Over the last few years, fitness centers have undergone significant changes. The success of programs like Spinning, CrossFit, and Barre has changed the fitness industry. In addition, the. members' expectations have also increased as they have more options to choose from.

The convenience and flexibility that exercising through digitals channels has provided to members in the last years proved to be more than just a solution to stay fit during a pandemic. The ability of fitness centers and studios to adapt to provide hybrid offerings that suit this new consumer need will be important in creating an extraordinary member’s experience at the fitness centers post-covid.

On the other hand, most fitness centers, health clubs, and gyms struggle to recognize individual members across touchpoints and fail to give them appropriate material that keeps them interested and inspired to return.

According to MyCustomer, 85% of companies that have focused on customer experience have noticed a remarkable growth in customer satisfaction, lower churn, and a higher Net Promoter Score (NPS).

The Fitness Center experience is more than just signing someone up with an offer and then leaving them to it.

Whether it’s online or in-person, the better member experience is all about these things:-

• Continually giving outstanding service to customers.
• Forging connections and Forming communities.
• Fulfilling, and exceeding customer needs on a continuous basis.
• Delivering gym members the best customer experience.

A positive customer experience in the fitness industry provides long-term happiness and builds loyalty regardless of price.

According to research, 86% of consumers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.

Everything appears simple when you are running a gym and your members are happy. However, we all have witnessed scenarios where a change in budget, management, or style causes gym members to flee and join other facilities. How can you keep your members satisfied while improving their member experience at the fitness center?

Three key ideas to improve member's experience at fitness centers

Following are the three key ideas that you can follow to improve the member's experience in the fitness industry and to create an amazing customer journey.

1. Interact with your gym members

While it may feel that engaging with current gym members is easy, you would be surprised to know how many fitness industries get it wrong.

So, what does it mean to be engaged? Well, it is the capacity to engage gym members in the club and the ability to make them feel extremely appreciated.

The appearance of this within your company may obviously vary based on fitness center resources, but the goal will always be the same.

Here are a few basic ideas for increasing member engagement in the fitness center:-

• Communicate with your members by name on a regular basis.
• Recognize hard-working members through monthly reward schemes.
• Reach out to members on social media using private groups.
• Begin a fitness challenge that gets the gym members involved.

It is not necessary to spend a lot of money on engagement initiatives. In fact, the little things make the biggest difference.

If you engage your gym members, you will notice a significant improvement in their experience.

2. Introduce personalized gym services

The key to providing the best customer experience in the fitness center is to treat people as individuals and to recognize the various goals and lifestyles that each member may have. Personalized gym services are one of the most effective methods to accomplish this.

Here are some personalized offering ideas to improve your gym member experience in the fitness sector:-

a. A free personalized workout that is matched to the goals of the members.

b. Three-day meal plan trial that provides them with free personal nutrition guidance without detracting them from paid nutritional services.

c. Complimentary personal training sessions to establish a baseline that helps trainers to better understand individual needs.

These strategies not only improve the customer experience but also introduce more premium gym services in a comfortable manner, thereby increasing gym revenue in the long run.

3. Collect feedback

Encourage your members to provide you feedback on a regular basis, whether it is orally or through an email survey.

Engaging your gym members through a customer experience survey could be a great way to show them that you value their opinion and discover what tools they would most like to see at your fitness center.

Feedback gives you insight into your customer’s minds. It reduces attrition by allowing customers to feel heard and allowing you to make adjustments that might drive customers away.

Include your front desk personnel and trainers in the feedback gathering process.

For example:- “Trainers could detect frustration when customers have to wait for a machine on a regular basis, or if the floor plan is not favorable to traffic flow. Involving your employees encourages better loyalty and ownership, which leads to higher customer retention.”

If you want to know more about how to improve members’ experiences at fitness centers, then Dropthought can certainly help!

Dropthought is a user-friendly, omnichannel, and real-time customer experience management platform. We empower companies in different verticals to create delightful experiences for members across their fitness journey. Get detailed analysis and insights from data to exactly know what your customers think and what actions you need to take to delight them.

With a dedicated customer success team, we would ensure that you are optimizing your Customer Experience programs and strategies to create great member experiences!

If you are interested to learn more, simply click here.