The Realities of Spa Employment
Skill Sets to Augment Your Hands-on Training
By Steve Capellini
Can you script a list of the most desirable characteristics of a massage therapist in a spa setting? The East West College of the Healing Arts in Portland, Ore., sponsored a symposium last summer, inviting a dozen spa directors from around the country to participate in a discussion about the education of spa therapists. These were key decision makers from properties like the Ritz, Ojai Valley Inn & Spa, the Spa at the Hotel Hershey, Mii Amo at Enchantment in Sedona, Canyon Ranch, Marriott’s Renaissance Esmeralda, and top-class, high-volume day spas. What did they look for in a resumé? What was the key quality on which they focused? Was it palpation skills? Depth of pressure? Ability to do energy work? The answers to these questions might surprise you.
The fact is that massage skills were taken for granted by these directors. They assumed anyone who stood a chance of getting through the door would be a technically accomplished therapist. This does not necessarily mean the candidate had to have long experience. Even new graduates were considered for positions, but their ranks were winnowed via a rigorous, hands-on screening process, often consisting of multiple test massages given back to back, assuring a certain level of competence right off the bat.
What all of these spa professionals were looking for,
without exception, was something entirely nonphysical. You might even call it esoteric. They were seeking that elusive
X-factor that makes a great spa therapist great, and although it cannot be precisely defined, spa directors agree that this
X-factor consists of several key qualities:
• An ability to focus on customer service above and beyond the service rendered as massage therapy.
• An ability to focus on working as part of a team, not just as a solo massage therapist.
• An ability to focus on retail sales, augmenting the spa’s profits beyond what can be generated through massage therapy and body services.
• An ability to focus on creating a polished professional attitude — including dress, comportment, and grooming — in addition to the more personal internal skills developed as a massage therapist.
• An ability to focus on the ethics and etiquette particular to the spa setting, in addition to the ethics of massage therapy in general.
Many massage therapists, when seeking work in a spa, fail to grasp how important these non-massage factors are. Perhaps this is because massage therapists are by nature so independent, and the X-factor has more to do with interdependence than independence. This is the cause of a huge communications gap in the spa industry, with directors and owners on one side wanting a customer-service-oriented, team-playing treatment staff and therapists on the other side wanting to be left alone in their treatment rooms to express their artistic healing abilities on their own terms and in their own way. (See “Bridging The Gap,” below.)
Bridging the Gap At the same time that we need spas as an important revenue source and employment option, we push them away, creating a passive-aggressive codependent relationship that spa directors and owners are sick and tired of. A certain amount of maturity is needed here to bridge this (usually unconscious) gap in our psyches, and, to achieve that maturity, we have to look at some difficult issues. One such issue is inadequacy. Here, I refer to the inadequacy we therapists are collectively subjected to as part of the “alternative” healing culture. We are outside the mainstream. We are marginally accepted. And, in spite of the billions that customers spend on our services every year, there is a very definite outsider’s stigma attached to what we do. This is especially apparent when our services are compared to those of a physical therapist or a physician. We feel we receive inadequate recognition from the medical world, and so we refuse to recognize the spa world. This situation is not serving us well, and it needs to change. You may or may not have noticed recently that the medical world itself is beginning to accept the spa paradigm. Institutions as prestigious as the Mayo Clinic have plans on the books for wellness centers and spa-oriented facilities. The medical world is, in a sense, going around us, embracing the spa model as an out-of-pocket revenue booster and preventative health option that makes sense, yet we therapists are sitting on the sideline, our arms folded across our collective chests, smirking at the inadequacies of the spa industry. It is time to embrace the spa industry for exactly what it is in this moment — a fluid, rapidly developing, definitely inadequate vessel into which we can pour our knowledge, our skill, and our passion, knowing that our input is sorely needed. We are the ones who will need to raise the bar and change the general impression from “fluff ‘n buff” to something more. And in so doing, we will position ourselves to benefit by the shift in the medical paradigm toward wellness. By keeping spas at arm’s length now, just because they are imperfect, we are missing an opportunity. Our reluctance to embrace the industry wholeheartedly is, in fact, partially causing the problem. Give it up, people. Spas can be a crucible for much professional growth and much monetary success, but only if we let them. |
What you must remember is that when you are hired by a spa, you are being hired not just to perform bodywork, but to represent the spa as well. For some of us, this is an onerous responsibility. The reason we chose massage ther-apy as a profession in the first place is its ability to set us apart; to extricate us from the rat race; to escape the necessity of representing anyone else but ourselves, our own two hands, and our hearts. So, when we are asked by a corporation to represent its interests, its reputation, its mission, and its set of goals, we naturally rankle.
To work successfully in a spa, then, requires a certain amount of reeducation. It is not sufficient to say to yourself, “Well, I guess I’ll just do whatever is necessary in order to get this job and make these spa owners happy while I secretly pursue my own interests.” Spa owners and directors can see through this attitude in a nanosecond because they are faced with it every day. I sat in on that spa director’s symposium in Portland and listened as they spent hours discussing you, thinking of ways to change you, wishing they didn’t have to deal with you, wondering if they’ll ever understand you. Their fondest wish is to encounter therapists who understand what it really means to work in a spa. The spa industry is starved for this type of therapist. So, how do you become one?
In this article, I focus on the qualities for which spa directors are looking — including customer service, an aptitude they consistently rank at the very top of the list of what areas their therapists need improvement. My purpose is to fill in a few gaps in your education — those gaps that leave spa directors with a quizzical look on their faces as they try to figure you out. This article will present skill sets normally outside the realm of massage education, with suggestions about how you might pursue further mastery of these topics. I believe these points will make you increasingly valuable to those gatekeepers who represent the largest single source of employment for massage therapists in the United States.
Delivering Customer Service
You may feel you already know what customer service is because, as a therapist, you spend a huge amount of time directly serving customers. You’re a natural, right? Well ... somehow that one-on-one customer service you feel comfortable applying to each of your clients in the treatment room does not directly translate to the overall customer service expertise you need to work in a spa. When you work in a spa, you are part of a larger entity, and the clients you deal with have an entirely different set of expectations regarding customer service. In fact, they expect the very best customer service on the planet. Why? There are several reasons:
• For many people, spas epitomize the height of luxury. Customers cannot imagine a destination that would more thoroughly fulfill their ideals of class and refinement. Any chink in the armor of the spa’s image (caused by less-than-perfect customer service) creates grave misgivings about the entire experience.
• Spas set themselves up for these high expectations by giving themselves names such as “Bliss,” “Nirvana,” and “Heaven.”
• The public generally feels that spas charge high (some might even say inflated) prices for their services. They do not understand the high overhead costs involved with running a spa and therefore think that spas “owe” them extra service for the money they are paying.
Customer Service Skills for a Spa Therapist
What are the skills and qualities that a spa therapist needs to cultivate in order to consistently offer high-quality customer service? There are several, the most important being: sensitivity, flexibility, positivity, humility, responsibility, maturity, and connectivity. Each of these are explained below in order to help build your awareness of these principles.
The Seven Habits of Highly Sensitivity — the strength of compassion Flexibility — the strength of adaptability Positivity — the strength of hope Humility — the strength of self-confidence Responsibility — the strength of respect for others Maturity — the strength of experience Connectivity — the strength of communication |
Sensitivity: As a massage therapist, you are most likely a sensitive person. Empathy is high on your list of important personality traits. Nonetheless, empathy for a client’s pain, tightness, or stress is not the same as empathy for a client’s customer service needs. Just because you know how to release a person’s frozen shoulder does not mean you will be able turn her into a completely satisfied spa guest. In fact, sometimes, your special empathetic abilities can actually get in the way of this process; you are so involved with clients on a therapeutic level you forget some of their other needs. This often happens in physicians’ offices. Many, though certainly not all, doctors are notorious for their brusqueness and insensitivity to patients’ needs outside of the treatment or operating room. In fact, the concept of “customer service” might seem laughable to them. You might want to search your own soul a bit and see if you discover any of this attitude within yourself.
Flexibility: In the spa environment, your ability to accept change is absolutely vital. Without it, you will flounder at crucial moments when you should be steady and strong. If you are too attached to your own schedules and routines, you will not be able to accommodate constantly fluctuating guest demands and workplace conditions. Although the work life of a spa therapist might look serene from the outside, and perhaps even boring, the reality is much more fluid, dynamic, and at times even upsetting. You must be able to stop on a dime, assess any new situation, and turn in a completely new direction if it is warranted.
One example where flexibility is necessary is in scheduling. Oftentimes, spa guests will change their appointments at the last minute, or an appointment will be added or dropped from the schedule without your knowledge. These are moments that can cause you frustration, and you have to be ready for them. Instead of getting upset, which will definitely carry over and influence any guest interaction you have afterward, perhaps even souring a therapeutic session, you can take the opportunity to remind yourself once again that customer service comes first. If you cannot learn to maintain a positive mindset during the inevitable fluctuations in your daily routine, you will not become the most valuable therapist you can be.
Positivity: The ability to stay positive in all situations will serve you well in a spa setting. Spa guests can be demanding, and you may find yourself at times stretched to the limit in your capacity to stay positive when it comes to meeting those demands. Given these high expectations, it is imperative you are always able to find a way to turn customers’ experiences into positive ones, to say “yes” to the guests. (See “Saying ‘Yes’ to the Guest,” below.)
Saying “Yes” to the Guest While this goal sounds good, how can you as a spa therapist learn to implement it consistently? Perhaps you can take a lesson here from the world of dramatic arts. One of the fundamental rules of improvisational theater is to always say “yes” to everything thrown at you. Thus, if you are an actor on stage during an improv performance and somebody says to you out of the blue, “You are a 10-foot tall carrot!” your immediate response is, “That’s right, and my greatest fear is giant rabbits.” Actors who are unable to flow into the unknown impede the performance. In the same way, the end result to any spa guests’ query should always be “yes.” Even if the situation seems hopeless, there is usually a way to solve it. Following are two examples: A guest signs up for a scalp treatment, then arrives with her hair tied up and says, “I’m going to an important affair this evening, so you cannot touch my coiffure.” You smile and proceed to give her the best neck, forehead, and upper shoulder treatment she’s ever received, while avoiding her hair entirely. A pregnant guest comes to you for a prenatal massage, then requests you concentrate on her feet because she loves reflexology. It is the spa’s policy to avoid reflexology on pregnant guests because of the possibility of stimulating an early birth. Your response? “Yes, of course, I’d love to offer you reflexology. I can’t do it right now because of our policy against endangering guests, but I’m going to offer you a special certificate for a discount on reflexology the next time you visit the spa, and, in the meantime, I’ll concentrate on your lower legs and back today. I’m sure they’re sore from carrying the extra weight.” |
The interactions you have with guests in lounge areas, locker rooms, at the front desk, and on the phone should all be tempered by the same professional positivity you display in the treatment room. Obviously, there are limitations as to how far you should go to appease guests’ needs. You need to be especially aware of ethical considerations and never compromise your own standards of right and wrong. However, if you look deeply within yourself at times of decision, you might find your reluctance to meet a guest’s expectations is based more on a personal preference rather than a true ethical standard. Always “check in” with yourself to see which is the case in each situation.
Humility: It is important to remember the guest should be the center of attention in a spa, not the therapist. While this may seem excruciatingly obvious, it entails a degree of retraining for some therapists, especially American therapists, who are easily riled by anything that might be termed “subservience.” Humility is not subservience. Therapists working at a spa learn to
put the guest’s needs and the therapeutic interchange above their own need for recognition.
It is also important to cultivate humility when faced with your own therapeutic limitations. You may find yourself working in a spa one day faced with the temptation to overstep your abilities and knowledge. A guest may ask you to treat a condition or problem for which you are not adequately trained. It is important at that moment to humbly state you are not certified for that type of work, rather than attempting heroics.
Spa therapists also need humility when it comes to following instructions. At times, our independent natures lead us to shrug off directives from superiors. This is not a good idea. In order for a spa to work smoothly, a certain amount of hierarchy is necessary.
Responsibility: Spa therapists not only shoulder the typical responsibilities expected with such a position (such as punctuality, cleanliness, therapeutic integrity, and so on), but they also carry the additional responsibility of playing a type of role model for the guests who come to the spa expecting to be instructed (both verbally and nonverbally) in the arts of healthy living and lifestyle. If you work in a spa, you will, in a sense, be responsible for being a certain kind of person. This does not mean you cannot simply be yourself. But, at least while you are on the job, you will need to maintain an awareness you are also representing the spa and, beyond that, the spa lifestyle.
Maturity: Mature therapists are attractive to employers, and mature in this sense does not mean old or even well-seasoned. It means someone with a long-term perspective, someone who brings knowledge, commitment, and passion for her work into the spa, for the betterment of guests and, one would hope, an improvement in the overall business. Spa directors and owners look closely at how many continuing education classes their therapists have taken, the breadth and depth of the work they offer to the spa’s clientele, and their overall commitment to their massage therapy careers.
“Financial maturity” is greatly appreciated by spa owners as well. As you grow in the spa industry and decide you would like to commit yourself for a number of years, perhaps even carving out a lifelong career within the spa world, you will have to make a mature decision to set aside some of the independence that comes with a private practice and some of the lost revenue that comes with working in someone else’s establishment. If you can make this decision without remorse, knowing along with the drawbacks come many benefits, you will be a pleasure with which to work. Too many therapists work in spas, take home a decent paycheck, and then complain bitterly they could be making more on their own. If that is the case, then perhaps it would be best to go out on your own and make more. It is a mature therapist who knows better than to spread the sentiments of remorse and regret among coworkers and perhaps even the guests.
Connectivity: Rubbing people down, scrubbing them off, and
wrapping them up are simply the external excuses for the inner connection you make with guests. In order to be the best spa therapist you can be, you should strive to connect with clients in other ways, opening as many avenues of communication as possible. It is best to approach the spa’s clients with a caring open heart, treating each one of them as if they were a client in your own private practice or even a guest in your home. This allows the customer to feel deeply cared for, which is the essence of the spa experience.
In conclusion, I offer you some words of encouragement: Putting an emphasis on customer service does not sound the death knell for your dreams of therapeutic integrity. Opening your arms to the spa world does not mean you are closing them to clinical work, deep tissue work, energy work, or any other kind of work. People want high quality bodywork, and they want to receive first-class customer service. If you position yourself as one of those rare therapists who understands this and is willing to work within the parameters the spa industry presents, you will have the opportunity to do your therapeutic work, reap the monetary rewards, and have an impact on the spa world as it develops.
Steve Capellini is a noted massage therapist, business trainer, and spa consultant. He’s the author of three texts including The Massage Therapy Career Guide. Capellini has organized and educated the massage staffs at some of the top spas in the country. Contact him at steve@royaltreatment.com.
Share your thoughts! Click here to send a letter to the editor and let us know what you think. Your letter may be used in an upcoming issue of Massage & Bodywork magazine.
Please close window after reading.
