How to Manage Health Club Guests

"I'm Ivan Madar, I'm here on behalf of Expert Village. As a manager, then you can look at the big picture. And, worry about long term planning, worry about other areas of the spa, rather than micromanaging the staff. The micromanaging is the word that we just don't want to hear. People should do their jobs and nobody should be standing behind them, following or making sure they are doing their jobs. If they are not doing it, you are wasting your time and you cannot concentrate on actual, the important things that you're supposed to do. Now, the managing people involves managing the guests and managing the members, and dealing with the members. That is one area that is very seldom written about. We always talk about guest service, we hear phrases such as guest is always right or customer is always right. Now, what does it really mean? That, you know, we going to bend over every time that guests request something. Obviously that's not always possible. We have to work within the limits, what do we have to offer here. But, the basic principal is you have to look at members and guests as what they are. They are guests. They are not here for anything else except to receive a service or a product that we provide. Where conflicts happen, especially in the industry of fitness and tennis where a lot of very confidant people who came from the athletic field are really projecting themselves in a very narcissistic and kind of pompous dictator position as managers. Manager has to realize that he is not the focus of this business. It's the membership or the guests that really are the focus of the business. And the manager should be a leader who stays quietly behind and makes decision behind the scenes. You don't go to members and if there's a conflict or some sort of dispute and say "it is so, because I'm the manager or it is so because it's written in the policy, or it is so because I run this place." Nobody wants to hear that. You want to come across as a person who is listening to peoples problems. If someone is complaining, they are complaining for a reason. Sometimes the reason could be addressed. Sometimes it can not be resolved, but the person has to leave with an answer that they are satisfied with, even though if the problem was not resolved, they are set to their satisfaction because the expectations were different."