Category: Interview

Ms. Jaclyn Yan, General Manager of Swissline, China

MC Fifi: Swissline has done a lot online. Being a product brand and an offline service provider, why do you want to do so much online support? 

As a brand owner, I know what is the most essential. I can’t do everything from upstream, midstream to downstream, otherwise I would lose the focus. We work with some big clients who may have more than 100-200 branches and one of the founders once told me that his general manager said to him: “We already have so many branches. We can actually develop products of our own, because it will help us save the cost.” But this founder said: It’s not difficult to develop products in China, but do you have enough brand awareness? Do you have enough research capacity? The biggest risk in China is that your product may be copied by others any time. Maybe it sells very well this year, but will it continue to sell well next year? For him, the important thing is to keep improving the services instead of creating a new product brand.  He believes that it’s a wise option to completely entrust the product development work to a professional brand. And Swissline is such a brand that can be trusted.

When it comes to marketing, a lot of agencies come to me and say which celebrities are using our products and suggest me to spend more on the promotion of that. Is it necessary? I think it’s necessary and that’s what I’m doing. But I’m not trying to say how great we are because the stars choose our products. That’s not what I mean. I need to really find out the crucial point for marketing.

To improve sales performance, I have always put my emphasis on offline customers because my main focus is offline. I am not so much focusing on online sales. Then why do I still spend a lot of energy online? I always tell my clients that one of the benefits of working with Swissline is that you will have an extra marketing department. I am your marketing department and I can help you integrate resources from all sides. Taking Meituan for example, many small-scale companies keep struggling for a good rating on Meituan.  But if you work with a trustable product brand, it will benefit you a lot. For instance, we will join forces with some service providers or equipment providers, such as Lumenis, to negotiate with Meituan on behalf of our clients about how to let you get more exposure. At that moment, we are in fact standing in the upstream position.  So it means we are in charge of all the marketing and promotion work and the spas can concentrate on their own operations. This mode is especially applauded by some old spas because their strength lies in customer services.

MC Fifi: You have a very clear line of thought. It’s true that many spas lack experience in online marketing.

Right. So we need a division of labour. The spas can just focus on what they are good at, such as education and training, maintaining customer relations and building better social venues. And it’s for the brand like Swissline to consider how to guide customers to the partnering spas, how to help spas select quality customers, and how to combine the online with offline. Swissline has its own Tmall flagship shop, but we didn’t strongly promote it during Double 11. Nowadays, consumers are keen on searching through various online platforms. Especially when you introduce them to a new brand, they will go to Dianping, Xiaohongshu, TikTok, Taobao to get more information. So we have to have an online shop. But after that, our Taobao customer service comes across many women asking: “You are a professional brand. Where can I enjoy the Swissline facial?” And that’s what we’re going to do next. For the urban consumers, when she buys our products online, we will give her a treatment voucher free of charge. I often say that Swissline acts as a bridge, and many of our consumers are introduced to the spas through us. We will also do some supervision to ensure a standardized treatment experience at the spas so that they won’t change the treatment for cost’s sake. That is indeed a very good way of cooperation. So for Swissline, we will focus on the product development and updates, and at the same time, give our partnering spas enough marketing support, which comes in the form of being involved in certain online channels. Meanwhile, we will also provide clients with service and training support.

Ms. Elaine Ye, Founder of Elaine Art SPA

MC Fifi: You are an expert in the offline business and have been in the beauty industry for 17 years, with rich experience in skin management, body massage and direct communication with end customers. What do you think is the key for doing offline business and what are the essential points?

The year before last, I made a transformation of my company. Previously I was in charge of five chain boutique beauty salons, and now I have transformed them into two brands, one is an art spa brand and the other is for skin management.

From beauty salon to spa, they may seem to belong to the same industry, but there really is a big difference. During the one year’s transformation, my operational manager and I have really gone through a complete change. I told my manager that my competitor is not other spa brands, but the needs of my customers, and that lies at the essence of my business.

As owners of a physical business such as a spa, we must be looking strategically 3-5 years ahead into the future. At the time when I decided to turn to the spa business, what I did first was to cut out almost all the middle and senior management personnel. I took only my manager with me on the new journey.  I understand that the crazy sales mode at the beauty salons just don’t match the healing concept of the spas, so now we turn sales into marketing. They are two different things. When faced with a guest who got to know us through Dianping, in the past we would continue to talk and do sales, but now we learn to keep quiet. Instead, we try to communicate with them silently with our warm services and offerings that awaken the five senses. So without any sales behavior during the entire process, we have attracted a lot of quality customers.

I now feel very relieved and happy after the business transformation, although there were pains on the way. In China, people lack a comprehensive understanding of the essence of SPA. When I was in the beauty industry, our salon was always visited by other salons’ owners because they thought our labor efficiency was quite high. Basically, we could achieve an annual turnover of 30-50 million yuan at a venue of just 200 square meters. Everyone came to learn from us because of our ability to attract loyal customers and our impressive sales performance. But after our successful transformation, I realized that a true spa experience is the healing of body and soul, which is not the focus of a beauty salon. So I believe I am a pioneer in the business transformation.

MC Fifi: What do you think of online operations?

To sell products online, you need to simplify it as much as possible.  The simpler and clearer, the better for marketing and for traffic guiding. And you also need a constant stream of newcomers, because you may lose the online consumers very easily. I think doing online business is about making complicated things simple, but when we do offline business, we will make simple things complicated. In our spa, when a customer comes in, we will never let her down and we will try to make her willingly follow us continually. That’s the advantage of the experienced offline spa owners.

We are very good at running offline business and have been exploring the area for 17 years. If you’re doing well in the online field, I don’t think you need to build a team of your own. We can join hands together and form a strong cooperation. is really a great thing if you can convert online traffic to offline business.

There are actually some existing spas which are already doing a good job with their operations and there are many things you may not need to do from scratch again. You can work together with them. It’s just a matter of complementing your shortcomings. You can get the feedback from the spas, whether it is a lack of product lines, or a failure to meet the actual needs of the customers. 

We have been in business for many years, and we are able to generate 30 to 50 million yuan of revenue from just over 100 customers. It’s mainly because of our attentive services to the customers. For example, if she catches a cold, our manager will immediately give her the medicine. Another case is that we will also help customers to do menstrual management. So I think the online business must be combined with the offline business so as to deliver a better body and soul healing experience and let every woman feel they are being pampered, respected and cared for. This is my goal.

Regarding quality customers. In the past, our spa managers would think that the customers who came to us from the online channels were those who sought discounts. But now our perception has completely changed. This year, the conversion rate for customers coming into the spa from online channel is basically 80-90%, with an annual spend of 200,000 to 300,000 yuan. Online customers are not as reluctant to spend as you might think. It’s true that they try to look for discounts online, but that doesn’t mean they are not quality customers. We have to give them more time. Maybe she will come to test you 2-3 times, to experience the services and to get to know you. She may just come to have a cup of coffee. So as an offline spa owner, we really have to be patient and take care of our customers from the heart.

MC Fifi: You are an offline expert, but I know you also have an online mall. Could you share more details with us? 

When we are doing offline business, we must consider the needs of our customers in many different ways. Apart from meeting our customers’ beauty and health needs when they are at the spa, I am always thinking what kind of added value I can bring to them. This online mall is actually a platform to sell selected quality green food. We do not sell our skincare products or treatments on the platform. Today, our customers can buy everything they want, so it’s usually hard to give them something as a good present. When operating the platform, we don’t ask our customers to buy products, but freely give them as a gift after their have spent certain sum of money at the spa and deliver food to their homes. When they try the food, they like it and will naturally come to buy them from the platform.

What modern women, especially the women in big cities, want most is something they find hard to find. Most of our customers are celebrities or business managers and they also have their roles to play in the family. They want something to enhance their identity in the family, and the things at this online mall can truly meet their expectations. For example, there are a lot of dumplings (zongzi) out there, but the dumplings in our mall are distinctive. They are handmade and you can’t buy them anywhere else. We will give them the best waxberry when the season for waxberry comes. She may not want anything else from you, but the best quality ones. What women want is not the most expensive, but the best and unique.

With time, they will believe that there is nothing good that they can’t get from Elaine Art SPA and that the things Elaine Art SPA offer must be the best. I also tell my staff that this little online shopping mall is also an important factor to keep our customers stay with us. They will feel that Elaine Art SPA runs not only a spa but a high quality lifestyle. It is a must for a spa that has run over 10 years to deliver impressive treatment results. But above that, after the customers leave the spa, how to help them feel good in their daily life and empower them with a high quality lifestyle? This online shop helps a lot.

Those of us born in the 1970s are really green hands at online business. It’s great that there are now online platforms like this to help us avoid some of our weaknesses. The future trend must be a combination of online and offline business. Offline, we provide perfect services to customers and form a good interaction with them; online, we keep enhancing the product quality and attract more online traffic. In this way, we can realize a dual-operation of online and offline business.