Staffing is one of the big issues in the fitness industry. It has always been difficult to recruit and retain staff, but it has become harder post-pandemic.
We’ve discussed this in previous articles, but lately, there is more focus and debate on operating with reduced staff, or even no-staff gyms.
The best member retention rates are created through staff interaction, but if you’re having to work with a smaller team, there are still ways to maintain good member retention.
Staff leaving
The furlough scheme in the UK helped keep some staff during lockdowns, but many top fitness instructors and PTs took the opportunity to set up their own businesses, sometimes taking members with them. Some realised that they could make more money with less effort by delivering parcels or fast food. Others re-trained for careers outside fitness.
As a result, clubs have lost staff, and many facilities are struggling to recruit new instructors and other key fitness staff. Some are adapting their strategy to operate with smaller teams or no staff at certain times. This has been tried before when low-cost gyms first opened (FitSpace Gyms in the UK in 2007). Many fuller service clubs dropped their prices and service levels to try to compete with budget clubs and lost many members who wanted to pay more for more service.
Retain Staff to Retain Members
You need good staff to deliver a good service and retain members. Technology helps, but nothing makes a connection like a face-to-face interaction, appointment, class, or even a phone call.
But if you have fewer staff, the right systems can help to augment your retention solution. Technology does not replace staff, but it allows your team to focus on the right places and on the right people, and to measure the efficacy of their actions.
Some members need more attention than others
Some members will be fine visiting regularly, nudged along by the occasional communication, a quick hello, simple messages, and good customer service. But others need more help to build the habit, perhaps needing a programme, or the motivation to join a class. Systems can help to identify these members, working with visit data and other information if necessary to show your staff who needs more help.
Member communications can also encourage interactions to happen. If a member is told to book an appointment with a coach, and the coach is looking out for the member, you’ll have more success.
Thirty days – Congratulate or Encourage?
A simple example is the 30-day congratulate/encourage message. Every new member gets an SMS/email/letter 30 days after joining. If they’ve made 4 or more visits, they get the ‘congratulations’ message, otherwise they get the ‘encouragement’ message. You have an instant KPI in the split of congrats vs encourages, plus a list of people who need more motivation. If you have the resource, it’s worth reaching out to them asap.
Making the technology work for you
Low-cost, low-staff gyms have used member communications to good effect, and it’s always possible to improve engagement and retention, just ensure you measure it. FitSpace aspired to a zero-staff model. It was never achievable in reality, but they were constantly looking at ways to get more from tech and systems and use the results to guide staff activity.
Don’t perfect it, get on with it
When building a digital member journey, it’s important not to get bogged down in defining the whole journey at the start. Try sending one or two messages, learn, adapt, and improve the journey. Consider the channel (email, SMS, post, etc) along with the key messages and content.
For example, if you send the 30-day message by email, you might get a 40% open rate and a 10% open rate (twice the fitness industry average, since new members are generally more engaged). But this means that 4 in 10 messages are opened, and only 4 in 100 are clicked. Choosing SMS for the 30-day message will likely get a 99% open rate and 60% click rate, which is clearly engaging with many more members.
So, sending some key communications and analysing the results is one of the critical factors in building a good digital member journey. It should also be connected to the physical or face-to-face interactions available to all members, new and existing.
Here to help
If you would like advice on strategy, definition, or implementation of your member journeys, please get in touch. This is what we do at GGFit. We work with public, private, and independent clubs, bringing learning and experience together from different models with a single focus on getting your members to stick around longer. Find out more at GGFit.com or email info@ggfit.com
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