Our summer months can be long when our doors aren’t swinging open as often as they were in January and for many reasons. Our members are spending more time outdoors, traveling, and soaking up the sun. We found a great article from ZenPlanner, on ways to improve your member retention.
Three Ways You Can Improve Gym Member Retention
“Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other’s gold.”
This is an age-old song I remember singing as a child, but for a membership-based business it couldn’t be more insightful.
Every company gets excited about a new member: that energetic new member who cannot wait to meet their fitness goals, become a high-ranking martial arts practitioner or get plugged in to your fitness community. With a new credit card in your account and another person who may refer their friends to your business, a new member is always an exciting thing for fitness businesses.
However, you must always remember that it is the long-term, consistent customers who are the mainstay of any membership-based business.
Each year, gyms see a huge influx of members at certain times (New Years resolutions, anyone?). While it is fantastic to get the extra revenue, how do you make it last throughout the year? Here are three tips to help with customer retention.
1. Plug Them In
Community is powerful retention tool. Don’t make your new member feel responsible to themselves to keep training. Make them feel responsible to their fellow members in the gym, box or academy. Here are a few tips:
- Hold community events and hangouts.
- Encourage people to come early to a session have time to let them stay later.
- Introduce new members to the “veterans” of your gym or school and other members.
- Make sure your staff is engaging in the lives of all members both the newer folks and the old-timers.
For additional tips, get your free copy of our Member Retention Guide
2. Communication
Send out an email or phone call to each and every member who has missed sessions in a particular time period (e.g., a week – two weeks). Missing a week or two weeks of workouts is usually the first sign of a disengaged member. Here are a few ideas to reenergize those members who may be disengaging:
- Set up automated emails for anyone who misses a week-worth of workouts (You can set this up in Zen Planner.)
- Get notified when any member is not showing for classes over an extended amount of time. You can even assign a certain staff member to be notified if they have a closer relationship with the member. (Again, you can do this through automated alerts in Zen Planner.)
3. Show Progress
Nothing is as disheartening as committing a lot of time and money into an activity and not seeing the results. Workout tracking is a vital way for showing your members that they are getting better and should continue to work towards their goals.
- Make sure staff and members are using workout tracking software. (Advanced Workout Tracking is offered at no additional fee within Zen Planner.)
- Review progress with your members on a monthly or even weekly basis. You can even compare their results with other like-minded peers by using a Leaderboard in the gym.
These are just a few ideas to increase retention but we’d love to hear your thoughts. Let us know how you keep members engaged and enthusiastic after the initial “glow” has worn off.
Acknowledgements: article by ZenPlanner.com
