COVID-19 Opportunity: First Steps in Preparing to Open Your Spa After COVID Closures

While it’s true that, whether you’re located here in Victoria, British Columbia or anywhere else within North America, there are no confirmed dates for spas and skin care clinics reopening, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be preparing for when those dates do get unveiled! While reopening may seem like a far away dream, a previous client of mine in Norway has been given the go-ahead to reopen on April 27th… meaning that putting together a plan for when you reopen may not be as premature as we all originally thought!

On top of the financial stress brought about by COVID-19, I empathize with spa business owners who are juggling the personal stress of having young children at home during this time as well; while my youngest is now 18 and can no longer be classified as “little”, I’ve dedicated this month to conducting trainings on crisis-oriented success redefinement, retail opportunities and concerns, leadership tips, recommended marketing pivots, and business continuity because it is my aim that you have to time to take care of yourself and your emotional well-being during what is an incredibly stressful time (especially you, moms with children at home during quarantine!) You have so many balls up in the air alongside grappling with the financial implications of the unknown, which is why, today, I will be walking you through the three main systems within your business you should be refurbishing ahead of your spa’s reopening.

System #1: Team and Client Safety When Reopening Your Spa After COVID-19

A hot topic in my free spa owners-only Facebook group, Spa Business Mastery, at the moment is expanded sanitation protocols to keep you, your staff, and your clients safe upon reopening.

While all spa owners already take great pride in their thorough sanitation protocols, expanding your spa business’s after COVID-19 could include the following:

• Staff wearing full face shields to protect both themselves and clients from the spread of airborne viruses

• A renewed emphasis on glove-wearing and glove-changing between clients

• Staff donning paper gowns or other protective garb

• Potentially changing up your laundry process (whether that be washing laundry in hot water, bleach, etc.)

• What other extra disposables your spa business may need, such as paper bed sheets for waxing clients

• Bumping up your once-a-week deep clean to perhaps twice-a-week in the wake of COVID-19

“But Kirsten,” you may be saying, “is just switching up my sanitization protocol enough to keep both my staff and my clients healthy?” It’s a fantastic question, and one that leads to my second staff-and-client protective protocol switch-up: the question of whether you will be implementing client screening when you reopen your spa business’s physical location.

Now, the spa industry is not the only one who is already thinking of switching up their protocols upon reopening: within the restaurant industry, for example, there is already talk of temperature-testing diners upon entry. Some existing marketing clients of mine have already had my team put together client intake forms for when they onboard new clients, so for those of you who already have that system in place then adding pre-appointment forms in order to screen clients could be an easy add-on that will help keep both your clients and your staff safe.

Last but certainly not least, if you have a team then revisiting their training will be essential upon reopening your spa business’s physical location after COVID-19 has subsided in order to ensure that each and every one of your team members are clear on what your new protocol is. The best part of that is that you don’t have to wait to see your team in person-- hop on Zoom to start debriefing them ahead of time!

System #2: Spa Client Care in a Post-COVID World

Now, reevaluating your client care policies will be critical for both consumer satisfaction and safety. This could look like:

• Piecing together new booking policies so that you avoid having over three people in your waiting room at a time

• A new pre-pay policy. In Spa Business Mastery, one of the many community-shared articles touched on the idea of asking for a credit card number in advance in order to hold that clients’ spot; however, reopening will be the perfect time to implement this kind of pre-pay policy due to the enhanced reasoning behind needing to clients to pay a no-show fee

• Reconsidering your spa flow (how many people can you handle in your spa at one time, staff schedule revamps so that there are not too many staff members in the spa at one time, etc.)

• Funnelling clients into virtual appointments if possible (consultations in particular are great for this!)

System #3: Cash Flow (A.K.A, Variable Expenses and Your Spa Business’s COVID-19 Cash Flow Forecast)

Now, onto (perhaps the biggest!) elephant in the room here: cash flow. Although we don’t have a reopening date yet for spas, examining your cash flow will be absolutely critical for your business continuity plan: you knew how cash was flowing through your spa business pre-closure, but post-reopening your expenses and cash flow will be variable. 

My key suggestion? Make a cash flow forecast for the next four to six months in order to get a clearer idea of how much money you need to either break even or profit. As a former spa owner myself, my favourite way to do this is to create different scenarios for different labour choices: for example, decide, in advance, which of your team members (if you have a team!) will be returning first. Since that will, in all likelihood, not be your entire team, crunch out what the numbers would look like if you brought back up to three staff members directly after reopening. Go month-by-month to see what you would have the financial capacity for, labour-cost wise.

While cash flow forecasting right now is, indeed, playing with numbers because the current state of affairs is so up in the air right now, what it will do is lend you a sense of peace: having even a rough sketch of what your spa business my look like on the other side of this is far less stressful than having no idea or plan at all.

Now, spa owner, I want to hear from you: are you already thinking about your reopening? Which points above for your existing protocols will you be considering?

As always, please feel free to reach out for further resources and spa business support to help your spa business thrive post-COVID!