WINNER
WINNER: Best of the Best Salon/Spa of the Year, 2009
Complexions Spa for Beauty & Wellness
221 Wolf Road, Albany, NY
518-489-5231
Owner: Denise Dubois
Year Founded: 1987
Mission Statement
“To create a sanctuary offering beauty and wellness services in an environment that supports that philosophy not only for our guests, but also for our employees and for the local environment as well.”
Employees: 24+
Stations: 33
8 Hair Styling Stations, 2 Barber Chairs, 13 Spa Treatments Rooms, 2 Medi-Spa Rooms,
4 Manicure and 4 Pedicure Stations
Describe the culture of your business—how do you want clients to feel when they walk through the door?
Our customers seem to most often use the words Friendly, Professional, Knowledgeable, Warm, Eco, Pure and Inviting when reviewing Complexions both online and off. That their reflections on the experiences and services we provide not only champion traits that every good beauty business should have but also a few other, far more fresh and forward-looking ideals is the secrete behind our continued success. By striving to consistently create singularly exceptional experiences that provide appreciably more value to our guests than even the sum of their wonderfully valued parts has had a tremendously positive effect not only them but our employees as well. Regarding first impressions, as soon as you enter through the main doors of our salon and spa, you are instantly met with the soothing sounds of trickling water from our rain-water fountain and natural smell of essential oils from our products and therapies. We want our environment to be inviting and comfortable for both men and women, and for our guests to feel the natural qualities of our eco-friendly facility.
What makes you different than other salons/spas?
Complexions Spa for Beauty & Wellness is not only the first LEED Gold Certified Spa for New Construction in America, but also a 2008 EnergyStar Small Business of the Year recipient. These honors ratify the authenticity of our commitment to providing our clients with a wellness experience that is as energy efficient as it is environmentally friendly. We believe being efficient on both the operational and facility level creates serious savings that can then be passed down to our customers — creating extra value that we have found is really hard to match. We also believe that a guest’s wellness experience is only as good as the environment that it is provided in. The vast majority of buildings are awash in chemical, biological and particulate pollutants linked to many chronic illnesses. Complexions Spa strives to not only minimize these harmful toxins but also educate both our guests and greater community on the benefits of working and living within environments that help our bodies to be their absolute healthiest — each and every day.
List courses and other learning opportunities that you and your employees have participated in over the past year:
Annually, we map out training classes for each of our departments. We work with our vendors and bring in educators to keep our service providers abreast of the most current and popular trends. Since January, our stylists have had two fashion color classes, a techniques cutting class, an updo class, Brazilian Keratin Straightening and two business building classes. In our massage, nail and esthetics department, we routinely bring in outside educators to guarantee and fine-tune the authenticity of the spa ritual treatments we offer. Most recently, they have had classes in breathing techniques, new tribal rituals and focused product knowledge. Along with the importance of technique building, we feel it is also extremely beneficial to teach our service providers and front support staff the importance of business building skills. Twice a year, we bring in an outside consultant/coach to reinforce core team building and business skills that support not only the future growth of our business but our employee’s careers as well. In addition to our in house training, all employees are required to attend two endorsed outside classes for which we provide education dollars for.
What three words best describe your business as a whole?
Efficient, Authentic, Pure
What is your customer service philosophy?
When talking about customer service to out employees, We like to use the example of the difference between “good” and “great”. Our philosophy is to provide them with an experience that exceeds their expectations and leaves a lasting impression. When they get what they expected… that is just “good”. We have to work at exceeding what they thought they would get. That is when you have reached “great”. We want our guests to leave with 110% satisfaction. If we ever have a complaint we tell our staff to ask the question “What can we do to resolve this for you?” Then we do it. If a client is not completely satisfied, if we have to give them another massage all over again so they experience it the way it was intended, we will. Once the client is taken care of, we then determine as a team what we can do to assure the same mistake is not repeated. The difference between good and great to our guest is whether or not they leave with more than they expected.
What promotions do you conduct?
We currently have several promotions that we measure. We have an e-mail club which sends out 2–3 emails per month, we host monthly “sparties” featuring one of our departments with a goal to introduce our clients to new service experiences and products in a fun and social setting (our clients have really grown to enjoy these), we have three levels of membership for our men in the barber spa, we offer a spa membership/loyalty program for the ladies, we have a referral program, and a retail club. Recently we introduced our guests to the Complexions Facebook page to highlight specials, last-minute promotions and unique community building contests for our “fans” which gives them a direct link to us as often as they wish.
What’s exciting, new, unique and enticing about your menu?
Our menu of services is truly unique. After traveling to research many treatments that would uphold our philosophy of being environmentally friendly along with a true focus on wellness and health benefits, we created a menu of proven traditional and modern therapies from around the world using only the finest plant and herbal remedies available. When we put these services on our menu it is crucial that we provide our guests with the authentic methods. For example, we offer an extraordinary Sumunprai Hot Poultice Thai Massage that our therapists have been trained to perform as closely to the original 14th–18th century purification ritual as humanly possible. We also offer mani-kur and pedi-kur treatments using Kneipp hydro-therapy techniques developed by Dr. Sebastian Kneipp in the mid-1800s that have done wonders for fatigued and over/hyper stressed clients. Our success rests within our ability to affectively assimilate our array of autonomous treatments into one single harmonious whole. All of our services include full use of our steam rooms, sauna, relaxation lounge, locker rooms, rainfall showers and organic tea bar. Our clients make great use of these ‘extra’ features and often tell us how much they enjoy & appreciate the ‘added-value’.
How does your salon/spa look, feel, smell, and sound?
Complexions was designed using materials that were eco friendly and to be the most efficient. When you walk in you will notice the warmth from the earth tones used in paint and wall covering, natural materials like stone and marble and the unique wood used throughout. The cork flooring offers a beautiful esthetic quality along with the soft feel and the acoustical benefit. The smell is very fresh and clean especially because the absence of VOCs and the clean air quality control. The lighting is soft yet we incorporate LED, and natural sunlight florescent bulbs using less than one watt per square foot. Our clients have their choice of music in each of our treatment rooms while we play a more upbeat music selection in our salon and retail boutique
How does your décor and mood shape your brand image?
The eco-friendly building materials, our reduction in energy consumption even while doubling the size of our business, the warm and natural shapes and colors all completely supports our philosophy of being a “green” spa and salon. Everything we did in an effort to receive our Gold LEED certification supports a brand image focused on the total end-to-end experience, for both our clients and ourselves. In today’s highly competitive spa and salon markets, there’s really no room for taking shortcuts to perfect skin, hair, relaxation or rejuvenation, only more efficient and effective means of attaining them. In the end, we believe the Complexions brand is many things to many people — some love us for the soft-touch of corked floors and the natural smell of 4-zone-5-times-filtered air; others love the warm professionalism, knowledge and skill of our staff and diversity and quality of treatments and therapies offered; and still others enjoy the cleanliness of our rooms and ability to freely enjoy extra amenities including steam, sauna, relaxation solarium and tea bar.
Has your business undergone a recent expansion? If so, please explain why you chose this new look.
Yes, one year ago, we moved into our new 8500 sq. ft. facility. When we had the opportunity to buy a building and leave the strip mall we were in for 20 years, we made the decision to take our guests experience to the highest level by providing their services in an eco-friendly, toxin free environment that more perfectly supported the health benefits. We also thought that it was important to provide our employees with a facility that considerably lowered their exposure to common indoor air pollutants like volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which according to the American Lung Association contribute to the development of cancer and many chronic respiratory diseases. Beauty and wellness go hand in hand and we believe that going “LEED Certified Green” is a natural “next step” for the spa/salon industry.
What do you do to stay involved in your community?
We are constantly asked to participate in many charitable events. We have made a commitment to get involved in at least two fundraising events every month. When we had our grand opening party last year, we celebrated by hosting a fund raiser for the American Cancer Society and raised over $5,000 in just one night. Just last month, we hosted “National Cancer Survivor Day” offering free services to cancer survivors, for Christmas we collected needed supplies and Toys for the Ronald McDonald House, we have donated to many organizations: American Cancer Society, American Heart Association, The Center for the Disabled, Prostate Cancer, Alzheimer, Arthritis, Ronald McDonald House, MS, HIV, Children’s causes, local hospitals, schools, the arts, back stretch workers, and many more. Over the years we have donated everything from our time, single services to entire days at the spa which have helped raise well over a million dollars.
How often do you meet with your staff for goal-setting, personnel reviews or progress discussions?
We meet with staff from each department once a month. On Fridays we work with a different department and meet with everyone in that group for a one on one meeting. We sit down privately to review their growth and areas needing a little assistance. During that time we plan a strategy for the next month and set new easy to measure goals. These one-on-one sessions provides all employees the opportunity to speak freely about any and all concerns. Additionally, we meet with the appointed department mangers once a month followed the next day with a staff meeting with everyone. We stay in constant contact which we feel is crucial to the growth of our service providers, support staff and the company as a whole.
Describe your business goals.
Within the next year we plan to add 2 estheticians, 2 massage therapists, 1 nail technician, and 2 more hairstylists. We would like to strengthen our associate training program attracting more new individuals entering the spa/salon industry which would result in potential new hires. We also plan to increase our male clientele by 7% which will draw even more clients to our Barber Spa. We also intend to finalize the launch of our Organic Skincare eShop that will feature several niche but amazing product lines that visitors will be hard-pressed to find anywhere else online.
Long term, we would like to continue strengthening our on line SEO/SEM and e-mail marketing resulting in less print forms of advertising. We would also like to increase our online product and gift card sales. Finally, we wish to finish the development of our own signature brand eco-friendly facial, hair and body care products as well as makeup.
