ASK AN EXPERT KATIE BARNES » MANAGING EDITOR » SPA BUSINESS turnaways
What kind of routines could be put in place to help receptionists log turnaway data quickly and easily?
M
ost operators are reluctant to reveal how many cus- tomers they turn away, and with pressure to prove their
worth to shareholders and owners it’s easy to see why they don’t want to admit a customer has slipped through the net. Off the record talks have revealed the per-
centage of customers turned away can range from 5 to 25 per cent or more. And all agree that this can fluctuate according to the type of spa, time of day and week and location. In Asia – where spas typically open for
longer and have more therapists due to lower labour costs – it’s rare not to be able to accommodate a customer. A destination spa is also likely to have lower levels of turn- aways, as guests are on-site for the whole day and can usually fit into scheduling that suits the spa. Yet day spas may have a higher level of lost business, as customers tend to opt for peak times and aren’t as flexible. However, it’s the recording of lost business and subsequent analysis of trading patterns
Te use of waiting lists is becoming stand-
Some spas can turn away 25 per cent of customers or more. We ask how operators can track and claw back this lost business
that plays a key part in creating a success- ful yield management strategy. “Tere’s so much you can improve on and refine in your business by looking at what, when, why and how a customer was turned away,” says Lyn- sey Hughes, spa director at the Mandarin Oriental in Hong Kong. “You get to under- stand demand and by measuring it you can use solutions, such as changing staff sched- ules or training, to maximum effect.” But although this sounds pretty straight-
forward and most operators would agree in theory the importance of minimising turna- ways, very few of them actually do this.
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ard practice, but is this enough? What other kind of information should be logged when a customer can’t be accommodated? And – most importantly – how can these details be used to optimise business? One challenge is collecting the data in
the first place. When staff are busy dealing with customers face to face, it can be dif- ficult to get them to spend time gathering and recording details from phone calls and emails from customers who – in their eyes – are not a priority. What kind of routines could be put in
place to make this an easier and quicker task? Is soſtware the solution? Could a simple tick sheet be the answer, or is manual gathering of turnaways inefficient? And could all this be avoided if staff had
the right customer management training, or were even incentivised enough, to sell a dif- ferent time slot on another day, or to push a special promotion in order to keep the busi- ness? We ask the experts...
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