One of the biggest challenges that gyms and fitness centres face is customer retention. The busiest time of year in January, followed by September when many people set or reset their fitness goals. However, after a few months, it’s common for there to be a significant dropout. Statistics show that 1/6 of our day is spent on our mobile phone, with the average person taking 90 seconds to respond to a text message – making SMS the perfect solution for this problem.
There are various ways in which communicating with your customers via text message can benefit your business. Whether it’s sending promotional offers, general communication, opening times, class reminders or sending relevant documents, text messaging is always a good option. It is crucial to keep your customers engaged and feel valued to make your business success.
We’ve put together 9 innovative and simple ways in which your gym or health club can start using text messaging today:
- Increase Lead Generation
Make the sign up process to your gym or fitness class easy by using text messaging. You can use a dedicated number or shortcode and get people to text in a keyword such as “SIGN UP” or “GUEST PASS” along with their name to request to join. Advertise this on your website, social media, flyers and any other marketing collateral to make it easy to gather leads.
2. Refer A Friend scheme
Get your current clients engaged by rewarding them with a refer-a-friend scheme. Send a text message explaining to them what they have to do and include their referral code. Reward your clients with discounts from their membership or free gym classes! Keep customers motivated by sending them updates on how many referrals and rewards they have received.
3. Simple membership renewal
Before your customer’s membership runs out send them a little reminder to renew their membership. Send it in enough time so they can contact you to discuss things further or cancel their membership with you. Include your contact number or give them the ability to reply back to your message requesting a callback.
4. Promote special offers
Send out personalised bulk messages including special promotional offers such as a personal training deals or upgrades and secondary spend. If one of the classes you are running isn’t full then send out a message enticing people to join with a limited discount offer.
5. Send class reminders
Increase attendance rate by sending out a text message before gym classes, SMS reminders can increase attendance rate by 45%. Include a URL link to the class timetable or link to a page where they book a new class. You can get people to reply back if they are unable to attend or text back if they want to join a new class!
6. Review important documents
Instead of posting or emailing promotional brochures or sign up documents, send these in a text message. This means that your clients get to learn more about your service quicker and more efficiently by looking at them from the comfort of their phone. Give people the option to text back if they would like to discuss anything more with you and have your customer service team on hand.
7. Collect customer feedback
Improve your overall customer experience by asking your customers for their thoughts and feedback. Send them a quick SMS survey asking for their feedback, whether it’s on your facilities, customer service or classes. Your customers will be more inclined to respond back via text message and give you their honest feedback. You can then use this information to improve your service.
8. Send motivational messages
Encourage your clients to keep returning by sending them motivational messages about their healthy lifestyle. You can send advice and tips about how they can improve their healthy lifestyle and include links to any information they may find useful such as a link to your YouTube channel for fitness videos. Build your database easily by getting people to text into a shortcode and keyword so they can receive these specific messages.
9. Text Message Coaching
You can also set-up a dedicated number or shortcode and offer a one-to-one coaching via text messaging, which would be useful for those who are using a personal trainer at your gym. Research shows at 6 months people who have NOT received positive motivational text-messages were twice as likely to quit then those who have received them.
For more information in text messaging for your business or would like to know more about our services talk to our friendly customer care team on 0845 122 1302 or email [email protected].