For thousands of years, people have sought out the healing and rejuvenating experience of visiting a spa. Leaving the mad hustle and bustle of everyday life to relax and find peace can have a profoundly positive impact on an individual’s sense of well-being. This is probably—in part—why spas have existed successfully for so long. Plus, just about everyone enjoys feeling pampered.
In 2021, there’s a massive spike in stress and anxiety levels. This is prompting people to seek out therapeutic experiences that help them feel lighter and less tense.
The role of a spa employee carries a lot of responsibility. They need to ensure that clients receive the relaxation and relief that they came for. Many customers may come in with high expectations for the outcome of their experience. Staff members need to meet all of these expectations or exceed them if that customer is to return.
Spa treatments can be very intimate and vulnerable experiences. That’s why it’s crucial for spa owners and employees to possess a keen grasp of spa etiquette. It’s essential that the utmost care and consideration for clients are always provided.
If you want to care for your clients’ needs properly, you need to observe the following spa etiquette:
Practice Excellent Hygiene And Cleanliness
Impeccable hygiene has always been a core value of the spa industry, but the Coronavirus pandemic has pushed the need for extreme cleanliness even further.
Spa customers need to feel completely safe from any harmful germs or bacteria that may get brought in from outside. Ensure that your practice adheres to every applicable sanitization requirement and provides cleaning services that sterilize all utensils, surfaces, towels, gowns, and more on a strict routine basis.
All spa facilities require employees to interact with clients in some sort of physical way. Whether that’s massage, nail work, grooming, or otherwise, the hands of spa employees should always be clean, soft, warm, and sweet-smelling.
Bad hygiene in any spa is bound to attract negative attention from both current and potential clients. Raise the bar for your spa or salon by ensuring everything is suitably sterile, sparkling, and safe for customers to enjoy.
Prioritize Privacy And Comfortability
For many people, a visit to the spa can cause mild anxiety. The close contact with a stranger, the silence, and partial nudity at times are all potential contributors to discomfort.
It’s essential for spa employees to create a completely comfortable and respectful environment for each client’s individual needs and preferences. This will enable your clients to relax and experience the tranquility they came for fully.
This means using slow, gentle movements and offering clear, continuous communication regarding treatment expectations. It’s also important to take any comments or preferences seriously, should a client speak up about discomfort of any kind.
Customers should always get debriefed about the requirements of physical exposure for their treatment before it begins, especially those treatments that involve nudity to any degree. They should also be provided with alternatives wherever possible. Your aim is their ultimate comfort and relaxation.
Check Your Client’s Medical Conditions
Checking whether your customer has any medical conditions that a treatment may trigger plays a significant role in spa etiquette. Some people may have skin problems that make them sensitive to your products. Others may have injuries or disabilities that affect their mobility or put them at risk during a massage.
The easiest way to ensure everyone feels comfortable and prevent an incident is to provide a mandatory fill-in sheet for completion before treatment. You can offer an electronic option for online bookings and keep hard copies on-hand for walk-ins.
These sheets can ask all the right questions in one go. Doing so ensures that no customer enters a session without understanding the risks and that they know what the treatment entails. A protocol like this one protects both your business and your customers.
Without it, you may unintentionally cause harm to a client who would be able to take legal action against you if they chose. Checking your client’s medical conditions beforehand is the respectful, safe, and smart thing to do.
Consider Every Environmental Detail
When you’re visiting a spa, you want to feel as though you’re being treated like royalty. Every little detail should contribute to your sense of pleasure, or at the very least, your sense of contentment.
From fragrances to textures, spa employees need to curate the environment to the very best of their ability. Adding small but significant details to your spa can make a tremendous difference to the quality of your customer’s experience.
- Diffusers that release calming natural fragrances
- Gentle instrumental music playing in the background
- Heated towels and gowns
- Minimal clutter, movement, and noise
- Simple, beautiful artworks on the walls
- Warm, dim lighting
Adding the above elements to your spa or salon can envelop the senses and give your customers a more complete and immersive experience.
When we relax, we may become hypersensitive to the world around us. For this reason, it’s important to get this aspect of spa etiquette precisely right.
Give Guests Your Undivided Attention
At the end of the day, your customer’s spa experience should leave no gaps for frustration or dissatisfaction to arise. Their every need and desire must be anticipated, met, and fulfilled in seamless transition.
Providing clients with the option of ordering a light snack, smoothie, water, tea, or coffee before, during, and after sessions can make them feel nourished and looked after. A good spa employee should regularly check in with their clients to find out what they can do to improve their experience.
Adding free services such as an open library in the waiting room, fresh slippers and gowns after every massage, or complimentary drinks during pedicures are all great ways to cater to clients and make them feel pampered.
Most people come to spas to escape the intensity of everyday life and to feel spoiled, even if it is just for an hour or two. Giving your clients your undivided attention will afford them that sense of escapism, and you’ll have upheld the reputation of excellent spa etiquette.
