Entering the data-driven future

Mountains of information, its careful curation, and the creation of datasets could lead to revolutionary results for spa operators

By Sean tarry
Every spa owner wants to gain a deeper understanding of their customers, possess a keener sense for the trends and future forcing functions that will impact the industry, and enhance the experience they offer customers. Each of these goals on their own present significant challenges and obstacles to overcome in order to achieve them. The task in realizing these goals simultaneously might seem impossible. And it likely is, today. However, with the continued development of advanced technologies and resulting innovation concerning the combined use of data and machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI) models present a range of benefits to spa operators going forward.

Deeper understanding
One of the most compelling uses and potential benefits offered by data is the easy means by which it provides its beholders to gain a deep and comprehensive understanding of their customers that cannot be enabled by any other means. It provides insights that allow a peek inside customer behaviours and attitudes, revealing tendencies and patterns that can allow spa owners and operators to remain a step ahead of their customers’ desires and deliver the treatments, services, and experiences that will engender their trust and loyalty.

Curated future
It’s not just data, however, that enables this incredible power to gain a deeper understanding of your customer. The data is important, and can be gleaned from a number of different sources, including point-of-sale transactions, marketing surveys and initiatives, activity on e-commerce platforms, and more. But what really gives the data the power it needs to fuel AI models and software, providing it with its predictive qualities, is its level of curation. Essentially, the cleaner and more organized data is—segmented into like datasets—the more powerful, and thereby useful, the data will be.

Predictive capabilities
Once data has been curated and organized into datasets, it can then be segmented and leveraged to find analogous examples of opportunities that exist within your operation to capitalize on trends, market shifts, and consumer sentiment. This predictive quality and characteristic inherent within the use of data-informed AI models represents the real potential around data. And, it seems as though we’re currently right on the tipping point of its widespread adoption and use within industries all over the world, making it of critical importance for business owners and operators to begin understanding its nuances and capabilities today to prepare taking advantage of everything it offers tomorrow.

The power of education
Another incredibly beneficial use for data and the AI models that it fuels is the potential that it presents in the way of education. If leveraged properly, using curated data as recommended, data has the power to inform staff, consistently educating them concerning the latest products, treatments, services, and techniques available, as well as those that are most commonly being administered to customers, and the reasons why. As a direct result of staff education, AI also helps support positive customer interactions. Staff can leverage the technology, in combination with their own knowledge, to make powerful recommendations to the customer based on their needs and the types of results that they’re looking for, elevating the experiences they receive tenfold.

The future is intelligent
The clever use and intelligent curation of data, in combination with machine learning, can also be used to inform highly advanced AI models or systems that can help spa owners and operators optimize their operations in a number of different ways, including the enhancement of their purchasing strategies, increased control and management of their inventory, improved marketing efforts, the provision of a more seamless and intuitive omnichannel experience for their customers, and more. Generally speaking, it can enable businesses to improve the speed and accuracy of decision-making while reducing operational costs along the way.
As we look ahead into the future, the use of data, in conjunction with trained AI models, doesn’t seem to be too far away on the horizon, nor does the enormous potential that the combination poses with respect to changes it might influence concerning the way spa businesses operate and the ways in which they provide treatments and services to customers. And, as we move closer to that precipice, the closer the industry gets to creating truly personalized experiences for guests.