Tag: Customer Care

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4 Ways You Can Turn Your Facility Into A Summer Oasis

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You’ve been there, walking in a world that’s basically the inside of an oven. And when the world is an oven, just about every place that’s cool is a refreshing break from the heat. With that in mind, turning your facility into a place to escape the heat can bring in a bit of summer profit.

So…how? Remember the second step in our Blog 5 Ways To Overcome Gym Membership Retention Challenges? That’s right, incentives and rewards. The simple act of giving a small gift can do member retention wonders and we’re going to revisit that idea but this time, under the lens of a summer season perspective.

Advertise your water

Water. Water. Water. It’s important more than ever to stay hydrated in the summer but still, we can often forget that. We go on trips without a beverage and we feel it just about everywhere in our body. When you’re craving water, you need it, now. If I was thirsty while walking in the summer heat, I’d run to the nearest water fountain or bottled water provider. In the season of scorching heat, a nice sign outside your center advertising water could very well drive some local joggers into your facility. Heck, you could do a free water period for members to encourage and reward your clients.

Summer Merch Sales

When summer is around, having an extra pair of everything is almost a necessity for anyone. There are two great experiments to try if you have merchandise to sell at your facility. The first is the opportunity for a sale on winter and fall items and the second is a tactic to increase audience engagement. The summer sale on winter merch is self-explanatory. Select which out of season products you wish to discount with the intent of retaining clients for the colder seasons now that they’ve bought workout clothes with your business on it as a reminder. There are endless approaches to a sale of course. You could even go a step further and attach discounted memberships for the fall/winter seasons if clients spend a select amount on your merchandise. Now the step to increasing audience engagement would be to make the summer sale accessible to members who sign up for a particular class or new members.

Free Giveaways Through Engagement

When it’s free, it’s got someone’s attention. Let’s say you have 100 t-shirts you’d like to get rid of. Put up a sign saying you’ll give them out for free to the first 100 people on a Monday. If they’re a member add a discount to upcoming classes along with the shirt. If they’re new, ask for their contact info in exchange for the free shirt . But let’s say only 50 people entered your facility on Monday so you still have 50 shirts left. Repeat your giveaway strategy to Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday but limit your supply of shirts to 10 each day. It is now Friday and you have 20 shirts left so you decide to raffle 10 to the your members and 10 to new members who previously gave their contact info. By the end of the week, you have no more t-shirts and a handful of leads to reach out to during the colder seasons.

Introduce an R&R Space

When your work out you’re not just thirsty. You’re hungry and tired and not every facility is going to have a café running inside it or a place to lounge for a few minutes. (If your facility does happen to have a café inside, share on social media #EZDoesIt and we’ll share it on our Twitter and Facebook pages!) However, the presence of a separate station for food and drink can boost the interest level among clients. If there’s no room in your facility to make a rest stop, advertise your facility as a delivery friendly location. (Sounds like the perfect time to team up with some of your local eateries near your facility!) Build a connection going and turn your spot into a place people go to workout and relax. When summer arrives, it can be quick—so there’s no time to lose! Be the first fit summer oasis spot in your town!

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Customer Service: One of the Most Important Features of a Software Solution

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For most fitness businesses that employ a comprehensive software solution, it’s impossible to imagine day-to-day operations without that solution. And these days, it’s almost impossible to imagine a fitness business that doesn’t use a software solution. Fitness facility management software allows for the optimization of resources; the streamlining of daily tasks; the automation of payments, reports, and communication; and the maintenance of member profiles and marketing efforts — among countless other benefits — to a degree that simply can’t be achieved without software. Yet, what good is any of that if the program you’re using fails in the customer service and support department?

Even if you’ve got the absolute best-performing software solution imaginable, if that solution doesn’t provide a top-quality customer service department for training, support, and troubleshooting, it’s ultimately not worth much. This is the case in all industries, but it’s especially key in the fitness industry, in which software solutions are so integral to the running of all aspects of a business that the customer service you provide depends on how well your software is running. If there’s a glitch, or if you just have a simple question, you have to know that troubleshooting is available immediately and efficiently.

How do you judge the quality of a software program’s customer service? First, check out the product’s website. The support feature should be prominent and available with a single click, and it should quickly and clearly explain how to reach a customer service representative. Ideally, it offers both a phone number to call and an online form you can submit. If you fill out an online form, you should receive an answer promptly. Both online and phone responses should be polite, friendly, and helpful, and the representative you’re dealing with should bend over backwards to make sure your questions are answered and your needs are fulfilled, and that you’re walking away a satisfied customer. If any of these elements are not in place — you can’t find the support page easily on the website, there’s no phone number to call, there’s a number but your call is handled incompetently, you submit an online request and do not hear back within 24 hours — you might be using the wrong software.

In addition, your software support team should offer training. There should be online courses that quickly, clearly, and effectively show you, the end user, how to optimise the product, and there should be opportunities for personalized training support. Again, if the product you use does not offer these customer service basics, you’re probably using the wrong one. After all, what good does your software do you if you don’t properly understand how to use it?

Ultimately, the management software solution you purchase should be backed by a company that employs an easily reachable team of dedicated, knowledgeable professionals who genuinely care about your business. If it’s lacking in that department, you would do well to seek out a software package that fulfills that most basic of business needs: help and support.

Keeping Your Facility Germ-Free-- And Your Members Happy

Keeping Your Facility Germ-Free—and Your Members Happy

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In 2008, IHRSA published the Guide to Health Cleanliness, which highlighted the startling results of a survey: More than 90 percent of survey participants said they were more apt to renew their membership with a health club facility if the facility was clean. That might not be so surprising, but here’s the shocking part: Only slightly more than half said they would renew if the facility was not clean.

Keep in mind that this was six years ago, before the Ebola scare, before enterovirus D68, before super-strong strains of the flu were floating around. With these threats around us, and with media hype that frequently blows such threats out of proportion, it’s little wonder that health club and sports facility users are even more cautious than they used to be. Add to that the fact that we’re smack in the middle of cold season, and you’ve got potentially a lot of skittish members on your hands who want assurance that their health is protected when they’re using your facility.

What can you do to reassure them? First of all, make sure you’ve got a plan for keeping your place as clean as possible. Review your cleanliness policies and procedures. Are they up to date? Do they follow best practices? Are they generally in keeping with standards set by the Centres for Disease Controls (for example, wash hands with soap and water for 20 seconds or rub an alcohol-based sanitizer on hands for 15 seconds before and after workouts; shower after workouts; avoid walking barefoot across exercise floors and locker rooms)?

After you’ve polished up your policies, start thinking about your staff. Do they know the policies? Do they know what to do if they’re sick (best practices say they should stay home)? Do they know what tasks they should take responsibility for in order to help maintain the highest standard of cleanliness possible? Organize a mandatory staff meeting solely around these issues and make sure everyone is on board. Do frequent walkthroughs with a cleanliness checklist to make sure rules are being adhered to.

Finally, communicate directly and explicitly with your members about cleanliness in your facility. Send out an email explaining your concerns during the season, highlighting the steps your club is taking to stay as germ-free as possible, and asking members to remain aware of ways in which they can help contribute to a cleaner club environment. List specific tips, like the Centres for Disease Control standards shown above. A post on IHRSA’s blog describes an email Newtown Athletic Club recently sent to its members. Linda Mitchell, Newtown Athletic’s director of PR and Marketing, devised a letter with the subject line “Healthy Facilities Initiative.” She and her team carefully worded the letter, avoiding making any promises but being sure to explain procedures. They assured members that maintaining a clean facility is a top priority. Then they described new procedures being implemented and outlined member responsibilities. Mitchell told IHRSA that the email had an unheard-of 35 percent open rate—to her a clear indication that members were hungry for information about facility cleanliness.

Ultimately, you want to make your members feel secure, and you want them to know you welcome their questions and can answer them satisfactorily. Over and above that, you want to keep your facility as germ-free as possible — for your members’ sake, but also for your own and your staff’s. Provide a safe environment, clearly communicate the details about how you’ve done so, and keep everyone feeling strong and healthy all winter long.

Face Time

Face Time

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In this digital age, it’s possible to go for days without seeing another person and still be in constant contact with others. Texting, emailing, social media, video-chatting: All which create a level of communication unheard of in previous decades. But guess what? Health club members still prefer in-person interaction with staff than communication via technological device.
A study in the recently published IHRSA Member Retention Report, lays out the details on this topic. Conducted in partnership with The Retention People, IHRSA’s study draws on survey responses from more than 10,000 health and fitness members in the U.K., who answered questions about their exercise habits and membership behavior between July and September 2013. The survey showed that an overwhelming 87 percent of respondents value interactions with fitness staff. The clincher? Less than half—43 percent—of respondents feel they have such interactions.The other clincher? Despite everything you constantly hear about how crucial it is to have an effective social media campaign—to get out there on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, to try to speak personably and familiarly with members via those platforms—only 34 percent of respondents said they value social media updates. Almost twice that number—65 percent—said they value receiving emails.
Considering the numbers, it’s worth devising a strategy for increasing face time between staff and members in your own health venue. This goes for sports facilities, too. The nature of the exercise business is interdependence—whether you’re talking gym, niche studio, or batting cages. Members depend on trainers, instructors, front desk folk, and support staff, and vice versa. So anything you can do to foster interdependence is going to result in a happier customer base—which, in the long run, means better retention, more word-of-mouth advertising, four-and-five star ratings on social media, and ultimately more members.
How do you make interactions between staff and members the norm at your facility? Make proactive interactions a requirement for the job: Staff should know, even before they’re hired, that you have high expectations for warm, interpersonal, and in-person communication with members on a daily basis. Have a greeter at the door, and give them a script that includes introducing him or herself by name, welcoming members, shaking their hands, and offering to help them with anything they need. Instruct front-desk staff to smile and to try to learn members’ names. Trainers and class leaders should also learn members’ names and should go out of their way to talk to members. In the weight room and cardio court, and on the ground at sports facilities, they should circulate and check in with members, ask how they’re doing and whether they need anything.
As for out-of-club communications, remember almost twice the number of survey respondents prefer email to social media interaction. Maybe it’s time to step back from your social media activity and refocus on effective emailing; the more personal the better. Consider a gym management software that allows for direct email blasts and the ability to group clients into categories. For example, create an email group called “New members” to track clients who have just signed up. Then, devise an email campaign where your staff sends a “checking in” email once a month for the first few critical months of the client’s membership.
Service of this sort takes your club or sports facility to the next level. If members feel you truly care about them, they’ll be coming back and telling their friends to do the same.

Motivation

Keep Your Clients Motivated

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Keep Your Clients Motivated Around this time of year, there’s a lot of motivation in the air. Even people who avoid making resolutions find themselves catching the New Year’s bug, and they and the resolution-makers alike launch fresh exercise schedules, re-dedicate themselves to weight-loss plans, research new fitness programs to try, and put their workout-related holiday gifts to use. All well and good, but by the time Valentine’s Day rolls around, a lot of that motivation fades away like a bouquet of old roses.
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Can Your Staff Adapt to Client Injuries?

Can Your Staff Adapt to Client Injuries?

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Can Your Staff Adapt to Client Injuries? I had a nice little visit to the emergency room the other day. I injured my foot, and I wish I could say I did so while training for a marathon or participating in an Insanity workout or some such thing, but truthfully I was just racing my seven-year-old downhill, and I landed on it awkwardly.
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Too Much of a Good Thing

Too Much of a Good Thing

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Too Much of a Good ThingHaving dedicated members is every fitness facility’s dream — the ones who come in regularly, several times a week, pushing themselves through a routine that leaves them feeling good about themselves and good about the place where they choose to work out. But what if members become not so much dedicated as compulsive? Is that good for them? And is it good for your facility?
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What Kind of Happiness Can You Offer?

What Kind of Happiness Can You Offer?

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What Kind of Happiness Can You Offer? In this industry, there’s a lot of talk about happiness – as well there should be. In recent years, studies have suggested that the presence or absence of happiness affects us at a cellular level: When we’re happy, our tissues suffer less damage, our bodies have less inflammation, and our immune systems are stronger. Because we know that regular exercise contributes to greater happiness, we remind our clients that coming to the gym is good for them, that it’ll make them happier. But, in the light of a recent study, maybe we should wonder whether we’re giving happiness enough thought.
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Functional-Fitness

Adapting to Functional-Fitness Trends

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Functional-FitnessLast week, the New York Times ran an article about the functional-fitness trend. “Vintage exercise machines have recently become the padded shoulders of the workout world,” the article states, “swept aside for a fresher look.” In other words, out with the leg presses, biceps curlers, and seated torso rotations, and in with the kettle bells, medicine balls, and weighted sleds. Anything that gets you working out in ways devised to help you perform daily activities, like lifting, bending, and climbing stairs, constitutes the latest trend, the article says.
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Want to Retain Your Clients? Motivate Them

Want to Retain Your Clients? Motivate Them

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Want to Retain Your Clients? Motivate ThemBack in the fall, when I joined my current gym, I signed up for a free training session. The trainer I was assigned, Cliff, was friendly, knowledgeable, kind, and encouraging. I met with him twice. I felt I could learn a lot from him — if nothing else, I found him motivating, and I knew I needed motivation — so I intended to meet with him again, but, somehow, I didn’t manage to. (As I’ve confessed before in this space, my gym-going became — I don’t want to say a complete fantasy, but it certainly didn’t happen too often.)
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