It’s one of the most vexing aspects of going for a massage or facial at a spa. Just when you’ve sunk into the treatment bed, zoned out to the zen, and managed to let go of months of pent-up stress, someone on staff starts talking about a litany of issues they have allegedly found with your body, and they try to sell you bottles of remedies like lotions or shampoos.
Spas make a lot of money by selling ancillary products. In fact, on many cruise lines, spas are run by third-party partner businesses, not the cruise company itself, and those spa vendors may even pin employees’ income to how much additional product they’re able to hawk to customers—spa workers might get a cut of around 20% of spa services and around 10% of products sold.
You might be the type of spa customer who can fend off the hard sell without much guilt. Or maybe you love hearing about new products and you welcome the end-of-treatment pitch for whatever serums and creams the specialist recommends. If that describes your outlook, then these tips aren’t for you.
But there are a lot of other people who avoid spas entirely for this very reason. That’s nothing to be ashamed of; we’re all wired differently. For these customers, having to say “no” can rebuild the tension they go to the spa to release. There are also those among us who find removing our clothes in front of strangers uncomfortable enough without that stranger pointing out flaws that we should pay to fix.
For anyone who goes to the spa for treatment and not for trade, there’s something you can do to make sure the staff doesn’t disturb you with the upsell.
Know the exact treatment you want.
Consult the menu of treatments before you make a booking. If you walk into the spa with lots of questions and uncertainty, then any properly trained staff member is going to meet your expectations by offering you a roster of potential services and products that might appeal to you.
But if you walk in knowing the exact treatment you want, the door to uncertainty will remain shut. The first step to keeping your selected spa treatment simple is to keep your wishes simple.
Write “please do not upsell” on the intake form.
Those are the magic words, and they set your expectations right off the bat. By politely telling the staff you do not wish to be disturbed by any product pitches during your session, you can avoid the upsell later on.
You won’t even have to say a word if you don’t want to. Just write your expectation on the form.
As many regular cruisers report, all spas worth their bath salts will honor your request.
And honestly, the more customers write that phrase on their forms, the more spas will get the hint that sales pitches aren’t uniformly popular inside treatment areas.
If you still feel guilty, tip.
Knowing that spa workers may depend on the income from sales commissions, the most tenderhearted among us may still feel uncomfortable with stonewalling from the start. We see those customers, too, and we love them for their empathy.
If you want to make sure your spa professional still gets a little something despite your requested sales ban, ask if you’re free to leave a gratuity to thank the staffer for preserving a relaxed tone. Knowing workers normally get about 10% of product sales might be a clue to how much to leave.
You might even write “please do not upsell—I will tip” on that intake form, as long as you follow through at the end of your session.
However, tipping in lieu of purchasing is not mandatory.
You can still buy products as you leave.
If you still want to hear about the spa’s preferred products, you can hold all discussion about them until you have dressed and returned to the reception area. You can even tell the staff from the start that’s what you intend to do.
