Categories
Published Articles

Spa Service – One Key Flaw

Spa Service – One Key Flaw…It Ends the Moment a Guest Leaves the Spa to Return to His or Her Hotel Room

Many high-end hotels and resorts offer spa services and are looking for a way to excel even further and so differentiate themselves in the minds of their guests. The same could be said of the butler service offered by many such institutions. Both programs add value and prestige, but is there a way to improve these service offerings? The short answer is, “Yes!”

Spa service has one key flaw: it ends the moment a guest leaves the spa to return to his or her suite. The way to make a guest’s experience a complete one, and offer a total immersion in the “get away from it all” relaxation and rejuvenation, is to make the butler service an extension of the spa experience, wherein spa-trained butlers provide their usual high-end service in the hotel, but with the added knowledge and techniques that enable the spa environment to continue in the guest’s own suite.

A guest, for instance, may well undergo a catharsis or detoxification as a result of his or her spa experience knowing how to deal with this with understanding and empathy can create quite an impact on guests. Moments of drama aside, when a butler knows and understands the spa program of a guest, he can converse about the guest’s experiences with good reality, should the guest so desire, and can also take actions to enhance that program‹such as adding a complementary (not complImentary!) bath salt to the bath, rather than one that conflicts with the spa program.

The spa butler is really the architect of the ultimate spa hospitality experience, designing and arranging the entire spa guest experience. The spa still delivers the spa services, but the butler acts as the main point of contact before, during and after the guest’s stay. Because he understands and knows what the guest is going through, and the basic spa methodologies, he can be there for the guests and extend the entire stay into a smooth experience for them. That’s the simplicity of the program.

Translated into the real world, this program means the butler asks and cares about the guest’s goal in coming to the spa; he cares about the guest’s room, ensuring that the space reflects the guest’s needs and wants. The butler supports the guest by being a sounding board and conversing with understanding and empathy. He introduces the guest to the people, places and services he or she will be experiencing at the spa, answering all questions and resolving all concerns. He smoothes the preparations for each spa experience and helps the guest through the ramifications of each spa treatment, asking the right questions.

The spa butler understands the mechanism of each spa treatment in order to give accurate and convincing explanations of treatments to the guest. The application of hot or cold therapy to the body may seem odd or even silly to the guest without an understanding of the expected physiological effects and benefits. Earning the guest’s confidence and compliance with intelligent answers to his/her questions is an important part of the spa butler service.

Types of Guests
There are at least four categories of spa guests. Identifying them is key to serving them successfully.

“Fluff and Buff” guests are delighted with the ultimate in pampering. They are investing time, energy and money in the expectation they will be treated as kings and queens. They are enjoying a mini vacation from the stresses and strains of everyday life.

“ROI” guests are looking for a return on their investment. They are spa savvy, meaning that they have been to spas before and have preconceived notions about what a great spa experience is and should be. They expect their spa experience to deliver on the health enhancement and therapeutic expectations they have formulated.

“Solution seeker” guests want a spa experience to alleviate pain and discomfort from their ongoing medical conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, osteo-arthritis, etc. and are hoping to find relief and answers that will alleviate some of their suffering.

“Transformer” guests are committed to transforming their own worlds, understanding they play an integral and vital role in optimizing their health and well being. They trust the spa to have highly specialized facilitators who honor the holistic nature of man.

By knowing and understanding each guest’s goal and being there for them in their pursuit of that goal, the butler forms a unique relationship with guests and so brings about the ultimate spa hospitality experience.

Categories
Published Articles

Spa Butlers – Adding Value To Spas And Hotels Alike

For spa directors in hotels and resorts offering spa services there is the constant pressure to excel even further and so differentiate themselves in the minds of their guests; to find compelling ways to entice guests to return when there are many other venues for them to choose from.

The same could be said of the butler service offered by many such hotels and resorts. Both programs add value and prestige, but is there a way to improve these service offerings? The short answer is, “Yes!”

Imagine you are, as one guest noted, returning to your hotel suite looking like a scrubbed vegetable and feeling anything from exhausted to exhilarated to even nauseous. You are about to run into the one key flaw inherent in every spa experience: it ends the moment a guest leaves the spa to return to his or her suite. The way to make a guest’s experience a complete one, and offer a total immersion in the “get away from it all” relaxation and rejuvenation, is to form a joint venture between the spa and butler programs. Simply put, make the butler service an extension of the spa experience, wherein spa-trained butlers provide their usual high-end service on the hotel side, but with the added knowledge and techniques that enable the spa environment to continue in the guest’s own suite.

Does this mean that the butler will roll up his sleeves and stretch, massage and pluck the guest? Not at all: but put yourself in the shoes of the guest. If you have ever been pampered and prodded, sweated and doused, this should not be too difficult. When the doors of the spa swing shut behind you and you make your way to your suite, you re-enter a world that runs on different agreements. People rush around, lost in thought, and not up to speed on your own serene/mellow/invigorated world. You open the door to your suite and it is, well, flat and empty and definitely not that interested in your new state.

Guests may even experience a catharsis or detoxification as a result of their spa experience. How reassuring or safe would an empty suite be, with butlers at the end of the telephone line who know nothing of your condition or how to assist.

Now imagine a butler who knows how guests can react to their spa experience and how to assist them with understanding and empathy. It would create quite an impact on guests. Moments of drama aside, when a butler knows and understands the spa program of a guest, he can converse about the guest’s experiences with good reality, should the guest so desire, and can also take actions to enhance that program‹such as adding a complementary (not necessarily complimentary) bath salt to the bath, rather than one that conflicts with the spa program.

The spa butler is a new creature in the hospitality and spa industries, for he or she is really the architect of the ultimate spa hospitality experience, designing and arranging the entire spa guest experience. The spa still delivers the spa services, but the butler acts as the main point of contact before, during and after the guest’s stay. Because he understands and knows what the guest is going through, and the basic spa methodologies, he can be there for the guests and extend the entire stay into a smooth experience for them. That’s the simplicity of the spa butler program.

Translated into the real world, this program means the butler asks and cares about the guest’s goal in coming to the spa; he cares about the guest’s room, ensuring that the space reflects the guest’s needs and wants. The butler supports the guest by being a sounding board and conversing with understanding and empathy. He introduces the guest to the people, places and services he or she will be experiencing at the spa, answering all questions and resolving all concerns. He smoothes the preparations for each spa experience and helps the guest through the ramifications of each spa treatment, asking the right questions.

The spa butler understands the mechanism of each spa treatment in order to give accurate and convincing explanations of treatments to the guest. The application of hot or cold therapy to the body may seem odd or even silly to the guest without an understanding of the expected physiological effects and benefits. Earning the guest’s confidence and compliance with intelligent answers to his/her questions is an important part of the spa butler service and helps the spa personnel to recommend the most appropriate treatments.

Types of Guests
There are at least four categories of spa guests. Identifying them is key to serving them successfully.

“Fluff and Buff” guests are delighted with the ultimate in pampering. They are investing time, energy and money in the expectation they will be treated as kings and queens. They are enjoying a mini vacation from the stresses and strains of everyday life.

“ROI” guests are looking for a return on their investment. They are spa savvy, meaning that they have been to spas before and have preconceived notions about what a great spa experience is and should be. They expect their spa experience to deliver on the health enhancement and therapeutic expectations they have formulated.

“Solution seeker” guests want a spa experience to alleviate pain and discomfort from their ongoing medical conditions, such as multiple sclerosis, osteo-arthritis, etc. and are hoping to find relief and answers that will alleviate some of their suffering.

“Transformer” guests are committed to transforming their own worlds, understanding they play an integral and vital role in optimizing their health and well being. They trust the spa to have highly specialized facilitators who honor the holistic nature of man.

By knowing and understanding each guest’s goal and being there for them in their pursuit of that goal, the butler forms a unique relationship with guests and so brings about the ultimate spa hospitality experience.

Assuming this spa butler concept strikes a chord with an owner or manager, the next step is simply to train some or all of the existing butlers on spa methodology with the help of outside consultants working with the in-house spa personnel. It takes a few days of training to implement. Hotels without butlers would need to train butlers first (see article Ask Not What The Butler Did, But What He Can Do For Your Hotel, The Hotel Butler – Recognizing the Value Butlers Bring to the Bottom Line and then add on the spa butler training. To reiterate, a spa butler is a fully fledged butler with additional training on spa methodology‹not just a fancy title shoved onto someone whose only familiarity with a butler is from the movie Arthur, for instance. John Gielgud’s sub-voce remark when his boss is in the bath Gielgud just drew for him, is not the kind of attitude that will work for a spa butler.

To borrow from a completely different field, spa butlers are now beginning to appear in hotels like the inevitable next version of your favorite software. How smart is it to talk to guests in Windows when they are using  MAC? There are not many places the many ultimate spa destinations can go to create a unique position in the mind of the guest, but the spa butler provides just such a leap forward perhaps because it reaches outside the spa itself, where standards are already exquisitely high, to raise the bar even further.

This article appeared in 4Hoteliers on 16 September 2005.

Categories
Published Articles

The New Renaissance Spa – Of Spa Butlers And Butler Spas

Nearly two-thirds of affluent travelers surveyed in a Pepperdine study last summer stated they set their sites primarily on being pampered-luxury and premium service being key elements-when deciding where to stay while away from home.

This is good news for those hotels and resorts with spas that have invested in the latest industry concept of spa butlers, introduced a few months ago to the spa and hospitality industries in HotelExec.com and the latest issues of Spa Business and Spa Management magazines). For spa guests, the total immersion experience made possible by the fusion of these two service pinnacles creates a lasting impression. Why? Because the model handles the key drawback with every spa experience, which invariably ends abruptly as a guest leaves the spa to return to his or her suite. For hotel/resort/spa management, the Renascence Spa model represents the next generation of hospitality experience and somewhere to go when you have already traveled as far as the road leads in pampering guests.

This symbiotic liaison between spa and butler programs makes the butler service an extension of the spa experience, wherein butlers providing their usual high-end service on the hotel side are then trained further in the methodologies in play at their spa, with the goal of continuing the spa environment in the guest’s own suite.

From the guest’s perspective, she (or he) occupies a serene/mellow/invigorated world after being pampered, prodded, plucked, sweated and doused in the spa. It’s a destination and transformation she seeks when she thinks about and ultimately walks into a spa-and more often than not reaches. Yet the world that greets her as the spa doors swing shut behind her runs on different agreements: people rush around, lost in thought, stressed. When she reaches her suite, it seems lifeless, out of synch and unsympathetic to her new state. If she is experiencing a catharsis, detoxification, or crisis, or if she just wants to have a sounding board or a ready ear, she is on her own.

Now imagine a butler who knows how guests can react to their spa experience and how to assist them with understanding and empathy. Knowing a guest’s spa program, he can converse about the guest’s experiences with good reality, should the guest so desire, and can also take actions to enhance that program, be they therapeutic baths, showers, or simply a much needed glass of pure water to preempt dehydration.

The spa butler acts as the main point of contact before, during and after the guest’s stay. Translated into the real world, this program means the butler asks and cares about the guest’s goal in coming to the spa, giving accurate and convincing explanations of treatments to the guest (and for that important bottom line, upselling). He ensures the guest’s room reflects the guest’s needs and wants, such as providing Pilates mats, preempting allergic responses, and smudging or applying aroma mists (Smudging is the Native American practice of burning sage and/or cedar to eliminate odors and so purify a space. In this case, the idea is not just to eliminate unpleasant smells, but also synthetically derived fragrances that are sometimes employed inside guest suites).

The spa butler supports the guest by being a sounding board and conversing with understanding and empathy. He introduces the guest to the people, places and services she will be experiencing at the spa. He smoothes the preparations for each spa experience and helps her through the ramifications of each spa treatment with follow-on services that help her land gracefully from her spa experience.

This means, for instance, the spa butler being on the lookout for indicators of physiological shifts occurring in the guest that may require action by the butler to help settle the guest where he or she is experiencing discomfort. Some key indicators are:

  • Emotional tone changing
  • Rapid eyelid fluttering
  • A shift from shallow to deep breaths
  • Being spaced-out as opposed to being aware of the environment
  • Twitching
  • A shift in energy flow, such as from much motion to lethargy
  • Change in skin temperature or color.

Generally, the body is a self-regulating mechanism that will bring about optimal functioning when provided an environment of support to do so-which defines what is required basically of the spa butler.

Often, the butler can act without seeking permission or agreement, because he can see what is happening to the guest and knows what to do. An offer of a drink of refreshing water, for instance, to a guest who is obviously somewhat dehydrated, doesn’t require words or permission.

More than a Number

On the spa side, a recurring complaint is addressed in this butler/spa collaboration by cross training spa personnel on the butler mindset: the complaint being the tendency for therapists to treat guest, especially irregulars, as a commodity. The main focus of the training being giving the spa personnel the ability to be in the moment, able to be there fully for the guest, communicating when the guest desires it (how many therapists chatter endlessly when the guest would rather savor the moment?) in a way that enhances the guest experience, rather than principally entertaining the practitioner.

The subsidiary focus is on achieving the same level of grace as, and service mindset of, the butler. In dealing with guests, the butler maintains an attitude of respectful curiosity, conducting himself (or herself) professionally in a way that never compromises a guest’s dignity or privacy. The spa guest may well be impressionable to the suggestions of the spa butler. He, therefore, has an ethical obligation to maintain integrity, tell the truth, and create and uphold an environment of trust and confidentiality so as bring about a safe space for a guest that allows him or her to focus on fixing his or her world. This is not new news to the spa industry and the many therapists who adhere to these principles, but staying in the moment and following through with every guest can be a challenge. This spa-side element is by far the shortest to bring about, taking a few days, rather than the weeks it takes to train butlers first as butlers and then as spa butlers.

The Physical Component

The ultimate spa experience will be blemished, despite the best efforts of spa butlers and “butler spas,” where consumables and suite design are out of kilter with the goals of the spa and its guests. Chloramines and fluorides in the water, mite and insect excreta, dust and allergens in the air are counterproductive. So are the use of MSG in the kitchen, neurotoxic sweeteners such as aspartame, and other chemical food additives, such as preservatives, coloring, pesticides, fertilizers, and irradiated and genetically modified foods. As for PCPs (personal care products), the contents of the most expensive and exclusive, which generally tend to be provided in high-end settings, read like a chemical laboratory experiment, with spa guests among the guinea pigs.

A mere handful of the 60,000 chemicals in our air, water and food supply have been tested for their impact on the human body. It is impossible to test the effect of the almost infinite combinations of these chemicals. This makes the exponential growth of chemicals in our lives a giant experiment over the last half-century that may be behind the alarming increases in diseases, obesity, etc. Whether or not they are, an increasing number of individuals are not willing to take the risk and are looking for and even insisting upon pure spaces and ingredients.

Not all spa guests will be concerned about these points, but as spa guests are concerned about their health and long-term physique, the likelihood is that many are aware of the chemical onslaught in the environment and would prefer to find in their spa and its hotel/resort, a sanctuary. For those who may not be concerned currently, a leadership position adopted by the spa hotel/resort may well stand them in good stead with their guests in later years. But in any case, having the option available for organic food, stevia for non-sugar sweeteners and the likes of a rich cup of Teechino as a coffee substitute, for instance, for those who are concerned, can only win friends. Cleansing the air with ozonators and ionizers, and the water with top-of-the-line filtration systems, will not find any complainers among the skeptical, and plenty of support from believers. High-quality PCPs that contain natural ingredients do exist and likewise could be offered those who care.

Lastly, the guest suite needs to be made spa friendly, whether by Feng Shui methodology or other design, so as to move it beyond the prosaic and into the realm of the ethereal, the calming, the nurturing.

The second presidential suite in Miami’s Mandarin Oriental takes just such an approach, creating a “luxury spa haven for total pampering pleasure. It’s most unique and outstanding feature is a spa ‘serenity room,’ a one-of-a-kind sanctuary offering the ultimate in-suite spa experienceŠa tranquil Zen-like environment with warm color tones, bamboo accents and Mexican river stones accented by Spanish marble tile and a breathtaking view of Biscayne Bay. The spa serenity room features Japanese-style Tatami mats, an infinity-edge soaking bath with color therapy lighting and tear drop ceiling fountain and relaxation area … and ESPA spa amenities, salts, body and bath oils.”

Although this room was created for in-suite spa services, maybe it would be a good idea for all rooms catering to spa guests to be designed with the same thoughtfulness in mind?

Pampering is the name of the game and the Renascence Spa concept is the new way to attract these travelers (and locals) to your hotel or resort.

This article was also published in the August 2005 issue of Hotel Business Review, an on-line publication of HotelExec.com as well as in the September 8, 2005 issue of 4Hoteliers.