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Health Club Front Desk - Under Valued and Under Prepared
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The Health Club Front Desk - Under Valued and Under Prepared
By recruiting well and providing strong initial training, your club can enjoy bottom line success.
by Geoff Hampton
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The front desk staff represents the first point of contact for both the sale of memberships and the retention of members. Many clubs fail to recognize the importance of these highly-visible staff members and are caught in a cycle of poor candidate selection and poor initial training. The result can be significant in terms of lost annual revenues.
Another under-estimated application for front desk, which is based on false assumptions, is that the front desk can be multi-tasked to include membership sales duties. This results in ever greater lost revenue capabilities and performance potential reduction. While this may seem like a good strategy in terms of budgeting, it is not.
This false assumption generally costs clubs that use the application to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in new membership sales revenues and other opportunities that could have been better managed if the front desk had a stand alone function of customer service.
While the front-desk staff team member is still on the low end of the pay scale, the importance of the position must not be overlooked. It should be considered a professional position, and potential candidates should be interviewed and trained as such.
Recruitment and Selection
Recruitment for front desk is one of the most neglected components of hiring in the wellness industry. For most clubs, the front desk recruitment process represents crisis hiring cycles. Consider the positions of personal training or massage therapy. The industry requires noteworthy certification before a person may even be considered for hire. Then think about the requirements for front desk.
They must have a ride to and from work, be able to speak clearly and if even with one finger task execution must be able to push buttons on the computer keyboard. Yet this is the only position in the club that every member interaction begins with and ends with each visit. Furthermore, this is the first and last impression for all prospects, important person in club visits and is not a position that should be taken lightly.
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Like a good cup of coffee, the front desk person can positively set the mood for the day for each person who walks through the door. The front desk staff should greet every person with friendliness and enthusiasm…
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Recruitment should be an ongoing process, which means that the club advertises in an ongoing manner for good qualified front-desk staff candidates. By advertising on an ongoing basis, the club will have a better opportunity to overcome the crisis hiring cycle and will begin to build a portfolio of qualified candidates.
Types of advertising include print advertising in the wellness employee recruiting websites, newspaper or word-of-mouth through friends, staff or members. A strong, regular advertisement run online or in the local paper will generate a lot of interest. While some clubs consider this type of advertising "wasted revenue," the cost is small compared to the final result.
"Don't forget to check references. A glaring error in staff selection occurs when clubs fail to check references thoroughly. If the candidate is not as good as he/she seems, service will obviously suffer."
Sometimes the best front-desk candidates come from referrals from either current staff or active club members. If you have a professional, motivated employee at the front desk that has a friend interested in a job at your club, consider interviewing him/her. The same can be said for club members.
The next step in establishing a professional, service-driven front-desk staff is selecting the right candidates. This step is less obvious than most club operators realize. For example, not all candidates will "test" well, but they may make terrific front-desk employees. Or, while some clubs may require experience, the person with little previous experience may potentially be the best front-desk employee the club has ever hired.
It is impossible to accomplish a 100-percent efficiency status in hiring, because all people are different. For example, someone may interview great and test fabulously, but not be able to deliver once they are on the job. Mistakes are easily made in a new job, so be objective and realistic. If you are interviewing someone who has an outstanding, motivated personality and their references check out but they don't "test" according to your criteria, don't necessarily count them out.
Don't forget to check references. A glaring error in staff selection occurs when clubs fail to check references thoroughly. If the candidate is not as good as he/she seems, service will obviously suffer.
"Each interview should help the candidate reveal pertinent information about themselves. Use few, if any, questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. The interview is intended to reveal the candidate's strengths and weaknesses, and questions should be open-ended in nature. "
Interviewing
The next step is the interview process. Depending on the size of your club and the structure of your staff, two or even three interviews can be revealing and useful. Interviews should be conducted by the front desk-manager, the sales manager and the club owner/general manager -- in that order. Remember, the potential front desk candidate will hold a highly-visible, important position. He or she will be greeting every member, guest and prospect both on the phone and in person.
Each interview should help the candidate reveal pertinent information about themselves. Use few, if any, questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. The interview is intended to reveal the candidate's strengths and weaknesses, and questions should be open-ended in nature. For example, "What are three personality traits you possess that qualify you to become an outstanding front desk staff employee?" Then ask about weaknesses.
The interviewer should write down candidate responses to make the process most effective. Many times, an interviewer who is inadequately prepared later says, "Oh, I forgot to ask the candidate about...." The best interviews are written and used the same way with every potential employment candidate. Keep the information in the computer so it can be easily printed for each interview. The interviewers can then assess the effectiveness of the questions and the interview format, and easily make appropriate changes as needed.
Each interviewer should cross-reference their notes with those of other interviewers. Obviously, each interviewer will have generally different interests in the candidate and, thus, the questions will be different.
Once the candidate has been interviewed and the management team feels comfortable enough to hire the individual, a standardized test can be introduced. Many companies offer effective standardized tests -- some more difficult than others. Standards established by the testing company should be examined closely. While tests may be effective, the front-desk candidate may still be someone that you collectively decide to hire -- even if they fail the test.
A good way to negotiate this dilemma is to establish a point rating system that allows for a less-than-perfect score in one of the key preliminary hiring elements. This should include "gut feeling," which is simply someone's real, most often accurate, perception of the candidate's personality traits and qualities.
"Customer service thinking is the No. 1 priority of front desk function. This includes all member and prospective member interactions. All must be handled with skill, professionalism and enthusiasm…"
Once the candidate has been selected, an upbeat letter can be mailed to the new employee to build enthusiasm. Make the new-hire feel special, while also building excitement in the new employee about the club and its professional staff. This is a powerful technique and sets the tone for a positive, motivated beginning.
Reiterating Service
In creating the proper mind-set for new front desk staff, it is important to differentiate between "task-oriented thinking" and "customer service-oriented thinking."
Task-oriented thinking can be crippling to the service-driven club. This is when the staff member focuses on the technical application of their job, instead of customer service. While technical application is important, it is not as crucial as customer service.
Customer service thinking is the No. 1 priority of front desk function. This includes all member and prospective member interactions. All must be handled with skill, professionalism and enthusiasm. In other words, no matter what may be going on in the staff member's personal or professional life, when they are at the front desk, they must be truly friendly, professional and efficient.
Remember: Recruit well and provide strong initial training. If your club follows these guidelines, then bottom line success is unavoidable.
About Geoff Hampton
Read more about Geoff Hampton and read his articles.
Go to About Geoff Hampton.
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