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Greatest Problem Fixer
While it’s probably not top of mind when you’re designing your spa menu, Habitude Salon and Spa in Seattle has found it helpful to have a short little spa service it can offer complimentary when trying to appease aggravated spa or salon clients.
Service: Chair Massage
Where it’s at: Habitude Salon, Spa and Gallery in Seattle, Washington
Menu description: Relax upright and fully clothed … great for quick kink relief.
Price: $24
Who performs it: massage therapist
Products used: massage chair
Length of service: 20 minutes
Average sold: 36 per month, offered complimentary as needed
Why it’s the best: While Gray started the chair massage to introduce her salon clients to the benefits of massage, she’s found one of its biggest benefits comes through customer service. “It happens to all of us,” she explains. “While our appointment software is very good, every once in awhile a client will show up for a scheduled appointment that isn’t in our system. So, we’ll apologize and offer the client a complimentary chair massage, while we wait to see if we have any no-shows so we can reschedule her or we’ll rebook her and thank her with the massage. At a minimum, we make sure no one walks out without at least a bang trim and a chair massage.”
The service also has helped resolve a staffing issue. Gray admits it used to be a challenge when a massage therapist or an esthetician called in sick on a busy day. Now, she schedules a technician who is licensed in both esthetics and massage to the massage chair on Thursdays through Saturdays. “If we have a sick spa employee, then that technician can takeover those scheduled appointments, and if we don’t, we’ve have this whole other treatment area that generates some great revenue.”
Best Avenue to a New Market
Service: Eveline Charles Beauty Bootcamp
Where it’s at: Eveline Charles Academy in Edmonton, Calgary
Menu description: Beauty Bootcamp is a fun and creative place where girls, ages 11-15, will be inspired in the areas of self-esteem, healthy lifestyles, skin care, hair care, make-up and teen fashion. Learn valuable lessons now for lifelong healthier hair, skin and self image!
Price: $250
Who performs it: a team of staff members from the academy and the salons
Length of service: 9:00a.m. to 4:30p.m., Monday through Friday
Average sold: the 30 spots available for each of the weekly summer sessions have been sold out and there’s a long waiting list.
Why it works: “In the summer months, our enrollment is lower in the academy so we had some available space,” says Heath. “We decided to create a camp program that targeted girls who were in junior high school and transitioning to high school—the camp’s purpose is to bring self confidence to girls by teaching about beauty, fashion, hygiene and health.”
The well-rounded camp includes a wealth of programs from “Beauty and the Beastly Media,” “The Zen of Zits,” “Personality Types and Relating to Others” along with skin, nail, hair and makeup lessons. The girls write in journals at the end of each day and a photo shoot celebrates their transformations.
Heath says the target market for the camp are both the girls who have a love of make-up and fashion and those who don’t know much about either. Heath believes the salon is not just grooming future Eveline Charles clients, but possibly students for the academy as well. “The mothers have expressed so much interest in the camp we’re considering an adult version for next year.”
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