instant Gift Certificate recipients by managing each interaction they have with your spa.

• Create a roster of all holiday spa gift recipients from November through the end of the year. Organize them by new and existing customers.
• If the gift recipient is an existing customer, determine when they were last in the spa and the services they scheduled. Also find out how much they typically spend when they are at the spa. If possible talk to the spa practitioner who serviced them and see if you can glean any information about them.
• If possible, call recipients to schedule their appointment. Let them know that they are important and you are really excited to see them at the spa. If you can’t call them, keep the roster at the front desk or ask those scheduling appointments if they are going to use a gift certificate. This is an opportunity to make an incredible first impression on these customers.

Bring them into the fold.

• When the recipient comes in for the first time, make sure you are ready for them. The goal is to create an amazing experience and create solutions geared toward their specific needs.
• Educate your clients as you work with them. Talk to your client and identify one thing you can do to help your client during their treatment. Educating clients and creating an extraordinary experience is valuable and that value it is a stepping stone that leads to repeat customers.

For more information on creating value read this article written for AdAge.com by Drew Neisser.

Ask them to come back.

• You have executed an extraordinary spa experience for these customers so make sure they make an appointment to see you within the next month.
• Tell them what you are going to do next time they come back. And give them something special when they leave. Give them an incentive to schedule an appointment next month with a discount, special product pricing or a small gift certificate.

All the hard work put into the holidays can bring good fortune in the coming year but it requires that you change the way you think about these gift recipients. As you take on this plan remember to reward repeat customers for their loyalty. They are the lifeblood of a small spa business so stay on target and give them what they want and need.

3 Responses...

1. Jill Heijligers-Peloquin says:

   January 16, 2009 at 5:01 pm

   This is a perfect way to start off the new year. We are contacting all the recipients of holiday gift certificates this year and encouraging them to call NOW to redeem their gift appointments. We thought we would sweeten the deal with a special added-value gift or service addition if they scheduled by January 31st. we were originally aiming to simply have more gift certificates redeemed overall, but also to have them redeemed earlier in the year. (It's amazing how many wait till the year is up to try to schedule — we always extend, by the way.) Now I see that it would be a better business solution to offer them the free service upgrade if they care to reschedule! Aha. Thanks!

   jp
2. Janet Sanders says:

   January 19, 2009 at 12:24 pm

   I love Peggy's blog. Did a whole offsite training session with my staff emphasizing the words like "comfort and healing" and out with old terms like "luxurious and exclusive." We had a great session and already have reaped the rewards of a focused offsite meeting. We are coaxing our gift certificate holders to book additional services at the same time of redemption. Trying to turn half hours into hours and attaching on pedis as well. Our new referral program and emphasis on purchasing a series of treatments is off to a good start too. Gotta stay focused!
3. Sara Daly says:

   January 26, 2009 at 4:36 pm

   We have a rewards program we are offering to keep our clients returning. They all love it and are pleased to get a gift back! We have a log book for these clients and we offer specialized deals for our rewards clients periodically when we have slower moments. Win Win!