Dust off the telephone to increase new membership sales and customer service at your gym or health club
Yes we can say we are high tech and we have all the newest gadgets for communicating but are we really more in touch with our members and potential new clients? I would have to say no! Yes we can send auto emails to the masses and confirm appointments with text messages. These new high tech forms of communicating are all great and have their place but there is something about hearing a friendly helpful voice on the other end of the phone that just cannot be beat.
Let me just give you a couple examples that apply to the health and fitness industry. If you are a gym membership salesman and have an appointment to show a new client around the club and your plan is to sell them a new gym membership you will want to confirm their appointment. Just think if you send them an auto text message and they are feeling a little nervous about coming into the club for the first time it is so much easier for them to just delete that text message and go on about their day and skip the appointment. If you had just taken a few minutes out of your day to call them by phone you would have had the chance to calm them by just being excited and friendly on the phone. You would also increase the chance of them showing up just because they feel a sense of obligation since you took the time to touch base with them and remind them of the appointment that they set with you.
If you are a personal trainer and have a member who is paying for sessions with you and you take the time to call them and remind them of their session this is a great form of customer service since most members schedules are packed with appointments to remember. This personal touch will also help you retain clients and add to your revenue because if your client misses fewer sessions because of your reminders and develops more of a relationship with you from talking on the phone they perceive more value in the paid sessions.
Remember that relationship building is one of the keys to increasing revenue, new membership sales, member retention and customer service in your fitness center or health club. Second to only face to face conversation is talking on the telephone for building rapport. Pick up the phone and watch your business pick up as well!
Until next time, enjoy life!
Matt York