The Ultimate Guide to Gym Membership Management Software for Gym Owners
All businesses in the world have specific requirements and ways of functioning, more particularly the ones that operate within the beauty and wellness industry. Whether it is a salon or a fitness studio, each business has its own set of requirements. As a gym or fitness studio owner, you may find yourself juggling between multiple independent variables in you day to day operations, but even you know that not everything can be in your control. For instance, you may have a fool proof operating SOP but you cannot control either the competition or the marketing plans of your rivals. However, what you can do is streamline your operating processes such that you can devote your precious time in dealing with other important requirements. A gym membership management software is the tool, which helps you streamline the daily operations.
In order to run a gym, quite a few administrative tasks are involved. Activities such as bookings, scheduling, new member on boarding, membership management, invoicing and payment, marketing and promotions, customer relationship management, and employee management etc. are not only mundane in nature but also tedious and have to be done with complete accuracy. Doing these tasks manually or through Google Sheets or excel can be overwhelming. In this article we guide about the benefits of fitness studio management software, and how it makes your tasks simple.
Membership Management
Members are the bread and butter for any gym or fitness stud and it is extremely important that the fitness management club software should be convenient for members and your own team. The software should be able to effortlessly manage your membership related activities by having a central customer database, new enrollments, accepting bookings, easy check-in and check-out, and payments and much more. Most importantly, the software should be configurable to respond to client’s need at all times. For instance, by deploying a ChatBot or a virtual assistant, the system should be able to answer all basic queries o clients at all times.
Organize Administrative Tasks
Multiple administrative tasks, such as invoicing, payments, inventory management, employee management, payroll management can be easily accomplished. The software should allow you to run all the process swiftly and without the element of human error. In the client facing side processes such as scheduling of personal training sessions, booking of classes, diet tracking, fitness goal progress, should be accomplished in just a few steps. On the other hand, in the employee facing app, work allocation roster, weekly schedules of classes etc. should be done easily.
Streamline Business Processes
Perhaps the biggest benefit of fitness studio management software is its ability to streamline the processes and interlink them such that the overall number of business processes stand greatly reduced. For instance, all the activities such as booking, payment reminders, new member onboarding etc. can be easily done as a parallel activity under the membership management module. Similarly, employee attendance recording, staff shift scheduling can be accomplished under employee management schedule. With a completely data driven model, run the processes free from any errors.
Superior Reporting
A business generates a lot of data. Member retention ratios, employee retention ratios, daily sales, event popularity, evaluating the effectiveness of a marketing campaign, return on investment, cash flow statements, profitability etc. Manually computing these business metrics is a daunting task and prone to human errors. A fitness club management software can accomplish all of this in a matter of few minutes and send you daily reports, weekly reports to show you the health of your business. With such crucial data in hand, and on-demand reporting feature, the software assists you in making informed decisions and implement necessary course correction. Moreover, since the business data and metrics are crucial information, the software allows you to set up role based authorization and data access.
Inventory Management
Ranking as perhaps third most important benefit of a fitness club management software, the simplification of inventory management is no less than a boon. By automating the inventory management process, and deploying a complete track and trace model the system eliminates the element of human error and also prevents pilferage. Further, by running the data analytics the system also helps you maintain lean inventory.
Superior Customer Experience
Operating in service industry involves being on your toes, at all times, to provide superior customer experience. A gym management software allows to accomplish that with ease. Activities such as being 24x7x365 responsive to customer’s needs, accepting payments for classes, booking appointments for fitness and nutrition consultancy, tracking fitness progress, and managing diet plans the software’s customer facing portal allows each and every member to get instantaneous responses and as a result the customers often report higher satisfaction level with the service quality. An example of superior customer experience would be the journey from booking a class to processing payment. The process should be both intuitive and be accomplished in just about 4-5 steps.
Aside from the above, the software can also help you run customer loyalty programs, marketing and have a robust employee management plan. The software market is quite mature with many options available. However, as a gym owner or a manager it is important to evaluate the software objectively, and in line with objectives of your business. Some of the best in class software providers are Zenoti, Wellyx, RhinoFit, VirtuaGym etc. We particularly love Zenoti for its state of art user interface, fantastic reporting, and ability to integrate with the third party applications to provide a seamless experience.
