Building A Fitness Business: Getting New Clients & Retaining Existing Ones

When we are building our fitness business, we will spend most of our time acquiring clients, however, there is great earning potential in focusing on retaining our clients over a longer time period, says Rebecca Cort, Coach at the Australian Institute of Fitness QLD. Retaining clients contributes to improved profit because costs reduce as the relationship lengthens.

The biggest contributing factor in client retention is golden customer service. Most businesses assume they are already delivering service at a high standard purely if the client stays, but they must be careful not to become complacent.

Retaining clients goes deeper that just day-to-day service. How well have you really engaged your clients? Here are five ideas that will give your business value:

1.  Have fun!

Some businesses do this really well; Fancy Pants Friday, mini fitness competitions followed by a BBQ, themed workouts, the list goes on! Focusing in on the fun and zooming out from the grind will have your clients continually engaging with you and your business.

2.  Stay connected!

And this goes beyond using social media. Know the names of your client’s partner and children, and check in with their lives. Build your community and get your clients to connect with each other too.

3.  Provide a holistic service.

Have merchandise, supplements, towels, a child-friendly play space, photos, a members board, access to Allied Health Professionals, and whatever seems to fit with your clients’ needs, and more importantly, provides them with a sense of belonging. They will wear your t-shirts and be walking billboards!

4.  Member of the Month (MOM).

Acknowledge and reward your clients in a monthly newsletter.

5.  Keep amazing files.

You can never have too much detail. Track their attendance, progress, birthdays, struggles, nutrition and their annual membership anniversary.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but if you do these things well, your retention rate will improve. Remember to build on the foundation of best practice customer service.

• Bio

AIF

The Australian Institute of Fitness

The Australian Institute of Fitness (AIF) is the largest and longest established fitness training organisation in Australia, with dynamic training methods and expert course coaches nationwide - spanning fitness, massage and nutrition. The AIF qualifies more fitness professionals than any other provider in Australia, as well as offering a broad range of continuing education courses (CEC), upskilling resources and partnership programs for existing industry.