Spa and wellness customer loyalty: turn a day guest into a regular in 5 steps

Loyalty in wellness has one problem a hairdresser does not have: the average guest comes one to three times a year, usually with a gift voucher. Move that day guest to four visits a year and you double the revenue from the customers you already have. Below are five steps to do it, from a loyalty card with five stamps to a membership for the guest who already comes often.

In short

• The goal is not "every week", it is "four times a year" instead of once.
• A card with five stamps and a free day entry is realistic and it works.
• Quiet-day offers go only to guests you know, never to everyone.

The maths behind the day guest

A sauna or wellness centre lives off Saturdays and off gift vouchers. That is pleasant in December and hard on a Tuesday in March. Weekday occupancy is the number that decides your profit: heating, staff and water cost the same whether 30 or 300 guests walk in.

So the day guest with a voucher is not your customer yet, they are your opening. They have had the experience, they liked it (otherwise they would not have got this far), and now they will not think about you for a year. Every step below is there to make that year shorter.

Reichheld and Schefter showed in Harvard Business Review that existing customers are worth more with every extra year: they know the menu, they book more expensive packages and they bring other people along. For a wellness centre that counts double, because almost nobody comes alone.

Step 1: give the day guest a reason to come back before they are out the door

The best place for loyalty work is the desk at check-out. The guest is relaxed, happy and has time. Two things work there:

A loyalty card with five stamps. One stamp per visit, a free day entry at five stamps. Give the first stamp straight away. Five visits is two to three years for a sauna guest, so do not put an expiry date on it. The card sits in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet, because a paper card for a once-a-year visit is guaranteed to get lost.

A discount on the next visit within 8 weeks. "Come back within eight weeks and your entry is 25 percent cheaper." This pulls the guest out of the yearly rhythm.

The page about the loyalty card for wellness and spas shows what such a card looks like on the guest's phone.

Step 2: sell a reason to come back

Packages are the wellness version of the upsell, and you already have them. What is usually missing is the package that contains a second visit.

| Package | What is in it | What it does | |---|---|---| | Wellness day | Entry, lunch, towel | The standard product | | Wellness for two | Two entries, package, massage for both | More revenue per visit | | Come-again package | Entry today plus an entry within 3 months at a lower rate | A second visit, sold in advance | | Season pass | 4 entries, valid 1 year, 15 percent off | Four visits a year, paid in one go | | Membership | Monthly fee, 10 or unlimited visits | Fixed revenue, a regular guest |

The come-again package and the season pass are the two that take the day guest to four visits a year. Both can sit as a card in the wallet, with the number of remaining visits on it.

Step 3: fill the quiet days with a message to guests you know

The biggest mistake wellness centres make is putting a discount on social media. Everyone sees it, including the guest who was coming on Saturday anyway and now pays 20 percent less.

Better: a message to the guests you know, at the moment it is quiet. Tuesday morning, 9 o'clock: "It is quiet with us today and tomorrow. Two entries for the price of one, just for you." That message goes to guests who visited in the past six months and have the card in their wallet.

What you need: a list of guests with their last visit, and a way to reach them. A digital loyalty card gives you both. The stamp is the visit date, and the message arrives as a notification on their phone, with no email and no app.

Step 4: offer the membership to the guest who has already earned it

A membership is not for the day guest. It is for the guest who already comes three or four times a year and pays the same amount at the desk every time. For that guest a monthly fee is cheaper and easier, and for you it is fixed revenue.

The price: a little under two day entries per month. With a day entry of 35 euro, 59 to 69 euro per month is a normal figure, with ten or unlimited visits. Always cancellable monthly, because a yearly contract scares people off.

The moment: at the fourth stamp on the loyalty card. "You have been here four times this year. With a membership you would have saved 60 euro." That message can go out automatically, and it lands exactly when the guest is open to it.

More about how a membership works alongside a stamp card, with examples from other trades, is in loyalty programme examples.

Step 5: send the message at the right moment, not every week

According to The Loyalty Report by Bond, a consumer belongs to more than fifteen loyalty programmes and uses fewer than half of them. The difference is in the messages: programmes that send something every week get ignored, programmes that send something relevant three times a year get used.

For a wellness centre these are the four moments:

1. Two days after the visit. "Good to see you. Your first stamp is on your card." With a review request, only to guests who had been before.
2. Eight weeks after the visit. The come-again discount, if it has not been used.
3. Quiet days. See step 3, twice a month at most.
4. The birthday. A free upgrade or a second entry at half price in the birthday month. This is the message with the highest usage of all four.

Nothing more is needed. Every extra campaign takes attention away from the four that work.

What happens if you do this for a year

Worked example for a centre with 6,000 unique guests a year, of which 4,500 are day guests with a single visit.

• Without a programme: 4,500 guests, 4,500 visits.
• With a loyalty card and a come-again package: if 20 percent of those guests come one extra time, that is 900 extra visits.
• At an average spend of 55 euro per visit (entry plus food and drink) that is almost 50,000 euro in extra revenue, on days that would otherwise have been quiet.

The cost: the free entries at the fifth stamp (a fraction, because most guests do not reach five within a year) and a digital card of a few tens of euros a month.

Frequently asked questions

How do you get more regular guests in a sauna or wellness centre?

Give the day guest a reason to come back within three months: a loyalty card with a reward they can actually reach, an offer for quiet days that goes only to guests you know, and a message while the last visit is still fresh. A membership is the next step for guests who already come four times a year.

Does a loyalty card work for a sauna?

Yes, as long as the number of stamps is low. Sauna guests come a few times a year on average, so five stamps is realistic and ten is not. The reward: a free day entry on the sixth visit, or an upgrade on a package. Put the card in the guest's wallet, because a paper card for a once-a-year visit will be lost.

What is a good price for a wellness membership?

A little under the price of two day entries per month, with unlimited or ten visits per month. With a day entry of 35 euro, 59 to 69 euro per month is normal. Cancellable monthly, because otherwise nobody dares to sign up.

How do you fill quiet days in a sauna?

With an offer that goes only to guests you know, not to everyone. A message on Tuesday morning to guests who visited in the past six months: "Today and tomorrow: two entries for the price of one." That fills the quiet day without giving a discount on a busy Saturday.

How often does an average guest visit a sauna?

Most guests of a wellness centre come one to three times a year, often with a gift voucher or for a special occasion. A small group comes monthly or more often. The point of loyalty work is to move that first group towards four times a year.

Want to try it yourself?

Start with step 1: a loyalty card with five stamps, handed out at check-out. Set it up in five minutes with the loyalty card for wellness and spas. Free to start, no app for your guests, and the quiet-day message is included. If you run a smaller place, look at the loyalty card for massage salons.