I’m writing this one partly to myself. I think we all expected there to be a slowdown by this point, a catch-up period where our industry can get back to normal.
That is not happening.
We obviously run vastly different businesses, but I’ve started to notice that we’re making stupid mistakes lately. We’d normally catch things like a misspelled word or printing the wrong state in which a manufacturer is located. We can get things wrong on our good days, but when your team is stretched thin and people are burnt out, your eyes and brain can disconnect.
In reading some recent Facebook posts and Google reviews, my guess is that you are starting to see the same in your business. It’s understandable — we’ve all been drinking from a fire hose the last year.
One of the worst things that could happen in our industry is a wave of unhappy and disappointed customers, and squandered opportunities during this influx of sales. That is why manufacturers, despite the incredible stress of materials shortages, must still pump out spas without defects. That means retailers, despite quoting long wait times and answering more phone calls in a day than they used to in a month, must still be prompt in answering customer questions.
In this issue, we talk about updates you can make now to your operations. That’s what we’re doing. It’s a lot of work to update systems, software and procedures, but we hope the payout is saved time, less stress, a better customer experience and an industry elevated in both sales and reputation.
In closing, the deaths of Mark Henderson and Rich Werber hit our industry hard. They were both well-respected and had been in the pages of SpaRetailer several times. My thoughts are with their friends and families.
Best,
Megan Kendrick, publisher
megan@kendrickcontent.com