MOTIVATING MEMBERS

Client: Anytime Fitness, Edgbaston, UK
Supplier: Precor

Anytime Fitness is the world’s largest and fastest growing fitness club chain and prides itself on providing members with convenient, affordable fitness featuring top-quality equipment.

Having worked in the fitness industry for over 20 years, and as director of European operations for Anytime Fitness for the last two years, Diane Vesey decided that she wanted to be more immersed in the brand. In February 2013, she opened her first Anytime Fitness club in Edgbaston. She says: “The existing Anytime Fitness clubs in the UK are doing extremely well, and opening my own club while continuing in my current role was a way to further support our master franchisors in Europe.”

Working with leading fitness equipment manufacturer and supplier Precor, Vesey transformed what was originally an office building into a 510sq m (5,500sq ft) gym. Featuring Precor equipment and showcasing the brand’s latest innovation – the AMT with Open Stride – the gym provides state-of-the-art exercise facilities. The AMT with Open Stride provides the ability to change a workout in mid-stride, offering exercisers even more freedom of motion by allowing them to dynamically change their stride both horizontally and vertically.

All cardiovascular equipment also features Precor’s latest technological solution, Preva® networked fitness software, which is compatible with P80 touchscreen consoles. The cloud-based system offers a suite of tools designed to banish dull workouts and help attract, engage, motivate and support members. “It’s ideal for the Anytime Fitness 24/7 brand, as the sites are not always staffed,” says Vesey.

Preva Net offers access to a wide variety of internet content, while Preva Personal Accounts enables users to set personal weekly workout goals, choose targets – distance, calories or duration – and select an individual long-term focus, like losing weight or toning up.

“As everyone lives on the web nowadays, Preva plays well to that strength, offering support to our members whether or not the club is staffed. They can set weekly targets, track their progress, and if they miss a session it automatically recalculates remaining workouts so members can still reach their goal.

“I really like the new Preva mobile app too, as members can upload activities outside of the gym, all of which counts towards their weekly goal,” adds Vesey, who is also a fan of the recognition rewards that pop up to celebrate user milestones.

Users can save workouts so their ‘favourite’ last session is waiting next time they log in, from anywhere in the world – something Vesey says the Anytime Fitness personal trainers love, as they can create targeted workouts with members without the need for programme cards or print-outs.

For more information: www.precor.com

The new club in Edgbaston was converted from a former office building

Members benefit from Precor’s networked fitness software

A SPORTING DECISION

Client: The University of York, UK
Supplier: XN Leisure

When the University of York was planning the York Sport Village, the decision was made to procure a new leisure management solution. Three companies responded and Xn Leisure – based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire – submitted the winning bid.

Paul Baker, Xn Leisure business development manager, explains: “The brief was to install a membership management system in time for the opening of the new sports facility, in both the new build and the existing site, without impacting on the original software system. The two systems were operated in tandem until Xn Leisure and the University of York had prepared for the switchover.”

The Xn Leisure solution offered its Dimension system, access control, online bookings and Fast Track Kiosk – all modules that the University of York needed to successfully manage its facilities and expand its membership. “We knew our new facility would be driven by memberships, which would generate new income streams, so we were pleased to partner with a provider whose system allowed for easy communication with existing and prospective members,” comments Ashley Smith, York Sport operations manager.

York Sport previously offered two sports halls, an 80-station fitness suite, four squash courts, three indoor five-a-side pitches, six outdoor tennis courts, an outdoor pitch and 47 acres of grass fields. The new facilities include a 25-metre swimming pool, a 16-metre training pool, a 120-station fitness suite, three studios, a health suite and two outdoor 3G football pitches. The £9m funding for this ambitious expansion came from three sources: the university, the City of York Council and Sport England.
Xn Leisure and the University of York formed a close-knit team to plan the installation and commissioning of the system, which would enable the two sites – almost two miles apart – to effectively communicate management and membership information and allow members to book courts, pitches, sessions and courses.

Smith continues: “Our working in partnership was crucial to the success of the project. Xn Leisure’s training programme was outstanding and we were confident, when the system went live in July 2012, that our staff would be proficient with the system by the time we opened on 31 August.”

There are 7,500 members across both sites, which are well used and enjoy excellent retention. In May 2013 alone, 300 new members registered and there were high levels of pay and play, with over 2,000 visits a week to the swimming pool.

Membership can be purchased online. Meanwhile Fast Track Kiosks went live in March 2013, freeing up front-of-house staff and making way for improved customer service. Xn Leisure’s On Course module is scheduled to go live this summer, empowering parents to book sessions online for their children and monitor their progress.

Smith concludes: “The features and functionality of the Xn Leisure solution allow us to generate quality reports with information that enables us to increase efficiency and offer enhanced services to our members and our neighbours.”

For more information: www.xnleisure.com

York Sport Village

Fast Track kiosks went live in March, freeing up front-of-house staff and enabling better customer service

BOOSTING MEMBER ENGAGEMENT

Client: Fitness Unlimited
Supplier: Technogym

Hillsborough Leisure Centre is a Fitness Unlimited venue operated by Sheffield International Venues, and is a thriving facility with 20,000 visits to the gym every month. As part of its refurbishment in early 2013, the centre installed internet-enabled Technogym VISIOWEB cardio machines to provide a truly integrated, interactive, personalised training experience for members.

To support this, the site chose Challenge and Communicator, two ready-made solutions that form part of the mywellness cloud, a set of business applications that provide operators with the tools to attract, motivate, inspire and retain members.

The Challenge application allows operators to create, manage and measure effective, interactive challenges for all members, while the Communicator application allows facility managers to communicate with members directly through the consoles on cardio machines. Used together, they provide facilities with an ideal combination of enhanced customer engagement and increased secondary revenue generation.

Peter Clark, corporate health and fitness manager at Sheffield International Venues, says: “We wanted to create a real end-user community at Hillsborough Leisure Centre by adding value to the customer experience. We decided to use Challenge strategically to engage members and grow participation, loyalty and gym usage.”

The centre’s first challenge involved six trainer-led teams burning as many calories as possible within a month. Trainers recruited members into teams, with the challenge publicised through messages and bulletins sent to the cardio machines via the Communicator application and viewed by members on the VISIOWEB screens.

Participants tracked their progress by logging into their personal mywellness cloud accounts on VISIOWEB, at home via www.mywellness.com, and ‘on the go’ through the mywellness iPhone app. All data was automatically collected and synchronised on the mywellness cloud portal by the cardio machines, allowing users and trainers to view their data and their position on the Challenge leader board whenever they liked, through any device with an internet connection.

Within one week, the centre saw more than 200 members signing up to the very first online challenge hosted on the mywellness cloud. At the end of the month, over 129,000 calories had been burnt in total across all groups, and to date more than 400 members have created mywellness cloud accounts to track their personal exercise data.

Sue Emsell, a member of Fitness Unlimited at Hillsborough Leisure Centre, says: “I’ve enjoyed the new spirit of friendly competition that the challenges have brought to the gym. It motivates me to work out more regularly and push myself more every time. I visit the gym more often now.”

Fitness manager Laura Jeffery says: “Feedback has been very positive on mywellness cloud. Not only has it helped to grow emotional engagement, but our users are also embracing the fact that intelligent technology can help them measure results and stay motivated. We’re looking forward to maintaining the momentum by holding new challenges every month to keep our user community engaged and interested.”

For more information: www.technogym.com/mywellnesscloud

The gym ran a challenge involving six trainer-led teams; more than 200 members signed up in the first week

The gym ran a challenge involving six trainer-led teams; more than 200 members signed up in the first week

Members can access their personal data via VISIOWEB