Hotel Spa Reservations Sales and Hospitality Training Tips

It has been interesting these last few years to see an increasing number of upscale hotel and resort spa managers reaching out for the same types of sales and hospitality excellence training that my company and others have offered for years for hotel room reservations, group/event sales, and front office/concierge.

Considering the huge growth in demand for “wellness” vacations and resort experiences, ensuring excellent inquiry experiences should be a top priority since many guests select their resort based on the spa and wellness offerings more so than the rooms or other amenities.

Those who are calling and emailing questions while selecting a wellness resort are typically much more engaged in their selection and booking journey than those booking traditional hotel rooms, which is an increasingly transactional process.

Wellness vacations are much more likely to be planned around milestone events, unique lifetime experiences, special needs related to health or recovery, and celebratory occasions.

When you search for wellness resorts and click on the ‘spa’ links, you typically find an extensive menu of various spa treatments and therapies. This can be both confusing and overwhelming, creating “choice overload” and FOMO, both of which spur online shoppers to call or email directly.

When you stop to consider that the revenue generated from a spa visit can easily meet or exceed the total room spend and that a potential guest’s very first reach-out may be to the spa desk, not hotel reservations, smart leaders should be securing training and coaching to help these staff optimize guest experiences and maximizing revenues. They should also measure and monitor performance based on mystery shopping.

However, when most KTN clients first engage us for telephone mystery shopping of their spa front desks, we typically find most perform as “polite appointment makers” not consultative spa and wellness advisors. For example, when our mystery shoppers start off with statements such as “Hello, I’m planning to visit your spa when I’m in town with my mother next month…” or “Hi, I’m going to be staying at your resort for a girlfriends’ getaway…” we hear them respond with transactional questions such as:

• Okay, what date are you visiting? What time of day are you looking for?”
• What treatment do you want to book?”
• “Do you prefer a male or female therapist?”

When we push for additional details, most seem to simply restate the same list of treatments and therapies that the guest has most likely already seen online.

If you’d like to hear how your spa team is responding to guest inquiries, contact me personally for a free sample mystery shop.

Here are some training tips from KTN’s spa reservations sales training, mystery shopping, and webcam coaching.

• As with all hospitality industry telephone sales calls, agents should welcome guests with a genuine and authentic sounding greeting, spoken slowly and with enthusiasm.
• When staff sound warm and welcoming, most callers will divulge details about their desired experience, health needs, or celebratory occasions upfront, without prompting.
• Next, if not yet volunteered, ask investigative questions to “unmask the story” behind their planned visit. These should be interspersed with the necessary “inventory search” questions needed to offer appointment times and therapies.
• Use “Loop-it-Back Listening” to make authentic connections and be fully present.
• Position yourself as a consultative advisor versus an appointment maker with additional investigative questions such as:

“Do you have a particular treatment or therapy in mind, or are you looking for assistance in selecting?”

“So that I can recommend the best body treatments, do you have any particular physical areas of concern that you want the therapist to focus on, such as back problems or arthritis?”

“Are you interested in working out in our extensive fitness center during your visit or just relaxing?”

“Are you planning on enjoying our spa cuisine?” (If yes…) “Do you have any special dietary requirements?”

“Is there something special you’re looking for that I’ve not yet mentioned?”

– Use descriptions of treatments and therapies that are alluring and enticing, appealing to their emotions versus just factual listings.

– Use a “storytelling” approach to include the guest in the description.

– Offer needs-based recommendations or suggestions; if they have something in mind, endorse their choices to avoid a sense of FOMO.

Finally, when our mystery shoppers call the spa front desk staff of new clients who have not yet been trained, we rarely hear them encouraging callers to commit to making a spa reservation right now. Instead, we usually hear them say “Okay, well thanks for calling,” or “If you do want to reserve an appointment, give us a call back. We are here from 9am until 7pm.” Instead, offer to secure the appointment right now with statements and questions that create urgency such as:

– “May I secure that appointment now for you while it is still open?”

– “Our weekend schedule tends to fill up in advance; would you like me to lock in that appointment now?”

This will ensure that the caller gets the treatment they want, during the time frame they want, and with the gender of therapist they prefer. If spa front desk agents don’t secure the appointment during the first call, the guest may call back later to find that the only open times are earlier or later than their original preference. Or worse yet, they might wait until they are in-house only to find that the spa schedule is entirely booked, thus resulting in a complaint to the hotel manager or a negative online Facebook comment.

By training your spa front desk reservations team, you will not only generate more spa revenue, but you will also provide a more fulfilling guest experience that will result in positive guest reviews and social media postings.

Doug Kennedy is President of the Kennedy Training Network, Inc. a leading provider of hotel sales, guest service, reservations, and front desk training programs and telephone mystery shopping services for the lodging and hospitality industry. Doug continues to be a fixture on the industry’s conference circuit for hotel companies, brands and associations, as he has been for decades. Since 1996, Doug’s monthly training articles have been published worldwide, making him one of the most widely read hospitality industry authorities. Check out his monthly webcasts at www.KTNwebcast.com or visit www.kennedytrainingnetwork.com.