Pulse Legacy Archive January / February 2012 | Page 51

We decided to use the opportunity
to hold a private ResortSuite User
Meeting as we have many customers
who attend the ISPA Conference each
year. The session was well-attended and
we had a full agenda of tips and tricks,
best practices, new features, latest
product offerings and extensions, and
advanced training.
But perhaps one of the best benefits
from holding an ISPA Master Vendor
Training Session is the quality of feedback
and inputs we received from real customers. These are critical inputs that help
drive our business decisions and future
product direction. From an investment
standpoint, the quality of customer
inputs we received from the session alone
is one return on investment that we can’t
simply put a price on.
WIN FOR SPAS

For spa directors and executives who
attended our Master Vendor Training
Session, it was an opportunity to
expand their knowledge about the latest
technology, products and trends. Similar
to Conference where education is the
top reason why attendees attend the
event, the educational value of the
session was clearly its biggest draw. For
our clients, the key takeaways from the
session were critical in ensuring efficiencies in spa operations back home.
On top of the training and education,
the Master Vendor Training Sessions also
provided the audience the opportunity
to interact and ask questions. While
others may think that all these benefits
can be achieved on the Expo floor,
giving no reason to invest in a private
training session, there is a tremendous
difference in the quality of interactions

”...I knew it was going to be
a win-win opportunity by
providing our spa clients
with free education, a
forum to share experiences with their peers, an
opportunity to preview
our latest innovations and
provide input on future
product direction.“
for clients to learn the latest innovations
in a more organized, shared and
dynamic environment which may be difficult to attain while on the Expo floor,
especially when Expo visitors are competing for a vendor’s attention.
In addition, those who attended the
session and received the information
beforehand from our team (and their
peers!), were able to spend more time to
explore other product categories or

attend the numerous education provided
at Conference. The best part for us is
that there was a viral buzz around our
vendor training session which led to
potential prospects stopping by our Expo
booth after hearing peers talk about our
latest solutions, services, products and
training.
In the end, we made the modest
investment to provide our clients a dedicated and on-site training session. In
return, we feel we created a tremendous
amount of goodwill amongst our most
valuable asset, our customers. For
someone who experienced first-hand the
benefits of conducting a Master Vendor
Training Session, I fully recommend to
any resource partner to take advantage
of the opportunity to hold a private
session for their customers or an open
session where they can present information in ways that can’t be done on the
show floor.
And, unlike most things in Vegas,
everybody wins! ■

January/February 2012

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