For Spa Owners - How and Why Serving Japanese Green Tea Increases Customer Satisfaction

As a spa owner, you think a lot about how to increase customer satisfaction so that you can keep customers coming back to your spa as well as attract new ones. Since many of my customers happen to be spa owners, I was able to ask around about why Japanese green tea contributes to retaining existing customers and how they use it in their own spas to promote customer satisfaction. They gave me a lot of facts and advice that I would like to share with you now to help you implement Japanese green tea in your own spa’s treatment sessions. This is what I learned:

Nothing Is More Soothing Than a Hot Cup of Tea

Customers come to spas to escape the stresses and worries of their daily lives, which is why spas strive to create a relaxing and calming atmosphere. A cup of hot Japanese green tea can help calm your customers by encouraging them to slow down and savor the hot drink so they can start looking forward to their upcoming treatment. Make sure to tell your customers that the amount of time they spend enjoying their tea won’t affect their treatment time. For example, if they booked a one-hour massage, they still get a full one-hour massage whether they spend 5 or 20 minutes sipping their tea. Otherwise, the customer might rush through this important, relaxing process. To ensure that their customers have plenty of time before and after treatment, one owner told me that they like to allocate an extra half hour into the appointment time. This helps customers feel like they are getting extra value for the price they paid.

Chill out – Cold Tea after Treatment

Since many spa treatments involve heat which can make customers sweat or feel overheated even after treatment, a cold-brewed tea after treatment can bring the customers’ temperatures back down and chill them out both literally and figuratively so that they are energized and ready to go back out into the world. One thing you should keep in mind should you choose to serve cold tea after a treatment is that cold green tea has to be brewed differently than hot green tea, otherwise it won’t taste very good. To make sure that you are brewing a tasty cup of Japanese green tea no matter the temperature, please read this blog post.

Compliment Their Palates with a Light Treat

In traditional Japanese green tea ceremonies, the green tea is typically accompanied by a little delicacy called chagashi which compliments the flavor of the tea. If you can’t obtain chagashi, you can substitute some fruit or another light, healthy snack. It is important to do this after treatment, since providing this combination beforehand could cause an upset stomach in customers with weak or sensitive stomachs.

Adding A Delicate Touch Makes Them Feel Special

Another Japanese tradition is providing restaurant customers with oshibori (a wet towel) as a courtesy so that they can wipe their hands before, during, or after their meal. The temperature of the towel is even tailored to the season, with restaurant owners providing cold towels in the summer and hot towels in the winter. This extra touch communicates to customers that they are valued. You can adapt this to the presentation of the green tea by accompanying it with a little flower (one of my customers prefers little orchids). This delicate touch makes your customers feel special and valued, and therefore more likely to come back again.

Surprising Physical Health Benefits of Premium Green Tea

Adding the consumption of Japanese green tea to your treatments does more than relax customers and make them feel valued—it also has some pretty incredible health benefits! For starters, it is rich in antioxidants which fight cancer-causing free radicals. These antioxidants also boost metabolism, help maintain a healthy body weight, reduce the risk of contracting type 2 diabetes, and help maintain a healthy blood pressure. It also contains theanine, which helps keep the brain and immune system strong as well as other ingredients which are known to help prevent cancer.

 

Finally, green tea has a small amount of caffeine, so customers can feel energized without experiencing the energy crash that comes after a similar amount of coffee. By incorporating green tea into the spa experience and explaining its health benefits, then, you show your customers that you value their overall health. You can learn more about the health benefits of premium Japanese green tea by reading my blog.

Hold the Sugar, Please

Your health-conscious customers will also appreciate green tea because it tastes delicious on its own—no sugar needed. In fact, come varieties of Japanese green tea don’t taste particularly good with sugar. Of course, customers are free to add sugar if that is their preference, but many will appreciate the opportunity to go sugar-free. Some Japanese green teas are naturally sweet (and still calorie free), like this. 

Works Great inside and Out

Lastly, some spa owners have discovered that Japanese green tea doesn’t just work well inside the body. It also works well when applied topically to the skin. Some spa owners have added green tea to their treatment options such as scrubs, soaks, or baths with great success. Green tea, in fact, has many benefits to the skin such as treating acne, slowing the aging process, and fighting skin cancer.

In short, many spa owners that I have spoken with agree that Japanese green tea can go a long way to boosting customer satisfaction, no matter how you decide to implement it. It works because it helps them feel relaxed, valued, and it has many documented health benefits. You can, of course, get creative in how you decide to include Japanese green tea in your spa treatments. From what I have learned from my customers, the most important thing is to ensure that your method takes into consideration the mental and physical health benefits of green tea and makes customers feel special.