Something in the world of floating have you stumped?
Show Highlights
Every float center owner has to deal with customers who get, maybe, a little overenthusiastic about the float experience. What is the best way to deal with customers who say things that are just patently false about the benefits of floating? Do you just let it slide? Do you correct them and potentially offend your customer? It’s not their fault, they’re just excited. It doesn’t seem right to punish them.
This is definitely a tightrope walk type of conversation and it can have an impact on your customers and your reputation as a business, as well as the whole industry. As stewards of the tank, Graham and Ashkahn offer their advice on how best to have this difficult conversation and offer some resources to help with it as well.
Show Resources
FTS Blog – A Skeptic’s Guide to Floating
FTS Product – About Float Tanks Guide (Free)
FTS Product – Scientific Research List (Free)
Listen to Just the Audio
Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)
Graham: Today’s question is, ”what do you do when your customers say blatantly wrong things about the benefits of floating?”
Ashkahn: Yeah, this happens. It’s not fun, it’s not a fun situation. I wouldn’t put this in the category of good times, you know.
Graham: Yeah, yep, yep. So there’s many situations this can arise actually. The one that I find the most uncomfortable is when someone is bringing in their friend to the float center, and they’re describing to their friend some kind of false benefit of floating and I’m overhearing.
Ashkahn: Uh-huh.
Graham: Have to figure out what to do, and we’ll get to that. Someone comes in and is like, “Yeah man, two hours in this tank will give you a full nights sleep. So if you’re doing a two hour float tonight, don’t even bother going back to bed” and you’re like “Ohhh! Kablooey”.
Ashkahn: Yeah, it’s just so embarrassing. Are you gonna go and embarrass your customer, or are you going to just sit idly by and let misinformation spread through the world?
Graham: It’s tough, it’s a tough life being a float center owner. So, for me, I find the need to correct it in the most inoffensive way possible. It’s pretty much the goal there.
Ashkahn: You have to correct, I can’t, you can’t just have people keep thinking things that are wrong. You feel like we’re stewards of-
Graham: “That has 80,000 pounds of salt in there!”
Ashkahn: Yeah, so what I do is I get a big buzzer, as soon as they say something.
Graham: I get like a shepherd’s crook that I can just like pull them off to the side with it and then fill in their part of the conversation.
Ashkahn: Yeah, use that telescoping rescue pole. The one hung up on our wall.
Graham: So I usually just try to figure out, for me the least offensive way to get people right is to agree with them, and then start just shifting what I was agreeing about.
Ashkahn: Usually in kind of a high pitched voice, it’s like, “Yeah, yeah, exactly but not exactly like that.”
Graham: Then you lower the voice as it gets toward real facts.
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: It just seems more natural.
Ashkahn: It’s my tactic as well, yeah.
Graham: So if someone comes in and they say, “Ah he had two hours in here and it was eight hours of sleep.” You’re like, “Yeah float tanks are incredibly restful. They rejuvenate you, they rejuvenate you a lot. We don’t actually have data about exactly how much time in a float tank equals exactly how much sleep, but definitely a really common response that we get is that people feel like they’re way more rested than coming in. Or almost like they’re fresh in the morning or something like that.”
Ashkahn: Yeah, I feel good now.
Graham: So again, it’s like the agreeing and then sort of spreading out actual facts. The thing that you don’t want to do in my mind is be like, “Oh that’s wrong. Your friend’s an idiot. Both of you leave, you think you’re allowed to float.”
Okay, another scenario is someone just starts bragging to you about the benefits of floating, right?
Ashkahn: Well here is there any scenario where you wouldn’t correct it?
Graham: Me, personally?
Ashkahn: Yeah.
Graham: I guess there’s like wishy washy stuff. People get out and they’re just like, “Oh man, I totally astral projected in there.”
Ashkahn: Okay, uh-huh. Sure.
Graham: I mean, they totally could have. I don’t know.
Ashkahn: I’m not going to correct stuff like that.
Graham: Right? And also, and I guess it’s not wrong, so they totally could have, I don’t know if you can astral project or whatever, who knows?
Ashkahn: Yeah. I guess I’m not going to impose my belief of reality onto them at that moment.
Graham: Yep, yep. So here’s another common example too that I get. Is people saying that the salt water will just suck all of the toxins out of your body.
Ashkahn: Detoxifying effects.
Graham: Which have definitely not been proven. I don’t even know exactly what that means, or what toxins they’re talking about, that’s a whole ripe subject even not in the float world.
Ashkahn: But it’s a weird one because it’s a hard one to lightly refute. You know what I mean?
Graham: Yep.
Ashkahn: You can’t just be like, “Oh yeah, totally.” The thing is, “I don’t know what you’re talking about and those words don’t make sense.”
Graham: Yeah, and so again, I’ll say something like, “A lot of people come out of the float tank feeling really nice and they’ve almost released some stuff that was making them feel bad. We don’t really have any studies exactly on this idea of detoxification in the float tank, or whether magnesium is actually sucking things out of your body, but certainly the reports of users are right in line with feeling great afterwards like that.”
Ashkahn: The situations like that can be tricky I’ve noticed, because it seems like the customers really want you to agree with what they’re saying.
Graham: They’re like pausing after they say it.
Ashkahn: Yeah, they say something and they pause. They’re like, “You know what I’m talking about.” You’re like, “Oh.” Yeah, you do have to kind of like gently steer. I don’t know, I’ve never been in the situation where I’ve just outright said something that I didn’t believe. I’ve never felt a need to do that.
Graham: No, and honestly there’s so many people who like all kinds of different types of floats, that it’s really easy to point to your other customers as well when people come in with kind of crazy claims or things like that as well. Again, even saying things that are more in line with personal problems that they’re suffering with or something like that. Like, “This helped me through my childhood emotional trauma.” It’s like, “Great,” other people have also had that experience, or something. We don’t have to go into the fact that there’s no research done on that specifically. And similarly I guess I always go back to research, because claims can be made about anything that’s going on. And it’s a really easy thing to say, “Hey there’s not any published peer reviewed research on that, that I know of. But a lot of people report that the impact of that is similar to what you are saying.” It’s kind of my soft go-to I guess.
Ashkahn: So yeah, it’s kind of gentle like bringing people back into your opinion.
Graham: And keep in mind this is just our opinion as well.
Ashkahn: You see how we’re like soothing you into agreeing with us?
Graham: “I know we all thought in the past agreeing with Graham and Ashkahn was a bad idea, but now that we know the facts, I think we can get on to similar terms here.” That’s all I got. It’s an awkward conversation, it’s going to come up. And I just think it’s our duty as people who are actually running these things and are more well informed to spread a little bit of knowledge and truth out there and not just go along with what people say because it’ll make the conversation easier.
Ashkahn: Definitely.
Graham: And if you have anymore awkward questions that you want to ask us, go to floattanksolutions.com/podcast and send them on in.
Recent Podcast Episodes
Is it Possible to Float and not get your Hair Wet? – DSP 175
Customers who color or perm their hair might not want to let it get wet while floating. While Graham and Ashkahn are sympathetic to those issues, as far as they know, there isn’t really a great solution for them.
Understanding Chlorine Use in a Float Tank – DSP 174
This is another one of those questions that seems simple but as soon as Graham and Ashkahn start explaining a few things, you realize that there’s a lot of complicated information in the background. A “SSBASAGAASEAFTYRTTALOCIITB”, if you will.
The guys take this opportunity to deep dive on the complex conversation of chlorine and why it’s problematic for the float industry, along with several caveats of the benefits and usefulness of it as a disinfectant.
Should I Offer a Three Float Intro Pack? – DSP 173
Every float center has their own tricks to pricing, appealing to first time customers, and encouraging repeat business. One of the most common is using a three float intro pack that usually offers three floats at a 3 for the price of 2 package. Given how prevalent these are, do they work really well? Is this something that will soon become industry standard? What else needs to be considered before offering a package like this?
Graham and Ashkahn provide their thoughts on this pricing trend and how Float On does pricing (admittedly very differently than a three float intro pack) and what to consider for each float center that looks at this option.
What do You Love About Running a Float Center? – DSP 172
It’s easy to listen to this podcast, day in and day out, and think to yourself “why would ANYONE put up with all these issues?” Graham and Ashkahn describe what keeps them, and probably everybody in the industry, in the difficult business of putting strangers in salty boxes and the wonderful life changing experiences that come with it.
How is the Float Industry Different? – DSP 171
It’s possible that everyone in the float industry intuitively knows that it’s a different sort of business, but what are the tangible ways in which it’s different? As Ashkahn says at the start of the episode, every question in this podcast is kind of a long form answer to this question.
Graham and Ashkahn tackle this problem together, and answer everything from the practical to the philosophical, ranging from lack of expertise in the industry, to the sense of camaraderie that doesn’t seem to exist anywhere else.
Latest Blog Posts
The Creation of the Beginner’s Guide to Floating
Our Beginner's Guide to Floating was first created four years ago, and we've gone through over 40,000 of them just out of our own center in Portland. Since making it publicly available, our Beginner's Guide has been downloaded over 1,400 times. Dozens of float centers...
Transducers: Turning Your Float Tank into a Giant Speaker
All good floats must come to an end... As a float center owner, you’ll have the ability to offer periods of intense isolation and quiet to your customers. That being said, we’ve received many questions about the best (and least disruptive) way of bringing your...
Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer
“In the realm of the mind, there are no limits” - Dr. John C. Lilly As some of you may know, we’ve been working closely with the estate of Dr. Lilly, to ensure that his writings and ideas become more accessible to the public. We’ve started by reprinting his...
Alternative Wellness and Floatation Therapy
Over the past few decades people have come to practice many alternative wellness regimens from outside of the realm of standard Western medicine. Instead of medication and surgery, people have turned to regular bodily maintenance and more natural remedies for their...
