Linda Bankoski is Managing Director of Education and Assessment for SpaQuality LLC,* a company that provides quality management standards (The International Standards of SpaExcellenceSM), education, assessment and certification for spas. She presented The Power of Three (3): How Your Spa Can Thrive Using Quality Management Principles. This presentation was designed to help spa owners and managers identify practical steps take to improve profits and customer satisfaction based on quality principles that have been proven to help many types of organizations. Linda talked about the concepts of simple vs. easy, process improvement, system improvement and right-to-left thinking. She identified the keys to successful spa management through:

Three requirements for improvement

1.  Have an Aim

• Clarify the vision, mission and purpose
• Know what the Guests require
• Design the processes to serve the Guests
• Strive to exceed Guests’ requirements / expectations
• Treat suppliers like partners

2.   Have a Method

• Establish teamwork and values to guide behavior
• Define and use a process to close the gap between current state and desired state

3.  Have a Means of Measurement
Three strategic questions to answer

1. What is the system you use to run your Spa?
2. How do you know the things you ask staff to do are the right things to do for your Guests and Spa business?
3. How do you know that you keep the promises you make?

Three Key Success Factors

1. What do your Guests say about you?
2. What does your staff say about you?
3. What do your performance measures say about you?

Three Barriers to Success

1.   Didn’t ask questions

• Arrogance - thought you knew
• Fear

2.   Misguided or Misinformed

• Ask the wrong questions

3.   Given wrong information

• Can’t learn or unwilling to learn
  Attitude
• Mentally incapacitated
• Altered state of mind (Drugs, alcohol, etc.)

Three critical elements to define
1.   Staff
2.   Processes
3.   Facilities

Three Questions for Improvement
1.   What are we trying to accomplish?
2.   How would we know that a change is an improvement?
3.   What changes can we make that will result in improvement?

Three Steps to Improvement
1.   Identify problems
2.   Determine the root cause
3.   Eliminate the potential for repeat and potential problems

For more information, visit www.spaquality.com