Abigail Harris takes a look at the latest software designed to help members feel a sense of belonging to their gym ‘community’

As individuals increasingly take control of their own health and fitness (see p39), using apps to train outside of a gym environment, operators need to work even harder to retain their members. Indeed, it’s widely thought that health clubs will only survive into the future if they can create a true sense of community of club for their members, giving people a reason to continue training within the health club community.

The impact of this on long-term retention is so strongly felt that sophisticated software is being developed to engage with members – software that extends outside of the club to make members feel valued and supported in their daily activities, drawing them back into the club, as well as being embedded into fitness equipment to interact with members while they train.

Technogym – Ecosystem
People today are connected to each other like never before, according to Alex Bennett, Technogym UK’s TG network manager. “At Technogym, we recognise the tremendous opportunity this represents to provide end-users with ‘wellness on the go’: seamless access to the tools they need for a wellness lifestyle, anywhere, at any time, through any device.”

The Technogym Ecosystem is a cloud-based system that facilitates precisely this sort of ‘wellness on the go’. From network-enabled equipment with interactive touch-screens to smart apps that pre-empt customers’ needs, it promotes retention by creating strong connections with health club members, both inside and outside the facility. The mywellness cloud is a core ingredient, offering web and mobile applications that help operators provide a personalised training experience.

“The Profile, Challenge and Communicator applications help clubs create engaging communities,” continues Bennett. “Profile is a questionnaire that scientifically maps users’ aspirations so staff can bring like-minded people together. The Challenge application sets targeted group or individual challenges that can motivate members to reach new heights through friendly competition, and the Communicator app publicises these challenges, and other messages, to members using the cardiovascular machines.”

Sheffield International Venues recently trialled the Communicator and Challenge applications at Hillsborough Leisure Centre’s Fitness Unlimited gym. The first challenge involved six teams competing to burn the most calories and was promoted via instructor engagement and messages sent to CV machines via Communicator. Within a week, 200 members joined the challenge, with a total of 68,000 calories burnt to date.

“Members really appreciate the spirit of friendly competition sparked off by the challenge,” says Peter Clark, corporate health and fitness manager at Sheffield International Venues. “It has helped build emotional engagement with the centre and helped members embrace the fact that intelligent technology can help them measure results and stay motivated.”

The Retention People – Customer Experience Management
The Retention People’s (TRP) suite of Customer Experience Management software is used to deliver improvements in retention, participation and customer service, and facilitates ‘community’ by turning customers into a powerful sales force for their club.

TRP’s Digital+ allows operators to develop closer relationships with members when they are not in the club, either online via their club Facebook and Twitter feeds, or via automated personalised emails and texts based on attendance and bookings activity.

“However, no operator can really claim to build an effective community of members unless they are confident their club feels like a great place to be – somewhere members want to keep coming back to,” says Justin Mendleton, sales director at TRP. TRP’s Interact+ module encourages this by signposting staff to members who are most at risk of not returning. Interactions with these members can be measured to understand what types of interaction, and which staff, deliver the most increases in visit frequency.

Active Nation, a campaigning charity that manages 16 facilities in the UK, uses TRP software to help foster a sense of community among its members. Active Nation initially implemented Interact+ at one centre in January 2011 before adding four sites in Southampton and then, having driven interactions that were proven to increase visits and retention, rolling it out across all fitness sites during 2012.

Around 75 per cent of all interactions within Active Nation’s sites have been shown to be effective, resulting in a repeat member visit within the following seven days. The charity has also seen a year-on-year increase in the length of stay of its members since implementing the TRP system.

Stuart Martin, group commercial manager, says: “TRP software is an integral part of measuring and managing member retention proactively. We are serious about making a difference to people’s lives and keeping people active, and we can only demonstrate that seriousness by using software.”

Precor – Preva networked fitness
“Precor understands the importance of establishing a relationship with exercisers in order to keep them motivated and help them achieve their goals,” says Brent Brooks, Precor’s VP of networked fitness. “That’s why we introduced our cloud-based platform, Preva networked fitness, on our P80 touch-screen console.”

Preva’s suite of tools offers three main elements: Preva Net, Personal Accounts and Business Suite. All are designed to drive engagement and participation while simultaneously enabling operators to better manage their business and ultimately drive revenue.

Tools include Preva Net’s Message Manager, which allows clubs to communicate directly with members while they are working out. The Park Inn Hotel in St Helen’s, UK, knows just how powerful and persuasive it can be: it ran a competition using Message Manager which actively encouraged members to speak with staff and thereby build relationships – members had to contact staff in order to enter the competition. Fifty per cent of people using the gym during the competition’s 30-minute timeframe responded.

Meanwhile Personal Accounts was created to help members interact with their club, not only in the gym but also outside of the club via a new mobile app, thereby enhancing the member-club relationship. Users can set personal weekly workout goals, choose targets relevant to them – distance, calories or duration – and select a long-term focus, such as losing weight or toning up. Weekly progress is measured with a goal summary that alerts exercisers if they are on- or off-target, automatically recalculating remaining workouts so they can still reach their goal. To keep them motivated and engaged, users earn recognition rewards and milestone badges which they can share online – again enhancing the sense of community.

“Preva Accounts is truly engaging our members, encouraging them to try different workouts as well as building a sense of club,” says Paula Pocock, fitness manager at Wellington Health and Fitness Club at Wellington College, UK, which saw more than 1,000 different workouts performed by 116 individual members in less than one month. “Members are logging on to each piece of kit to see their progress towards the weekly goal they’ve set. It’s popular with all ages, has been a talking point between members, and has given instructors more reason to interact with members in the gym.”

Precor has also teamed up with TRP to offer its retention system via Preva. Preva Retention works like Interact+ to help clubs have meaningful interactions with members identified as being at risk of drop-out. Clubs can also measure and track members’ Net Promoter Score (NPS) – their likelihood of recommending their gym to a friend or colleague.

“Member experience is at the forefront of everything we do,” says Brooks. “As well as engaging members while they exercise, we want to help operators deliver a better member experience through meaningful interactions, which will ultimately improve their retention rates too.”

Pulse – SmartCentre
Mclub Spa and Fitness in Stoke, UK, opened in September 2011, installing Pulse Fitness equipment and its gym management software solution SmartCentre. As a former Esporta club with a high membership base, Mclub’s first objective was to re-engage with the existing members, highlighting the key changes and improvements within the club and building the foundations for an ongoing, sociable fitness community.

Pulse SmartCentre is a single software solution for the entire fitness suite operation, seamlessly connecting members, equipment and staff for improved efficiency, retention and profitability. For members, it makes the user experience more motivational and enjoyable through communication, interaction and feedback.

Mclub proactively uses many of the software’s functions to help create a fitness community. These include: Reports Centre, sharing user statistics in competition format on leader boards and via social media sites; Messaging Centre, keeping members up-to-date with club news; Personalised Virtual Workout Plans, a bespoke digital workout designed to meet the member’s goals; and Two-Way Recognition, through which members can see a picture, name and job title of staff available, and staff can see which members are in the gym so they can easily approach them.

“One of our primary goals was to build a community, and to achieve this we needed a proactive approach to interaction with members,” says Richard Stonier, fitness manager of Mclub.

“SmartCentre has been at the centre of this. We use the messaging system to send weekly newsletters, information on events and to encourage feedback. Staff use the data to know when to engage with members, offer workout reviews, further guidance, etc. You can see members are motivated by the instant feedback and in-club competitions.”