Category: Interview

Interview with Ms. Liu Qing, the Founder of Green SPA Management and Consultancy

In 2001, the first Green Massage opened at Shanghai Xintiandi. Now Green Massage, together with Green SPA, has become the leading industry brand in Shanghai.

Brand and quality are particularly stressed by Ms. Liu Qing, the Founder of Green SPA. Since the group’s high-end branch brand Urban Retreat entered the Portman Ritz-Carlton Shanghai in 2012, more international brand hotels have come to invite Ms. Liu Qing to cooperate. But she always has specific considerations when choosing partners.

After three years’ preparation, a new group brand debuted in Beijing in 2016 – Green Essence, located at the most stylish area of Beijing, Sanlitun. Covering 3,000 square meters, Green Essence integrates SPA, high quality fitness, an infinite landscape swimming pool and Tea Lounge. Combining grace and style, energy and serenity, Green Essence has set the benchmark of quality life in Beijing.

For the past 16 years, Ms. Liu Qing has accomplished an amazing transformation. As a business woman working on the frontline, she also has a happy marriage and two lovely kids. She infuses the gentleness and care of a mother into her career as well. Green SPA has won many awards in the past 16 years and has been awarded successively by SpaChina in 2015 and 2016.

Green Massage leaves a deep impression on guests with its artful design. What are the key goals on design?

What we want to deliver to our guests is not only a store or a treatment, but rather a brand’s cultural value. We don’t deliver it by what we say alone, but through every detail guests face after they step into the store. The environment gives the most direct feeling. That’s why we attach much important to the design of each store.

Green Massage advocates “Serene Lifestyle.” This is our understanding of a high quality life. A design combining both traditional and modern elements – an integration of Chinese classical culture and modern art aesthetics, traditional Chinese medicine therapies and Western spa theories – can best deliver our concept to the guests. We hope that every guest can enjoy a full realm of culture, art or even philosophy in our elaborately designed space to achieve true comfort in the body, mind and soul.

What is the market positioning of Green SPA?

Green Massage is the middle-high end brand of Green SPA. At the beginning, our customers were mainly females and foreign guests with strong consumer power and aged between 30 and 45. But with the changes of lifestyles among Chinese, now the male-female ration turns to be even and domestic guests are the mainstream.

The brand concept of Green SPA has been gradually accepted by the increasingly open consumer ideas in China. We are much pleased with this market trend and we have fully prepared for it.

However, the domestic consumer market doesn’t remain unchanged, so we should keep exploring and expanding. The “SPA+” mode is what we are trying at present, aiming to bring our customers more innovative and high quality options.

Has there been any change or evolution in your business positioning and treatments development since the foundation?

We pay special attention to evolution and updating. Green SPA is a faithful advocate of high standard service and elegant environment. All the offerings aim to provide better services to the customers. Therefore, providing a consistency with brand positioning, we focus on customers’ needs when doing business and developing treatments.

Our new Chinese-style therapies launched in recent years are a response to customer feedback. Modern office people have been in sub-health status with continual working and living pressures. An integration of moxibustion, TCM regulation and Chinese herbal hot compress effectively dredges the meridian channels and stimulates blood circulation. Such targeting treatments are much applauded by our customers.

In operations, we do accurate customer group segmentation and carry out specific business modes to each group. Each brand – Green Massage, Urban Retreat and Green Essence – is positioned distinctively to meet the demands of certain customer groups by designing specific treatments and services for them.

What are your guidelines for developing new treatments?

We are very careful while developing new treatments. Firstly, we observe market requirements, general trends, other popular products and the changes in customer preferences. After noting the overall development trends of the industry, we then make proper strategies and develop products fit for the market.

Secondly, according to our observations over the years, we believe that customers’ feelings have the final say. So we always probe into our customers’ true needs, analyze their feelings towards products, observe their physical status and thus keep positive communications with them. We attach particular importance to the advice and suggestions from our loyal customers who have been with us for years.

Finally, the core of treatment development is the benefit to the body, namely how to make customers more healthy. This is also what customers focus on most in addition to comfort. The right treatments and products can solve body’s certain problems and restore the body to healthy and comfortable conditions. This demands us to have a full understanding of customers’ physical status. This is our biggest competitive power.

Therefore, treatment development is a holistic process which incorporates knowing market changes and customers’ feelings, adjusting product structure, and updating product packaging. Green SPA will also make some sensible predictions with regard to the market in order to stay flexible.

Like any other product, SPA offerings are also judged by their price/performance ratio. It is important for the customers to experience the due environments, services, skills and products that match its price. The treatment effects may vary to different people because every individual’s physical needs are different, so we provide product packages which features high diversity to update customers’ experience. The best example is our signature Green Massage Range, which is developed and updated according to this concept and no wonder it is one of the most popular offerings among our customers.

Are there any differences in the attitudes toward SPA consumption among customers in different parts of China?

Modern people have long been living under high pressure from work and family. Especially in first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, people’s consumption patterns keep changing and demands keep increasing. Truly, people in difference places vary in their SPA preferences. People in northern China are more bold and generous, so they naturally love wider spaces and therapeutic massages. People in southern China are more restrained, so they focus more on the privacy of the space, exquisiteness of the design and prefer more sensory SPA treatments. But due to the frequent migration of modern people among different cities, I think the regional differences in SPA consumption are becoming less and less obvious. So it is our consistent policy to add some new elements into traditional practices and create a high quality lifestyle for modern consumers. That’s why we launched the new brand Green Essence in Sanlitun last year, aiming to meet modern people’s expectations toward healthy life with a holistic approach.

Tell us about your mum-infant and Pilates programs. Why did you decide to involve them into your SPA operations?

After my daughter Serena and son Quentin were born, I shifted my focus to my family. This gave me a deeper understanding of myself, as well as many females like me. Like many females today, I have played several roles: a career woman, a daughter, a wife and a mother. Every role gives me certain responsibilities. I know what today’s females need and I hope to create a space for them to calm down and be pampered.

I myself benefitted a lot from mum-infant nursing and Pilates, so I want to share them with Green SPA friends. Mum-infant nursing can alleviate discomforts during pregnancy while Pilates is a rehabilitative training which causes little injury. They helped adjust my body to its natural status and gave me huge support for my post-pregnancy recovery and my daily life today. In addition, more and more females have updated consumer concepts and wellness focus. So we pay attention to the diversity of the services we provide, a unique selling point of Green SPA. We emphasize more on offering healthy lifestyle advice to them. The combination of SPA and Pilates is one such example.

Continual development is closely related to staff education and training. How does Green SPA handle it?

Green SPA is my second home and every member of staff is family. Ambience reveals the cultural connotations of an enterprise, so I attach much importance to the creation of good ambience. Now it’s been 16 years of Green SPA and I strongly feel that there are two pillars that mutually affect each other: the family ambience and the staff sense of belonging.

Green staff love to share with me their daily work and life, so that I can better understand their working and living conditions, and the company operations. I encourage every employee to be the spokesman of Green SPA. Their efforts in daily work and expression of their understanding to the brand culture are the best presentations of Green SPA’s philosophy.

During the induction training, every staff is required to sign a working ethics commitment, showing their responsibilities to themselves and the job. I firmly believe in self excellence and mutual respect. They grow up step by step with the brand and share their experiences with newcomers of the big family so that they not only offer help to others but also make improvement of their own.

As one of the oldest city wellness and SPA brands, Green SPA is widely known for its solid and steady business and operations. What is your development plan for the next five years?

We have clear goal for the next five years. Firstly, in business development, we plan to open more stores in landmark amd high-end department stores to gain more recognition among the mass media and customers. For sure, the market is a dynamic system, so we will keep adjusting and updating our goals with the changes to the market so that we can continually move forward.

Secondly, we will keep exploring and conveying the brand’s cultural value in addition to its commercial value. In the past, Green SPA has accumulated certain cultural deposits, namely the integration of traditional wellness and modern SPA, Oriental culture and Western technology. In the next five years, we will on the one hand keep developing and subliming the previous cultural concept, and on the other, infuse in more new content.

And lastly, we will go on focusing on our customers. All the things we create are in fact created for the customers. We hope to offer our customers a place for their mind and spirit, an experience place to enjoy with others, a cultivating space of culture and art, and a realm for life aesthetics learning.

Interview with Ms. Ruby Gu, the Founder of Rubis Spa

Mr. Danny, a Hong Kong native and his Shanghainese wife Ms. Ruby Gu opened the first Rubis SPA in downtown Shanghai in 1999, adhering to the concept of “pure skin beauty.” Later, in 2002, Rubis SPA launched “Aromatherapy stone treatment” and soon gained wide popularity as an Aromatherapy SPA. In 2005, Rubis Spa introduced the Swiss professional skincare brand ILLYSSIA, becoming the first SPA in China to use Swiss products. In 2008, it joined LRQA (Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance), the first quality certification system in the world approved by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service, to undergo rigorous ISO quality certification. In 2014, the first Rubis SPA in Switzerland was opened. In 2015, the company set up a Research & Development unit to learn from all the world’s cosmetic techniques and develop a series of skincare treatments enjoying high safety. In 2016, it opened its 17th Rubis SPA in Toronto, Canada.

As a pioneer in China’s beauty SPA industry focusing on high-end skincare, Rubis SPA is dedicated to introducing the latest skincare concepts and skills around the world. SpaChina interviewed Ms. Ruby Gu, co-founder of Rubis SPA.

What is the marketing positioning of Rubis SPA? Have customer needs and market demands change over the years?

Rubis SPA is positioned as a high-end SPA mainly targeting high-end customers who seek quality of life. Rubis SPA opened four stores within two years and the new customers make up 5%-10% of the total. We are able to transform every new customer to a regular customer. Rather than talk about changes our customers have undertaken, I want to tell you what adjustments Rubis SPA has made to meet the demands of the market and customers. Nowadays, people seek not only beauty and skincare, they also pursue body-mind-soul relaxation. So Rubis SPA has introduced body-mind-soul treatments to offer better services to our members. Today’s customers possess more holistic health awareness and choose treatments more sensibly for they know what fits them. Moreover, customers tend to be younger and younger.

Rubis SPA never spares in investment on hardware design and product & equipment selection. What are the reasons for this?

For a SPA, the most important thing is to let customers relax. A tranquil and elegant atmosphere and high quality hardware are key components for customers’ relaxation. High-end consumers care whether the consumption environment matches their identities. Hardware also reveals the quality and taste of a SPA.

We select top skincare products directly from Switzerland. Pure and serene, the country has never been polluted. As a well-known beauty nation, Switzerland is quite strict on beauty product qualities. The safety of Swiss products has been recognized worldwide. We use these products to win our customers’ trust.

Rubis SPA’s customers are high-end females who have profound knowledge about products quality and effects. Therefore, we introduced advanced beauty equipment from different regions of the world. In each of our stores, we have equipment worth at least one million RMB. I believe only globally-known equipment can meet customer demands concerning treatment effects and at the same time guarantee safety.

For example, Rubis SPA bought the Italian EXIMIA E7 intelligent device for slimming and firming treatments. The equipment features an artificial intelligence system that can design specific treatments targeting the skin conditions of different parts of the body. EXIMIA E7 offers a series of systematic solutions to heal the fat pathological changes of the body after making objective analysis on body form and posture, body flexibility, low limbs intravenous scanning, blood capillary, subcutaneous tissues, skin surface layer pigmentation, pH value, and epithelial membrane antigen, combined with relevant medical evaluations of endocrine, genetics, postures, angiography, nutriology and cosmetic surgery.

EXIMIA E7 is also equipped with a vacuum suction and pressure massage system. You need only to type in the skin test data and it will design for you the best therapeutic solution and control the power, pressure and frequency of the massage. The treatments can remove fat metabolite, reduce edema, and restore lymphatic smooth flows. The device can also penetrate into subcutaneous tissues and cut down on fat capacity, reduce fat cells’ size and promote metabolism. It is highly effective in combatting cellulite and fat accumulation. This bespoke treatment is 7,200 RMB per time.

For body conditioning, Rubis SPA used ICOONE, also an Italian brand. The body treatment is 8,660 RMB. Equal to three hours of aerobic exercise, the 30-minute ICOONE treatment can increase lymphatic detoxing and metabolism and thus eliminate edema and slackness. Both pieces of equipment are known as professionally unique with proven results and safety.

What does your R&D department care about most?

Rubis SPA’s R&D department is based in Switzerland. We pay special attention to introducing the latest skincare concepts and technology of the world into our treatments. I believe the frontier techniques and concepts are the results of accumulations of past experiences and analysis of abundant data. If we base our treatments on these, they are surely convincing and can last long.

EXIMIA E7 is a successful demonstration. In 2009 when Rubis SPA introduced EXIMIAE7, there were very few pieces of equipment like this in China. So the social media gave much coverage to it. Compared with the prevalent shaking method of weight-loss at that time, EXIMIAE7’s patent fat dissolving technique has a 10-year lead. Today, slimming equipment are crowding into China, but Rubis SPA has laid a solid foundation in this field and gained wide recognition among customers.

Recently, Rubis SPA has integrated the latest European technique of lymph detoxification and drainage with Chinese traditional acupoint massage in facial treatments, and has gained favorable feedback.

How many branch stores does Rubis SPA have now? How frequently do customers visit the SPA?

Rubis SPA has 17 stores worldwide. Although different cities vary in consumption levels, Rubis SPA generally target middle and high-end consumers. A treatment price range is from several hundred to several thousand RMB. In order to achieve better results, Rubis SPA recommends guests come once a week. About one third customers who pay more attention to their own beauty and wellness will come with such frequency.

You have made a clear division between reception, skin test, product introduction and treatment therapists. Why is that?

Rubis SPA target high-end customers who have more professional demands to service qualities of every aspect. We divide the services so that we can better control the service qualities. Moreover, every staff member has their own strong points. A clear division of labor will put each one’s talents into full play. For example, some are outgoing and skilled in communication while others are more restrained yet reliable.

Staff training is clearly important. How do you make employees remain positive and increase their loyalty to the company? What training is used for business development, and how do you train managers?

High-end customers demand high-quality brand benefits. Working in such a top SPA, employees’ self-value, happiness and impressions of the company will keep increasing. Every year, Rubis SPA insists on inviting famous experts from Europe to come and train the staff, telling them about the advanced global concepts, techniques and management knowledge so that our staff can provide better services to customers more professionally. Every month, staff at all the 15 stores in China gather together with the store manager to share ideas and experience. It is my management style to develop staff subjective initiative, give power to lower levels and center on democracy and fairness. Rubis SPA sticks to direct sales in order to guarantee service quality. Rubis SPA in China stays connected with overseas staff and management levels, making it possible to open stores in foreign countries.

Is there dynamic competition in the markets in which Rubis SPA operates? Do you have different business modes for stores in different regions?

The high-end market is always dynamic. All Rubis SPA stores are in first-tier cities, so there is no big difference in customers’ preferences. There is also a consistency in business modes, but the star treatments vary according to the specific conditions of different regions. For example, Canada is very cold, so we emphasize more on anti-ageing items while Shanghai has distinctive four seasons, so we design different treatments according to the seasonal needs of the skin.

How do you stand against the competition? How important is price?

My belief is that if there are peer competitors who share similar offerings as you, and you make improvements together, then the market can be expanded. Even in the same market, there are different types of customers, so naturally there will be different pricing. When customers have gained trust to your brand, and feel satisfactory in terms of service quality and treatment effects, they will not leave you even if competitors emerge. So price is not the key.

Rubis SPA is called an industry pioneer. What is your development plan for the future?

In fact Rubis SPA doesn’t want to be a pioneer. We just want to make continual improvements to meet the market’s ever-changing demands.

Interview with Mr. Hu Guoqiang, the Marketing Director of Beauty Farm

Recently, famous star Liu Tao became the spokeswoman of Beauty Farm.  It has drawn much attention in the industry.

Founded in 1993, Beauty Farm brought the German skincare brand DEYNIQUE to China. Beauty Farm has not only stuck to strict quality-control procedures and international services, but also offered high-end, professional and holistic beauty and body building services to every customer. Beauty and health is its everlasting pursuit.

Today, Beauty Farm has become a group integrating life cosmetology, medical cosmetology and anti-aging medical treatments. The company now has 222 Beauty Farm high-end beauty chain stores, 16 CellCare medical beauty centers, 3 Neology International Healthcare Centers in 79 major urban centers nationwide, serving over million elite customers every year. Beauty Farm is dedicated to becoming the industry leader in the realm of beauty and health.

According to Asian skin characteristics, and combined with European top skincare techniques, Beauty Farm selects dozens of product ranges and designs over a hundred corresponding treatments. It has a supply chain seamlessly joined to the global frontier beauty technology and products. Beauty Farm also holds frequent discussions with professional beauty institutes in Europe and Japan. So far, Beauty Farm has invested more than 100 million RMB in updating and supplementing hi-tech beauty equipment. No wonder it has gradually become a giant in scientific & technologic beauty.

At the end of 2017, SpaChina had the honor to interview Mr. Hu Guoqiang, the marketing director of Beauty Farm.

It is a big event in the industry that CITIC has become a shareholder of Beauty Farm. Please tell us your development plan for the next five years following CITIC’s participation.

To become the holding company of CITIC Private Equity has largely enhanced Beauty Farm’s self-development and industrial competitiveness. In fact, Beauty Farm has already begun to steadily carry forward internal strategic planning. We hope to become the industry leader of beauty and health by integrating the best resources and relying on the most powerful business support.

Beauty Farm has joined hands with PALAISPA. In addition to gaining more market share, what other goals do you have?

It is one of the most significant milestones of Beauty Farm to join hands with PALAISPA because the cooperation is not only an expansion in scale, but also an integration of business operations, personnel talents and the resources of two industry leaders. Through the cooperation, we explore new business modes and create a more harmonious industry environment.

How do you guarantee the brand quality in such rapid expansion?

First of all, Beauty Farm will continually hold to the brand’s core values by basing them on strict industry standards. We have 24 years’ history now. Our guests trust and love us because of our excellent services, techniques, products and attitudes. Secondly, we have comprehensively carried out the “customer-oriented” project in the company and every chain store. Our goal is to continually center on every customer’s needs and keep improving professional service standards. We will always be strict and meticulous in quality management and process management in order to let guests be satisfied in every detail. We know that professionalism and service are the foundation of the brand.

What is your marketing strategy in inviting Liu Tao to be your spokeswoman? What concepts and ideas do you want to convey to the customers?

We are touched by Liu Tao’s personal character. She is enthusiastic towards life and work; she is reservedly elegant and diligent; she keeps sending out positive energy with her maturity, wisdom and beauty. So we decided to invite her to be our brand spokeswoman. This is not a cold business deal, but a spiritual resonance and loving cooperation after years’ observations and considerations. We want, through Liu Tao, to convey a life attitude — seeking quality, embracing low-profile luxury, pursuing beauty and health and putting them into practice with perseverance.

What are the targeted customers groups of Beauty Farm?

Beauty Farm has now covered life cosmetology, medical cosmetology and international anti-ageing medical treatments. So we have diverse customer groups. But most of our 150,000 VIP members are middle and high-end females with high education and good economic bases and between the ages of 30 and 50. They focus on life quality and have higher pursuit to beauty and health.

Can you tell the consumption power and market demands of different regions through the data of the 222 chain stores?

We have 222 stores covering 79 main cities. But strictly speaking, we cannot tell accurately the consumption power and market demands of different cities and regions through a plain data sheet. There are many other factors such as local store numbers, location, marketing methods, etc. The beauty industry has witnessed constant 10% annual growth. So generally, customers in every region have increasing awareness to beauty and health.

How do you deal with market competition?

Beauty Farm has obvious advantages in science and technology, professionalism and standard management, which are built up step by step by doing every detail well in the past 24 years. However, as we all know, the internet, especially the mobile internet, has caused deep changes to every walk of life. Traditional enterprises must closely follow the tendency of the information and the internet era. The management group of Beauty Farm is very clear about it and regards it as one the most important strategies.

Since 2010, Beauty Farm has spent enormous energy and money on informatization. We have used the NC system for finance management so that every subordinate store fulfills the financial datamation and standardization. Moreover, we take advantage of the internet to optimize customers’ experience. For example, the CRM system provides consultations and solutions to customers 12 hours a day and 7 days a week. Different departments like sales and marketing now have perfect links to each other and together improve customers’ satisfaction. To sum up, Beauty Farm will keep its leading position in the industry by continually innovating new ideas and exploring business potentials. We aim to become a benchmarking enterprise based on information and internet in the realm of beauty and health. In the future, Beauty Farm will be dedicated to developing a new internet business mode.

We’ve heard that Beauty Farm has its own training schools. Can you tell us more about it?

Since Beauty Farm is always customer-centered, we regard staff training as the booster of company development from the day of foundation. Now the group has already opened three professional training schools in Shanghai, Wuhan and Qinhuangdao, offering the most professional and systematic training services to all the chain stores nationwide. We have nearly 50 full time trainers and 100 part-time trainers providing diverse training support covering job entry, position promotion, new project, sales promotion and new openings. Our schools have become the training base of over 40 higher learning institutions in China with nearly 1,000 graduates every year. We focus on providing professional talents to our own company which is undergoing rapid developments, as well as to the whole industry.

Please tell us more about Hainan Bo’ao International Medical Anti-aging Base.

With the tendency of populations aging, chronic and metabolic diseases caused by improper lifestyles have become a main health threat to the public. It means a huge new consumer market which emphasizes symptom control yet normal hospitals fail to satisfy has emerged. Our Qi Yan Medical Centers are opened with such a background. Qi Yan is an anti-aging medical institute that integrates global advanced medical techniques and authoritative expert teams, functional medicine and regenerative medicine. It is our third business section following the life cosmetology (Beauty Farm) and medical cosmetology (CellCare), and one of the pillar sections in the group’s future strategic development. Qi Yan offers global advanced, standard, safe and effective anti-aging medical services including health detection, functional medicine detection and assessment, medical detoxing management and precision medicine. We were among the first group of companies that gained stem cells medical anti-aging qualifications according to the policy of Hainan Bo’ao special zone.

What are your thoughts on the future health trends and development?

In recent years, influenced by the global environment and domestic economic changes, China’s consumer market has witnessed a big disparity. Staple commodiiesy such as real estate, automobile and other home appliances have experienced a decline while tourism, health, culture and beauty fields have shown a rapid increasing trend. It manifests that China’s consumer structure has undergone an adjustment process. Chinese people have a totally different consumer view toward self-health now. The Beauty & Health market capacity has increased from 432.5 billion in 2010 to 598.1 billion in 2015. In the next five years, the number will continue to grow. Such robust development makes the beauty and health industry the most powerfully developing sector in the market. A diversified health service mode will satisfy the market and China’s customers more easily.