How do you make sure to find the right Massage Therapist?
When a person gets a massage, it’s basically trusting another person with its own body, that’s a big thing for many people, especially nowadays.
Here are my 5 suggestions about common due diligence practices anyone can use when trying to pick a decent human being, and a suitable professional.
1. Recommendations
In the massage business “word of mouth” ads is the best commercial a professional massage therapist can get. So asking for recommendations to friends, family members, colleagues, or even doctors is one important source of information.
Of course I would make sure that the person making the recommendation has actually some experience about massage. Why? Well, would you trust the opinion of a person who never owned a car, about the best mechanic in town?
2. Credentials
This one is a little tricky. From one side it would be great if the massage therapist is certified or licensed by a proper organization. On the other side, in my personal experience, the best massage therapist I met were often the ones with absolutely no certifications of any sort. They treated massage as a form of art, and they genuinely cared about their client’s well-being.
3. List of services and prices
Sometimes you see the list of services on the website that is longer than a restaurant’s menu. If we are talking about a SPA or Beauty Center of some sort, it makes sense to have 10-15 services as they have a numerous and variegate staff that can cover all that expertise. But when you see a one-man-army type of website where there is only one massage therapist providing a dozen services, chances are that most of those services don’t have a very good quality.
Price is another thing to keep into consideration. You should have an idea of the average price in your area and steer clear from too high or too low prices.
Too high means the massage therapist is simply fishing for fools, often associating the pricey service with some big clickbait words (I.e. Neuromuscular, Ayurvedic, Chiropractic) and no certifications or knowledge to back those words up.
Too low means the person is either desperate to get clients, or new to the profession and don’t have a client base yet. Either way you might want to pay a little more, but have higher chances of a good and professional service.
4. Location
Well, this one doesn’t really need much of an explanation right? Probably you will not choose the best massage therapist in the world if he/she is located 300 Km away.
5. Online Reviews & Reputation
More specifically Google Reviews, as they are the most trusted and common source of online reviews available. Here are some tricks about how to navigate them:
- Fake reviews: Until some years ago it was possible to buy 5 stars Google Reviews online as a service. Nowadays Google made some changes in their policies and rules, so it’s no longer possible. So, if you see a very high rating (4.7 to 5.0) but the bulk of positive 5.0 stars reviews are empty reviews with no text, made from accounts with a total of 1-2 reviews, from a couple of years back, there is a good chance that those are bought reviews from fake accounts to increase the online reputation.
- Negative reviews: always take a look at them. It’ very difficult to get a negative review performing a nice act like a massage, which is specifically designed to make the client feel better. So, to get a negative review the massage therapist must have really done something wrong or the client is extra picky. The trick here is too see if there is pattern, a repetitive topic that keeps coming up in the negative review (I.e. the room stinks, the receptionist was rude, the massage therapist is unprofessional). If several people are giving negative reviews about the same issue, chances are that it is a real issue, and not just a picky client.
- Reputation: this is everything for a person who touches other people half-naked bodies for a living. I often say that it takes 10 years to build up a good reputation, and 5 minutes to blow it up. Unfortunately checking the reputation to see if a massage therapist is right for you, it’s not an quick & easy task.
Key takeaways about how to find the right Massage Therapist
Always do your due diligence when purchasing a service, especially a specific one that will literally see your underpants.
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NIH (National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health) link to an interesting article on this topic: Massage Therapy: What You Need To Know