Some Usability Improvements To The Purchase Agreement Signature Step
A minor improvement has been added to the agreement purchase process. Following a purchase chances are the next step is to book some sessions, make sure the client has their login details, scan a barcode. Previously after a purchase you had to then look up the customer to do these things - now links to all of these are directly on the page that comes up following a successful purchase.
Sending Automatic Booking Reminders By Email And By Text Message
A new feature has been added that allows booking reminders to be sent to customers. Reminders can be added to any service type or class that you offer and can be by email (24hrs prior) and / or by text message (SMS) 2hrs before.
The setup page is in the admin login setup area under the scheduling setup options
Setup of reminders just takes a few seconds. Whatever services / classes you offer are listed and you just click ON or OFF to select if email reminders and/or text message reminders are to be sent.
Sending text messages isn’t free (requires a SMS credit balance) - so a club might want to use just email reminders for most booking types, but additionally use text messages for bookings like fitness consultations. These type of "sales" sessions are critical - if they don’t come in you can’t convert them - so a 10cents text message in addition to the email reminders is a good option in that situation - just improving show rates by 10% when it comes to sales consults could mean thousands of $$ in new revenues.
Also, for text messages - if a club decides to use this for regular bookings - then there is an option to stop sending text messages after the customer shows up for a specified number of bookings - once they hit that number then text message reminders to them would stop. If they didn’t show then they would start up again automatically. Here’s a screen shot showing that option more clearly
The reminder emails a customer receives states the booking details and if the provider has a photo then that is included in the email, especially useful if the reminder is for a sales consult - the customer has a photo of the sales person to easily seek them out when they arrive at the club.
If the time a booking is made is close to the actual session time (within 24hrs) then no reminders get sent - it would be pointless to remind somebody about a booking they just made
Remember as well that club weekly emails also can contain a list of all the sessions a customer has in the upcoming week. We think that plus this new feature can have a really positive impact on show rates - we’ll track that and publish it in a future blog post.
Improvements To Service Agreements Management Interface
Some improvements have been added to the way service agreements (eg customer PT contracts) can be managed.
The agreement detail page has a few additions - the ability to add notes about an agreement directly from the details page has been added & the link to adjust / cancel agreement.
The new button - Adjust / Cancel leads to a new page that provides options for adjustment all in one place.
The top of this page shows all the payments to date on this agreement with the option to refund or partial refund any of the payments & then determine what should happen to any bookings & session credits associated with the payment. If the payment was through ClubReady then an option is to process the refund directly back to their credit card or bank account. This could be done before but the interface was not nearly as nice to use
The bottom part of the page lists any planned payments (EFT) - these can be canceled all in one step now. Also - all the due dates can be changed in one step, or all the due amounts changed.
The last part of the adjust/cancel page has options for notifying the customer of the changes to their agreement and also classifying the change if it means the agreement is canceled
From one simple interface everything about a customer agreement can be managed. Contrast that to the outsourced billing approach - customer signs a contract (likely on paper) - Contract sits on a desk for a few days - gets faxed to the billing company. Customer wants a change or a cancel - contacts the club, who contacts the billing company, who don’t make the right change…customer still gets billed…irate customer calls club…and so on. That model is totally broken - with ClubReady the contract doc is electronic, changes can be made in seconds and the customer is instantly notified. Much more efficient.
Upscale Club In Rhode Island Has A ClubReady Party!
It’s not often that a club has a party centered around their club management system - but that’s exactly what Davol Fitness in Rhode Island did in early April.
Davol has been using ClubReady for a while now to manage their Personal Training services and also their membership leads process, but they decided to have a big official launch to their clients and to make a party of it - complete with a live band!
The focus of the party was a weight loss challenge using all the great client wellness tools found in ClubReady. Over 150 people attended the event - paying $30 each, with many also then signing up for personal training at the same time.
We love to see this kind of thing - it really drives home what ClubReady is all about - making the customer experience different - and driving sales through that. The backend "management system" is what you first think of & ClubReady does that better than anything out there (in our opinion!) - but what really sets ClubReady apart is the direct impact that club customers enjoy. Customers are where all the money comes from, they pay all our wages & if you go into 100 fitness clubs in the US - you’ll find a lot that only offer customers a set of exercise equipment. In 2008 customers expect a lot more! Davol is a club that understands this very well & will enjoy long term success because they are group of smart people who know how to differentiate in a competitive market.
Here are some photo’s from the Davol party
Some More Improvements To Membership Leads Management
It’s been over a month since the last blog post & that’s not because nothing has been going on - its because we’ve been so busy adding new stuff! - so we have a bit of catch up to do on the blog outlining a lot of new things that have been added.
Here is an improvement that’s been made to membership leads functionality.
Membership leads can now be assigned to categories and to individuals
The leads list can be filtered by these categories/people as well as by all the other filters. This assignment can be changed at any time and is also selectable when adding a new membership lead.
Also added is the ability to flag the lead as having visited the club - this is also a filter when reviewing the lead list.
Creating Custom Admin User Types
ClubReady has up until now had two different types of admin user - Master Admin (which can do everything in the system) and Front Desk Admin (that has some restricted functionality - like being unable to access the setup or reports).
Especially now, with the improved dashboard functionality, having the ability place various snapshot widgets on the admin dashboard - just having those two different admin types became too restrictive.
A new feature has been added that allows the club to create as many different admin types as they want with a lot of ability to customize exactly what each admin type can do & see in the system. The dashboard layout & access to different dashboard widgets can also be setup for each admin type added.
So, a club might have an admin who’s whole job is to go after membership leads - they only need a specific view, another admin might be a PT sales manager, another - in the case of a chain of clubs might be a district manager. In that case the master admin might be reserved for corporate.
Setting up new admin’s types is easy - a new option has been added in setup > defaults > Admin permissions
After an admin type is created - then setting up what the new type can do is again - simple - you setup the permissions the admin has (currently there are about 80 different permissions) and then you setup what the dashboard looks like for this admin type (one of the permissions is also if they can unlock their dashboard & move stuff around - so you can create an admin type that has a fixed dashboard)
Then after the new admin type is setup - it shows up as an option when adding a new admin user to the system.
This allows for some very focused admin types to be created - restricted capabilities and also less menu options so their login area is overall cleaner for the job they have to do.
Daily ‘To Do’ For Admin Users
ClubReady already has an extensive To-Do List management system that is available to all user login types (Clients, Admin’s, Providers) - that has the ability to create categories, drag & drop re-order, add notes, add reminders and so on.
This new addition is a small but effective addition to the To-Do list functionality. Every admin user now also has a To-Do category called ‘Daily To Do’ - this new category cannot be deleted. At the end of each day anything in this category that is marked done is reset to not done.
This is useful for standard tasks that a club admin might have to do every day. The list can be setup & the items checked off during the day & the following day - they will all be set again to not done ready for the new day.
A new dashboard widget has been created also - if placed on the dashboard - this shows the ‘Daily To Do’ and the admin user can check off the items right from the dash board without having to go to the To-Do list pages & see at a glance reminders on the tasks they need to get complete.
Some Improvements To Club Membership Lead Management
The membership leads functionality is a bit less powerful than the personal training prospect management in that it doesn’t have automatic rules or different categories beyond how the lead contacted the club. Some improvements have been made to allow for much greater flexibility in filtering and managing the lead list.
Now the membership lead list can also be filtered by contact type, and first contact person as well as time since being added. Last notes can also be shown in the lead list for easy viewing (just like in PT prospect management) and also and chart of how many of the leads in the filtered list have had notes added has also been added. Details can now also be edited.
Filtered lead lists can now also be exported to excel.
Remember as well that targets and dashboard widgets are available for membership leads. Targets can be set for both adding new leads and converting leads and the tracking of that vs a daily target can be added to the dashboard. Anybody responsible for membership leads and conversion can see at a glance if they are on track for the month and if not exactly what they have to do to catch up.
Using ClubReady With Competitions To Boost Health Club Sales
Weight loss competitions / challenges are a great way get members involved & motivated, but to make that work & to get people to sign up for the program there has to be a way to keep track of it and hold people accountable.
ClubReady makes easy work of that because all the client nutrition logging and evaluations are available right there in their login area and in addition any challenges / competitions can be discussed on the discussion boards.
Also when members are involved and motivated - their likelihood to signup for additional services like Personal Training are dramatically increased. This approach is great for small clubs all the way through to huge membership clubs.
East Bay Fitness in RI did exactly that recently using ClubReady, in fact this even got a write up in the most recent issue of Fitness Business News.
ClubReady Gets A Strong Mention At IHRSA, San Diego
ClubReady was mentioned in one of the lectures at IHRSA in San Diego - ‘The Psychology of Sales’ presented by Chris Gallo - a respected Industry speaker & consultant.
Chris asked us if he could use some screen shots of ClubReady in his presentation to demonstrate ways to improve the new member experience and we were very happy to say yes.
Below are his slides that included ClubReady from the section of his presentation about breaking down the barriers to Personal Training sales. The lecture was also recorded and we’ll post the ClubReady part of his talk on the blog if we get a copy of that.
For a full copy of Chris’ presentation - which is very interesting and goes into a lot of detail about why people buy & the new member experience - then he can be contacted thru his web site www.healthclubdevelopment.com
