Review your Gym's client journey

What is your clients Journeys?

So you have great gym equipment, really good engaging and knowledgeable team, solid cleaning processes, your Health and safety is spot on, you post regularly on social media and feel like you have a good club.

The question though is, do you know what your client journeys are?

In other words, do you know where the touch points are and where you can effectively influence their decision making? Not always in terms of additonal revenues but also those touch points that encourage members to refer you to friends, that encourage them to stay longer than they may otherwise have done and yes of course those touch points that encourage your clients to spend more money.

Don't forget you will have a range of clients in your business and each one of these should have defined journey you want them to follow.  Once you know who these people are you can create the journey and train your teams to deliver them.  It is no surprise that the likes of Disney and Marriott hotels are known for their service levels. Whilst the staff are often very engaged and love to interact with clients, much of that interaction is pre-determined, its planned, its trained out and standards are then audited to ensure it happens every time.

Don't mistake your gym for being different.  If you set out these rules of engagement  and get your teams to deliver it seamlessly you will not only improve your retention rates but also your revenues, your customer satisfaction and your referral business.  Know who you are and deliver it consistently and with excellence.

So who are your potential customers?

Every club is slightly different so some or all of these may apply

- Your membership prospect (telephone enquiry, appointments and walk-ins)

- Your members (including current and ex-members)

- Club guests

- Aggregator members (Hussle, gympass, classpass etc)

- Spa clients

- Members friends/referrals

- Online clients

- Personal training clients (current and previous clients)

- Group X clients

- Group Personal training clients

- Corporate Members

There are bound to be more that are more bespoke to your business but you get the idea.  Your aim now is to look at each one of these clients and review what their journey should entail.  I will give you some examples to make the process easier for you.  If you want more detailed support please give us a shout at Black Raccoon Consultants and we will guide you through the process.

Remember throughout this process we all as humans have 5 senses? as much as possible we want to hitting all of those.  Also take into account that people communicate and take in information in 3 different ways.  We are wither Auditory, Visual or Kinaesthetic.  In essence we either like to here the information, see it or feel it.  Your journeys need to take all these types of people into account.

Examples:

A new Member Prospect

- The telephone enquiry:

    i. Who handles the telephone enquiry? does a receptionist answer the phone and pass the enquiry to the sales team or is the receptions and the sales consultant the same person

    ii. Is the telephone answered the same by all staff? sounds simple but most clubs I work with allow their teams to answer the phone anyway they wish, some staff are therefor great, others are downright unprofessional.  Clients wont remember the professional but the will recall the bad?

    iii. Do you have a telephone script that every member of staff follows?  This is important to ensure consistency and also allow you to ensure clients are set up for the tour properly when they arrive.  The tours starts at this initial enquiry so it needs to be right.

    iv. Have all staff been trained properly.  Not just shown the scripted but has the process been roll played

    v. Do you have a process for ensuring solid data collection 

- The Tour

Remember throughout this process we all have 5 senses? as much as possible we want to hitting all of those.  All take into account that people communicate and take in information in 3 different ways

    i. What is the customers first impression of the club.  Is the front doors and outside clean? Is the entrance area inviting and easy to find? Is a members of staff available when they arrive at the front desk? Does the reception smell inviting? what is the music playing?  

   ii. Is it clear where they need to report to?

   iii. What is the meet and Greet process?

   iv. What is your needs analysis process and where will this take place? Sounds strange but often the reception is not the best place for this. Its too busy, to impersonal and not a great place to discuss goals and personal information.  Or you can decide not to do a detailed needs analysis and just chat about training on your walk around the club.  (I am not a fan of the second but some clubs chose this as their journey)

   v. What does the tour look like?  It should be the same, hitting the same key points, showing off what you do well.  It shouldn’t be a wander around the club with statements like "here is the treadmill".  All tours should be needs specific, show them what will help them or what they want to see and show them what you do well.  Show them pictures of members working hard, introduce them to members of staff, get them on the kit and show them how it works.  

You need to know how that looks for your club, but it should be exciting, vibrant, tailored to the client and show off why they should join you

   vi. The price presentation: Where will this take place, reception or the bar? How are you presenting the price? what collateral are you using, at what point do you mention personal training and other services in the presentation?

    vii. What is your process for closing and overcoming objections

    viii.  If the clients decided not to join what information are they given to take away

     viiii. What is your follow-up process? is this automated, how often are they called, texted, emailed.  How is this process managed?

The sales process is probably one most clubs are familiar with but the example about should be applied to all clients and their various journeys.  Probably the most ignored is the new members/current members journey.  We spend thousands on advertising, dragging new enquiries in, we then sign them up, some may do an induction/orientation into the gym but that’s about it and then we simply forget about them and hope they keep paying

What is amazing, we then decide to send these members adverts to buy pt., protein packs or group training sessions having not engaged with them for weeks or months.  We then wonder why our amazing new offers don't get any bites.

In the same way you create and train your sales process, you should do the same for your members.  So when creating the members journey you have to consider the following points

- What/where will be the touchpoints for your members.  In other words what opportunities do you have to interact with members:

     i. On reception, every time they enter and leave the club.  if you don't man reception, how do you plan to meet and greet every member every time

     ii. The induction/orientation.  When does this take place? i would suggest to aim for at worst within 7 days of joining.  How often do you intend to offer this support in the future? if not at all, then how do you push them to the personal trainers without consistently just throwing PT offers at them

     iii. What is the contact journey from the club manager. I would suggest every member gets a welcome call from the GM/Owner with 1 month

     iv. What is the process of staff supporting members on the gym floor?

     v. Do members have a program card, an app with their program and how often is this reviewed

     vi. Are members allocated their own coach who's job it is to maintain regular contact each month? If not how are you planning on keeping the touchpoints personal?

     vii. What is your automated e-mail process?

     viii. Do you Send a Newsletter every month or Bi-monthly?

     viiii. At what point are you introducing members to the personal training team

- How do you encourage members to sign up to your social media pages 

- Do you have social events to encourage member/member interaction

- The physical club - do you need to review how your club is set out to maximise comfort and use of the club.  Whilst you may like the look of the club, does it allow for nervous members to train away from the 'Crew'. 

taking in all the above you also need to think:

- Is my club clean, 

- Does it smell right

- Are the posters and marketing up to date and informative

- Are the staff in uniform and do they look smart and portray the right image.

- Are the staff trained and understand the journeys

I appreciate there is a lot of things to consider for each client type.  What you do need to remember though, by setting out what you want and how you want it delivered you are able to create the right atmosphere, manager and deliver the service levels you want and manage the performance of the staff based on these guidelines.

You cannot simply ask staff for exceptional behaviour, you need to set out and train out the expectations.  You cant train anything if you don’t understand what this looks like 100%

I work with so many Franchise clubs where the message gets lost.  The only things that makes each one recognisable is the brand above the door.  This is often because the message of what the journey is gets lost.  If you want to see clubs that do this well, visit the likes of 1Rebel, their service delivery is exceptional and you can see this in any of their clubs not just the odd one.  Outside of our industry, check out the big hotel chains.  Gyms can learn a huge amounts form hotels, they have developed guest journeys that are delivered time after time to make your visits feel special. Trust me whilst you believe its personal, they do this to every client but because its so well trained and delivered its fells personal.

With so much potential time on your hands during the lock down, you would be silly not to take some time to review your business.  Yes, looking at costs savings and potential revenue opportunities are important, so is being in a position to take your club to the next level and being able to wow your clients simply by doing the basics.  None of this should be rocket science but simple processes that can be repeated time after time but which when done well deliver the desired outcome for you and your customers

Here at Black Raccoon we have experience of working not only with gyms, leisure clubs, spa and golf clubs but also within hotels and can support you on creating your own personal set of client journeys

Get in touch today

Black Raccoon Consultants

www.blackraccoon.org

ryancharlesworth@blackraccoon.org

07929369658