5 Biggest Mistakes in Fitness Client Onboarding

January is one of the busiest months for fitness studios and gyms.

In January, roughly 12% of all new gym memberships for the entire year are started. This is, in part, due to January being the start of the new year, when people get enthusiastic about New Year’s resolutions.

During this time, it is critical to have a solid onboarding strategy in place.

Though your business may experience a surge in memberships in January, around 14% of these members will quit by the end of February. After six months, memberships can drop by as much as 50%.

To combat these membership losses, you must start by optimizing your onboarding process.

Fitness client onboarding needs to be more than just filling out a few forms and sending new clients off on their own. When you bring a new client into the fold, it is essential to make them feel welcomed, supported, and part of a community.

With a great onboarding experience, new clients can even attract new leads via word-of-mouth referrals.

A successful onboarding strategy can result in lifelong clients. Taking the right approach to onboarding has the power to boost your retention rates and increase client loyalty overall. To begin building an excellent onboarding process, the first key step is to recognize the major mistakes to avoid.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the top five client onboarding mistakes made by fitness professionals:

Mistake #1: Not understanding your clients

New and old clients alike want to feel like you truly care about them.

A quick registration process is essential for getting clients into the building quickly. Once they have a new client’s basic registration info, many fitness professionals don’t ask any other questions to get to know them better.

Instead, you should offer a fitness client questionnaire to all new clients that asks them about their goals, preferences, needs, and more. Within this questionnaire, you can also provide clients with the opportunity to opt into data-sharing agreements that allow you to create personalized services and resources for them.

Not all new clients are going to want this in-depth level of service—hence, the questionnaire should be optional. For the clients who do want personalized service, however, this questionnaire can go a long way in helping you to meet and exceed client expectations.

Remember that your clients are here for your help. You have likely marketed yourself as an expert in the field. Now is the time to let that expertise shine by learning about and addressing your clients’ specific pain points when it comes to fitness.

Here are some excellent questions to include in your introductory questionnaire:

1. What fitness activities have you done in the past five years?

2. Have you been to a gym/fitness studio before? (If so who were they?)

3. What are your specific health and fitness goals?

4. What are your eating habits and/or dietary restrictions?

5. What are your current/past health conditions/injuries?

6. What is your job? How many hours do you work?

7. What are your hobbies?

8. How many hours do you intend to commit to exercise?

It can also be beneficial to include an open-ended question at the end where clients can write a response. A good question for this can be “Is there anything else you would like us to know about your fitness experience and goals?”

Mistake #2: Not helping them set clear goals

You have just received a completed questionnaire from your new client—now what?

Yes, they just told you their goals in the questionnaire, but the work doesn’t stop there. Part of why you should have your clients list their goals is so that you can help them clarify these goals and flesh them out.

To give your client the best opportunity to create well-crafted goals, offer one-on-one sessions where you can go over their goals and improve upon them.

A key component of this is to use the S.M.A.R.T. method:

• Specific: The goal is specific in its requirements (e.g., “I want to lose weight”)
• Measurable: The goal is measurable and quantifiable, making it easy to track progress (e.g., “I want to lose 20 pounds”)
• Achievable: The goal is realistic and can be achieved within a set time frame (e.g., promising a client they can lose 40 pounds in one week would not be an achievable goal)
• Relevant: The goal should be related to a larger, overarching goal (e.g., “I want to improve my physical fitness”)
• Timely: The goal should set a clear timeframe (e.g., “I want to lose 20 pounds in three months”)

Plan for monthly goals

By helping clients set clear and achievable goals, you’ll increase the likelihood they’ll reach them.

Aim to create goals for an 8-to-12-week period, with a one-on-one check-in scheduled after that timeframe ends. Along with setting overarching goals, you should also help clients set gradual goals to achieve every day, week, and month.

Here is an example of a planned out set of monthly goals:

• Start of Month 1 (Week 1): Complete three workouts and clean out junk foods from the pantry.
• End of Month 1 (Week 4): Complete 12 workouts by week 4, reach the 10-pound total weight loss milestone.
• Start of Month 3 (Week 8): Complete 24 workouts by week 8, reach the 15-pound total weight loss milestone.
• End of Month 3 (Week 12): Complete 36 workouts by week 12, reach the 20-pound total weight loss milestone.

In addition to mapping out daily, weekly, and monthly goals, you should also outline specific workout requirements as well. For example, you could list a certain number of classes, facility visits, or exercise repetitions for the client to set as a goal.

You can also provide your clients with numerous resources that can help with planning and tracking. Examples include workout templates, exercise checklists, and nutrition-focused shopping lists.

Make sure to consider nutrition when making goals as well! Good nutrition plays a vital role in fitness, so ensuring your clients are on the right track with their eating habits is crucial.

Mistake #3: No social proof strategy

Your business is helping people meet their fitness goals every day, but where’s the social proof?  Simply telling clients that you can help them achieve their goals is not enough. They want visual proof that your guidance and training can help them get where they want to be.

In your initial one-on-one session with a new client, ask to take a picture of the client as part of the progress recording process. As the client hits each goal or milestone, you can then take another picture, using these pictures to compare and showcase changes to the client’s body.

This is the perfect way to track their progress—and, with their consent, you can also use these pictures to show new clients the potential results they can achieve, too.

For clients that do agree to you using their pictures, you can upload their pictures to their client profile built into your business management software. These pictures will then be easily accessible for your social proof marketing strategy.

If you include a client review or testimonial to go with the pictures, the marketing value increases even more. Research shows that 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from friends, family, or other acquaintances.

Client success stories with before-and-after images are perfect for your studio walls, website, blog, and social media. Not only can you celebrate your clients’ successes, but you can also use this content to attract more leads.

Mistake #4: Failing to communicate with clients

Your fitness client onboarding process gives you the chance to build a lasting relationship right away.

However, truly long-lasting client relationships can only be effectively fostered through great communication. With the right communication strategy, you can increase client trust, deepen your connection with them, and boost the likelihood of client retention.

According to a research report from RunRepeat, just two direct interactions per month between clients and fitness staff can reduce membership cancellations by 33%.

But how can you effectively communicate with clients?

For starters, you should figure out what digital channels your clients prefer. These days, most people can be found on social media. Plus, almost all people carry a smartphone with email notifications enabled.

With this in mind, let’s look at three of the best ways to communicate with new clients:

• SMS: SMS can be a great way to get in touch with clients quickly. The average open rate of SMS messages is around 98%, compared to a 20% open rate for emails. However, it is important to note that only about 25% of smartphone users prefer SMS over email communication. As such, it is crucial to ask your clients what methods of communication they prefer for optimal results. SMS texting is best for short-term reminders, such as for upcoming classes.
• Email: Though email communication has a lower overall open rate, it is the top preferred method of communication by smartphone users. Research shows that 46% of smartphone users would prefer to receive business correspondence via email. Email can be a good method of communication for receiving client feedback. Plus, it allows you to send digital resources such as workout guides and nutrition plans.
• Social Media: Communication via social media is all about engagement and building community. Keeping in touch with clients on social media gives you the chance to chat directly, as well as feature clients on your profiles and respond to comments. With the average social media user accessing the various platforms for two hours and 25 minutes each day, this is one of the best ways to connect with your clients.

Mistake #5: You don’t automate the client onboarding process

Though maintaining a human touch in your onboarding process is essential, to keep things simple and efficient, you need to leverage automation.

As a fitness studio or gym owner, you have many roles to play. Automating your client onboarding process can ensure you get clients registered quickly and successfully.

According to the ABBYY State of Intelligent Automation Report, streamlining the onboarding process with technology like automation can improve the customer experience by 43% and increase customer retention by 37%. Moreover, the top two applications of automation include process intelligence and intelligent document processing—both of which are optimal for onboarding clients.

Additionally, according to Marketo research, 76% of companies that utilize automation in their marketing strategies achieve a return on investment (ROI) in the first year.

How do you automate your onboarding?

Here are the three key components in the client onboarding process that can be automated:

• Welcome emails: Email automation is a huge strategy used among the most effective digital marketers. With the advanced email automation built into business management software platforms, it is easy to create personalized email campaigns to welcome new clients and invite them to connect on social media.
• Forms: Through automation technology, you can build a library of custom forms that appear automatically to clients as needed. Great forms to create include intake forms, surveys, questionnaires, and liability waivers. With the help of automation, you can more easily send the proper forms and track client responses.
• Online booking: Setting up an automated online booking system is crucial for meeting the digital expectations of clients. According to recent Zippia research, 94% of clients state they are more likely to work with a company that offers online booking options. Plus, this frees up more of your and your staff’s time to focus on classes, client relationship development, and more.

The ultimate client onboarding checklist

Making mistakes is human—and when you’re running an entire business, they’re bound to happen.

Here is a checklist of all the necessary actions for optimizing your client onboarding process:

• Have clients fill out intake forms and liability waivers online.
• Deliver a welcome email after sign-up (with a client goals questionnaire).
• Schedule your one-on-one meeting and map out their goals with the S.M.A.R.T. method.
• Take before pictures of new clients at the start of their fitness plan (with their consent) and take after pictures when they reach each new milestone.
• Introduce new clients to the general manager or other relevant staff.
• Introduce new clients to other members via your social media community.
• Send clients digital resources (nutrition plans, workout guidelines, etc.) to help them plan.
• Invite clients to educational and social events.
• Follow up every 2 weeks to check in.
• Aim to have at least two interactions per month.
• Celebrate new client successes on your walls, social media, blog, etc.

It’s time to set up your clients for long-term success

Optimizing your client onboarding process sets both you and your clients up for long-term success. With January being one of the busiest months for fitness professionals, updating and automating your onboarding process before the New Year rolls around is key.

If you can create an overwhelmingly positive onboarding experience, your chances of boosting client retention throughout the year increase significantly.

Though mistakes are bound to happen, avoiding the ones discussed in this guide is essential to building long-lasting relationships with new clients.

Automation is easily one of the most important factors, making it all the more important to find the ideal all-in-one business management software solution. With WellnessLiving by your side, you can make it easy for clients to register, pay, book, check in, and track their progress. Plus, you can quickly create forms and questionnaires with our drag-and-drop forms builder.

Want to learn more about how WellnessLiving can enhance your onboarding process? Book a free, no-commitment demo today!