What is awesome gym customer service?

Customer service is important for any business to succeed. If you own a gym, your revenue source will be directly linked to your membership base. In order to ensure your gym business survives and remains competitive in today’s fitness industry market, you have to consistently provide your members with high quality service. Customer service plays a vital role in member acquisition and member retention — research by IHRSA shows interaction with fitness staff significantly decreases member dropout.  Gym members that are satisfied with the service being provided by your fitness business will automatically come back to your gym and spread the word to their family, friends, and co-workers. For service providers, like fitness facilities, it is imperative that quality of the member experience is always the top priority.

How to make a great first impression with potential customers

Getting customers into a gym can be a really tedious task. To attract customers gym, owners have to assure their customers that the services that they are offering make a good first impression. The first way of assuring your customer that you set the service standards high is to provide tasteful marketing and promotional campaigns. Be sure not to alienate a particular segment of your target population because you really do not understand the full connotations of a trendy meme.

How to provide good customer service to existing members

When looking at the quality of service that is provided to a member, you have to take a cold hard look at your employees because they are the ones that are providing the service. They are the face of your business. The main focus of trainers, nutritionists, fitness instructors, and administrative staff should be to ensure that the member is satisfied and on a direct path to achieving their fitness goals. Before opening a gym, it is important for owners to train their staff about the basics of customer communication and how to interact with the new and loyal members alike.

Good communication strategies:

• Enforce a gym uniform and appearance standards for employees
• Encourage staff to be on a first-name basis with regular members
• Ensure employees’ names and titles are visible on uniforms
• Teach staff appropriate communication techniques
• Continually train new and current employees how to provide a great member experience

TechRepublic posted an article which does a fantastic job at outlining 10 effective ways to communicate with customers. Although the article’s language is directed at the tech industry, his tips can be easily transferred to the gym industry. Take a few moments and check it out!

Go the Extra Mile and Invest in Gym Membership Software

New and loyal members alike are always delighted when a business goes the extra mile and does something special to make them happy. A great member experience starts at the front desk. An easy way to ensure an excellent start is to install a well-designed fitness software. Members expect their requests to take very little time. When unfreezing an account or paying for a bottle of water takes more than a few minutes, it can feel like a lifetime. Speeding up the process to only 30 seconds or less per customer generates goodwill and builds on the feeling that your gym is well-organized and the right place to exercise. Using this same software for automated daily tasks reminds staff of the little actions, such as a birthday greeting, that make your gym special.

Gym customer service ideas:

• Send “welcome to the family” letters 
• Wish them a happy birthday by mail, text, or in person 
• Celebrate fitness goals, promotions, and birthdays with a congratulatory text or note

If a member finds out that these are the extra services being provided by your gym, there will be no hesitation that they are being provided with high quality service. Your members will also not hesitate to talk or tweet about it either.

Gym Insight – Gym Management Software

At Gym Insight, our gym management software provides a clear, easily accessed, and transparent picture into your company’s financials. Sales Guru feature allows new members to sign up quickly on a tablet and our sales solution automatically integrates client payment data with the member management system. Our gym software is built in-house, by fitness club owners. There are no cumbersome third-party plug-ins or complicated protocols, and it’s available for a single, low monthly subscription price — no hidden fees, no links to your payment processor. Call us today for a free demonstration on how we can lower your software management costs and free up more of your capital!

This blog originally published on Oct. 4, 2013. It has been updated Jan. 21, 2021.