Our last two articles have focused on the importance of member follow up and how to successfully implement and maintain a strong follow up plan.

Today, I want to discuss another way to implement your follow up.

This is through a process called automation.

In the last article, we focused on personalized follow up that would be auctioned by a trainer or gym instructor.

Nothing beats personalized communication, however, there are always time and resource limitations that you are battling with managing and maintaining a profitable club.

This is why, automation can be a great tool in your follow up arsenal as it provides a base level of follow up without ongoing effort.

All that’s required is some initial effort and thought to set up a process that will deliver beneficial results for you well into the future.

The big case for automation is based on certainty. Even with a well-designed follow up plan, a clear list of tasks for your staff to complete and ongoing accountability, we see most health clubs struggle to achieve more than a 50% completion rate of follow up activity.

This means that half of members don’t receive any form of follow up.

This is why most health clubs struggle to really see any improvements in their retention results because they are not actioning the fundamentals that are proven to improve member retention such as follow up.

Automation is one way to ensure each member receives some form of follow up and it can be made to look personalized.

For example, a great time to follow up new members is 7-14 days after they have completed their induction into your health club.

This is enough time for the member to complete some training on their own and also enough time for possible questions and road blocks to arise.

A follow up at this point allows you to address any questions the member may have and intervene with any obstacles that may have arisen.

Such a simple follow up email can be automated and made to look like it’s a personalized email coming from the member’s trainer.

One example may be like this…
______________________________________________________________________________________
Hi John,
I hope you’re enjoying your training.
I wanted to quick touch base and see if you had any questions about your exercise program or if there is anything else I can help you with?
If there is anything I can do, just reply to this email or come and see me next time you’re in the club.
Warm regards,
Personal Trainer
_______________________________________________________________________________________
This simple automated message can include personalisation such as the name of the member making it feel like it’s a personally written follow up note yet it is something that is completely automated.

The key is to establish what communications you want to automate in your follow up processes and what you want each message to communicate.

There are many fantastic examples of automated communications that a health club can set and forget and these can include a combination of both email and SMS based communications.

Another example is a centre automating the delivery of a satisfaction/feedback survey after 80 days.

This helps gather feedback about how members are feeling about their initial experience at the club.

And finally, another example is a simple re-assessment reminder email which automatically sends members an email after 65 days, offering them a free review of their program and re-measurement.

All of these simple communications offer the member support and prompt action on the member’s part.
The best thing is that these all are delivered automatically at the appropriate time and don’t rely on a trainer or staff member to take action.

All that required is some thought and time to set these actions up. The rewards are huge for a small investment.

Automation should be a part of every well planned retention strategy as it is reliable and time-efficient. It is important to note that automation should not form the basis of an entire retention process and that nothing beats personalized and human based interaction with your members, however, it certainly should form part of an effective retention processes.

For more information about how to set up an automated retention process, please go to www.fitdesk.com.au