Blog

Your first 7, 14 and 21 days of achieving your goal and meeting your expectations…

Before I write blog 2 I would like to introduce Adrian Watt (pictured).  Adrian has been a Personal Trainer with Whittlebury for 10 months and has over 10 Personal Training clients to his name.  Adrian is attentive and professional and you will hear more from him in blog 3….

So you have done it! You have joined a gym and now it’s real, the motivation is sky high, as it always is when you do something new or for the better.

Remember why you joined up? The weight loss goal you had in mind that will finally mean fitting back into your favourite jeans is at the forefront of your mind. 

Picture the scene, it’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon and you have that usual ‘I will start the gym on Monday’ feeling while you are sipping that glass of wine, we have all been there!

You have an expectation of the gym you have just joined, (and hopefully that is The Leisure Club at Whittlebury Hall) and wouldn’t it be great if those expectations were met?  We understand your requirements and want to retain your business. In the background, rest assured, we are setting up service calls to check in with you every 3 months, scheduling in your new member feedback form to be emailed to you 6 weeks into the membership to measure your experience with us so far, even the finer detail like confirming your Personal Training taster session with your Personal Trainer copied into the email so all the ends ‘tie up’. 

How else do we try to give you a great experience? It’s a little known fact in the industry that calling you by your name on arrival is so important so we are busy memorising you name, setting a call after 6 days to check you have settled in ok and we are in the office 7 days a week for a chat if you need us.

But I hear you ask, why should we care, why should we not just look for our next customer, the facts are simple…we wish to retain your business, your goal will not be met if there is no expectation by you for us, if we get the first 21 days right, it increases your chance of retention by 31%, a fact that has stood for over 5 years in the leisure industry. 

Now comes the crunch time, the membership team need to handover your goals, your expectations and your requirements to the Personal Trainers. 

If we don’t explicitly explain to the instructors your needs, how can they take an interest?

They say that to really understand someone is to explain the situation back to them (or someone else) better than you were told it in the first place. This point is paramount; otherwise it could turn into Chinese whispers. For example, Mrs Smith tells the membership team she needs to exercise to help her stop taking the anti-depressants and to help her anxiety. By the time the membership team tell the gym team this, it could be explained that Mrs Smith is looking to do more exercise as she hasn’t trained for years! Or another example, David told the membership team that he wants to bulk up as he wants to impress the ladies in his office as he is fed up of looking skinny!  If the membership team does not handle this correctly they could explain it to the gym team that David just wants to be shown how the weights work.  Where is the background story?  This is where the care and attention to the finer detail that we know is so important for your reasons for joining.

My point is we need to give you a continuous service and not just take an interest at the point of joining and taking your money!

Rest assured, there are many discussions between the membership team and the gym team about the best way to look after you and how to approach your gym induction based on all different circumstances; age, ability, experience and confidence.

 

What happens if you fall off track? What happens if you start to see your attendance dwindle?  This is coming in blog 3, and so begins the rescue plan….

.
.
.
.