On-boarding is the most important part of the member journey. If you get it right, your members will stick around longer, saving you time and effort chasing absentees or dealing with cancellations. Although only around 10% of your members will be new at any point in time, it's worth putting in up to 50% of your effort into on-boarding. Try to leave no member behind.
Think about your new members’ first experience. What standards do you have in place to ensure the joining experience is excellent, and how do you measure success? Simple things like a welcome message can give you early engagement insights. A welcome session [aka induction] will help retention. Other good examples of first experiences might include a first group exercise class, body composition analysis, new member challenge, myzone workout, or PT session. Choose 2 or 3 key actions that you will try to get every new member to experience, and then measure engagement.
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Example New Member Actions
- Welcome Message
- Welcome session [induction]
- Introductory class / First group exercise session
- Body composition analysis / weigh-in
- Challenge sign-up
- Exercise programme/goal setting appointment
- Fitness test / heart rate workout
- PT session
- High-five / nudge SMS
Welcome Message
The welcome message that says thanks for joining is a nice new member touch. But it can also help you to measure and increase engagement. If sent by email, you can monitor delivery (bounce, open, and click rates). It’s a critical pathway if you have a digital new member goal like downloading your app or creating an online member account.
If bounce rates are high (e.g. invalid email address) this is a great excuse to speak to the member in club, or call them to get the correct email. If your open rate is below 50%, there's a couple of actions you can take; improve your subject line and/or tell new members that they will receive an email packed with information and motivation. If your click rate is low, add more clickable links, or re-word the text or buttons. Don’t just say “follow us on facebook”, try “keep up-to-date with the latest member stories on facebook” instead. Finally, if you’re still missing out some new members, consider other channels; is SMS or letter a good alternative?
Welcome Session
We know that members who have a welcome session stay longer than those who don't, and yet ‘induction’ rates are still low (if measured at all). Some budget gyms instigated this problem by allowing new members to bypass the induction. Many other clubs in the industry have followed suit. They’re making the sale easier, removing a barrier to entry for new members. However, it’s now difficult to convince new members to have a first appointment, and member retention suffers.
There are a few reasons why first appointments are key to good retention but the primary one is to ensure that the member makes their first visit. Certain chains have over 15% of joiners who make zero visits! Nearly another 10% of joiners make only one visit, and never return. Offering a welcome session will increase the chance of new members visiting once, and if delivered well, should encourage them to come back again.
Recording which members request and attend their welcome session is good practice. If a new member declines or misses their appointment, you can try to re-sell the appointment. And you will need to sell it. A lot of new members claim they know what they're doing or say they have had an induction before, but nearly all will benefit from the appointment. Tell success stories or share feedback from welcome sessions to help show the benefits to members (and staff).
Key First Actions
So, as a new member joins, choose your key first actions. Send welcome messages, offer (or mandate) welcome sessions, encourage new members to attend a class, buy/wear a myzone belt, measure their body composition, join a challenge, have a PT session, etc. Track your success rate against 2 or 3 of these as key performance indicators. You can then set targets and take action to improve uptake of these key interactions. Not all new members will comply, so you need options on possible pathways, and measuring can help identify members who are getting left behind.
Next steps: 7-day call
Every new member has committed to your club and parted with their money, so a courtesy call at 7 (or 14) days is a no-brainer. Ask how their induction was (if they had one), did they get the welcome email, have they attended a class yet? If there are any issues (missed induction) fix them if you can (re-book) and if there are no issues, ask for a referral!
Again, the 7-day call is a nice thing to do, and it will get you the occasional referral. But more importantly, it helps you to highlight anything that could be going wrong for a new member. Most restaurant waiters will ask if everything is OK with your meal; think of this the same way. Reach out to all members, and you’ll be able to help the ones who are being left behind.
True story: 7-day Call
The sales manager at a large multi-site leisure trust was convinced that 100% of their new members were called at 7-days, since their CRM system showed a tick in the box for every new member. However, mystery-shopper joining highlighted that less than 25% of joiners were called by staff (from 82 new member journeys). What’s more, only 2 of the joiners who were called were asked for a referral by the Customer Advisors (sales staff) who were making the calls!
A more rigorous check process now ensures that at least 50% of new members receive a 7-day call. Most sites do much better than 50%.
Congratulate or Encourage
The final onboarding suggestion is still simple, but delivers an indispensable statistic. Send an SMS (or other message) to all members 30 days after joining. If they’ve made 4 or more visits, send a congratulations message, or if they’ve made fewer than 4 visits, send a message of encouragement. Try to send it to all new members; if you can’t text them all, consider alternative channels, email or letters/postcards.
Count how many congratulation vs encourage messages you send, and you’ll have a new member engagement metric. Are new members who have a welcome session or attend a class more likely to get a congratulation message? Do you need to ‘sell’ more welcome sessions?
As well as the measure of new member success, you also have a list of new members on low visits in their first month. You’ve sent them a message of encouragement, hopefully with a good call to action, but it’s not going to hurt to pick up the phone to them too. Try to leave no member behind!
Dos and Don’ts for new members
- Do encourage all new members to have a welcome session
- Do try to persuade them to attend a class
- Do spend more time listening than talking
- Do introduce them to other members and staff
- Do offer members a welcome session again if they declined/missed it first time around, especially re-joiners
- Don’t tell them they need to visit 3 times a week
- Don’t promise them a program review every 4-6 weeks (they probably don’t want it, you don’t have the resource to deliver it, and they won’t exercise plateau, it’s a myth, unless you’re an elite athlete!)
- Don’t criticise their last club. Compliment it, and then they’ll tell you why they left
- Don’t rely on email. Only 1 in 5 emails are opened
- Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone. You are not cold calling, and you’ll learn a lot about your members
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