Training is training, right? Not according to successful tanning salons in today’s market. In fact, many successful business leaders will tell you that their operator training is arguably the most important part of ensuring a customer’s positive experience.

Amy Ringler has been driving her family-run tanning salon with the passion one would hope to see in any successful business. As the manager of Midas Touch Golden Tans, in Emporia, Kansas, Amy has a strong opinion on the level of customer service that should be expected by her patrons.

“The customer experience is enhanced because they feel so well cared for. We have ears and hands and hearts to help whatever questions the customer might ask,” Ringler says. “We have the knowledge, skills, and compassion behind it all. Smart Tan certification helps our team provide and intensify consumer confidence. The Smart Tan certificate on the wall shows our customers that their tanning experience is handled with caring confidence.”

Ringler is no stranger to operator training. She has been certified in Smart Tan’s Master Certification Program and has attended dozens of educational sessions over the years at annual trade shows and educational conferences.

“When we started we used to sit in a workshop with Joe Levy. As the years have gone on, everything’s online,” Ringler says. “My dad started the salon and we grew up hearing from him that knowledge is power. Put our noses in the books. He’s always pushed education first, from our staff to customers.”

On the other hand, Melene Hatcher is quite new to the industry, but it didn’t take her long to realize the importance of proper training. She first got involved with Ocean Rayz tanning salon in a consulting role, analyzing the business in search of potential improvements. With no previous experience in indoor tanning, she began her usual consultative process of researching the industry, as well as examining the business.

She read about Smart Tan training online, and tried the UV Certification herself, as well as the other training program that Ocean Rayz employees were using at the time. After testing both courses head to head, she knew that one important change for the four-salon business would be the switch to Smart Tan training.

“After I took them both I decided I liked Smart Tan’s course. It was much more comprehensive, and I felt a lot more confident that if our employees passed that, then they’d offer better customer service. We had all our employees recertified with Smart Tan,” Hatcher says.

“I think Smart Tan is the best training possible for our employees. We try to offer the best customer service, the best training, best equipment, best perks for members. It’s important to me to be the best.”

So, what is it about Smart Tan training that has industry veterans continuing to sing its praises and made an outside consultant demanded the change?

While there are a number of reasons, the most prominent feature of Smart Tan training that distinguishes it from the competition is its behavior-based design, constructed to meet the standards of the world’s most respected authority on training assessment systems.

“There are a lot of poorly produced certification programs that teach industry jargon and list information, yet don’t have any qualifications to ensure their effectiveness on impacting how an operator actually does their job. Smart Tan worked with training experts from outside the industry to ensure that our training accomplishes the objectives necessary to operate a professional tanning salon,” says Smart Tan CEO Matt Russell.

“Behavior-based training is the highest standard for any advanced market, and Smart Tan is the only program in our market that meets those standards. It takes a lot of time and money to develop a training program at this level, and Smart Tan has invested more than $1 million and spent two years in the behavior-based development process. Development is critically detailed – presentation, reinforcement, with a planned and appropriate level of redundancy without wasting people’s time. We don’t get into long analogies that aren’t core to what you need to learn. It’s educational and informative, yet still captures the attention of the student. That’s all part of effective educational design.”

Click here to read the entire article in the latest issue of Smart Tan Magazine online.