6 Ways to Personalize an Unforgettable Fitness Client Experience
Last Updated on 2 August, 2024
Achieving fitness goals should be an unforgettable experience for your clients. The question is—are you making the most of that experience? It’s time to get personal.
That is, it’s time to get personal when it comes to your fitness client experience. A whopping 88% of consumers are looking for a personalized experience when choosing fitness products and services, according to a report from McKinsey & Company. In addition, 78% of consumers are more likely to make repeat purchases from brands that personalize. This should be a huge opportunity for businesses in the fitness industry. But, just like a good fitness routine, it doesn’t just happen.
Creating personalization means understanding your clients and providing tailored experiences that motivate them, increase retention, promote brand advocacy, and generate better-quality leads. As result, personalizing the client experience can result in a 10-15% increase in revenue.
Your business succeeds when your clients reach their goals. To do that, it’s crucial that you deliver an experience that your clients will love and thrive in. Otherwise, loyalty to your business will fall off.
The good news is that there are proven strategies and tools for delivering an unforgettable member experience every single time.
By using client data to create personalized workout plans, technology to deliver personalized communications, and creating a personalized atmosphere in your gym or studio, you’ll build a foundation to reach your business goals along with your clients’ fitness ones. Read on as we explore ways to deliver an unforgettable, personalized client fitness experience.
1. Know your clients—each and every one of them
How well do you actually know your clients? The first step in creating a personalized fitness experience for your clients is to truly know them. And the key to knowing your clients is creating a detailed client profile for them. A client profile is a central location where you can keep track of all client data, including intake forms, survey responses, personal information, communication history, credit card information, client goals and progress, attendance records, and more.
Keeping track of this information will help you tailor your clients’ experiences to their specific needs and preferences. This process isn’t just about keeping things organized on the back end of your business. Research reveals that 76% of clients expect personalized experiences based on their personal data, so it’s just as much for them as it is for you.
By keeping track of all client data in one place, you’ll have a better understanding of how to communicate with each client, what their goals and preferences are, and how to tailor their experience to meet those needs. In a sense, it’s a cheat sheet. Knowing your clients inside and out gives you the answers on how to build stronger relationships with people and keep them coming back for more.
2. Ask for client feedback with surveys and questionnaires
Speaking of having the answers, the simplest way to know how your clients feel about the fitness experience you’re creating is by asking for their feedback on a regular basis. If you don’t ask, you don’t have the opportunity to find out how to provide a more positive experience. Surveys have found that only 1 out of every 26 people will bring up what’s bothering them without being asked. Instead, they just leave and take their business elsewhere.
Surveys and questionnaires will help you figure out what classes they want to see more of, what resources they need from you, and which instructors are their favorite (and why). It’s important to ask for this feedback on a regular basis to get a deeper insight into your clients’ likes and dislikes so you can cater to them.
WellnessLiving makes it easy to create regular surveys and questionnaires, send them to clients, and store their responses in their client profile. Not only does that data help you know if there’s anything you need to change, it also builds a stronger relationship in the process. Anytime you need to refer to that information, it’s easily accessible through the client dashboard.
3. Track client progress and goals with technology
Let’s dive deeper into why it’s important to integrate technology into your client fitness experience. As fitness pros know, tracking client progress and goals is an essential component of creating a personalized fitness experience.
If your members are following a program or looking to achieve a specific result, it’s crucial that you track their progress digitally so they can see their wins over time. Not only does that experience make them feel good about themselves and the fact that your fitness studio is helping them achieve that feeling, it also gets them hooked on reaching the next level, the next goal. Keep their eyes on the prize. It’s easy for someone to lose sight of why they joined your studio or gym if they’re not leveling up.
There are several ways to track client progress and goals:
- Workout templates. Create templates for different goals and programs, such as weight loss or muscle gain, that clients can use to track their exercises, reps, sets, and more.
- Fitness challenges. Build the fire of friendly competitive spirit with challenges. Focus them around specific goals such as weight loss, class attendance, or personal bests.
- Fitness tracking platforms. Use tools like Spivi, AccuroFit, or MyZone to monitor clients’ heart rates, calories burned, body fat percentages, and more. All these tools are supported in WellnessLiving. Remember, using them gamifies the workout experience, which can be a big motivator for people.
- Wearables and smartwatches. Encourage clients to use wearables and smartwatches to track their progress and share the data with you. That data can be tracked and stored on the fitness tracking platforms mentioned above.
- Before and after images. Take before and after images of clients to show them how far they’ve come.
- Monthly fitness assessment/follow-up. Schedule regular check-ins and assessments to track progress and make adjustments to client programs. Again, personalization is key!
These strategies for tracking client progress and goals help you tailor their experience to their specific needs and help them achieve their desired results. All of this goes a long way in keeping people motivated and engaged. It also increases the likelihood that they’ll continue to be a loyal member of your fitness studio or gym.
4. Elevate the client experience in and out of class
You’re not just engaging with clients during class. Their experience with your brand starts from the time they walk in the door and should continue outside the gym with a stellar digital experience. Elevating client experience in and out of class is essential to bringing them closer to your brand.
Of course, the in-class experience is the most important. As clients sweat their hearts out, instructors have the opportunity to create an emotional journey through music and playlists. Tell a story that explains why clients will solve their problem with your workout, right now. Offer modifications and provide hands-on adjustments if the client is comfortable. Communicate with clarity and intention, this will make the client feel understood and motivated.
Outside of class, you should always show that you’re there for your clients. Provide additional resources they can use when not at your studio or facility. This can include video workouts, nutrition guides, shopping lists, tracking templates, and more. The more you proactively show you’re invested in their health and fitness—that you actually care about their journey and progress—the more they’ll invest in you.
Just like you want to make working out easy for your clients, you want to make all other interactions and transactions easy as well. Gone are the days of pages of paperwork and in-person reservations. According to a 2021 Zendesk report, 65% of customers want to buy from companies that offer quick and easy online transactions. Clients want to quickly browse and book classes online, make payments, and access additional resources and information through a well-designed client portal. Make it easy for clients to be engaged and motivated, and they’ll keep coming back for more.
5. Enhance communication through personalized messages
When it comes to great client communication, it’s about what you say and how you say it. Enhancing communication through personalized messages is another important aspect of creating a personalized fitness experience at every stage of the client journey.
Keep in mind that every client is different. Some are dedicated daily participants, while others are new to your establishment and still forming an opinion. This is where lead nurturing with personalized campaigns comes in. Your goal is to get people more engaged, bring new clients in, and create a more complete online and in-person experience for existing clients.
Luckily, you have options for how you can reach your audience. The best channels for lead nurturing campaigns are emails (78% conversion rate), websites (48%), social media (39%), and blogs (30%). Of course, the success of these campaigns hinges on how well you personalize them on an individual level. WellnessLiving has powerful personalization tools for email and SMS, so you can send reminders with client names, remember their birthdays, and celebrate when they reach a milestone.
Social media and blogs are important channels for adding to the client experience with additional info, news, and resources. These channels go a long way in helping people feel more connected to your brand and creating a more communal experience.
Yes, you do need to pay attention to all these channels to truly enhance your client communications. It’s what consumers have grown to expect. A 2021 Vonage report revealed that 26% of consumers are very likely to stop buying from a business if they can’t engage with them on different channels.
Enhancing communication through personalized messages allows you to build stronger relationships with your clients, and keep them engaged, motivated, and coming back for more.
6. Offer incentives to clients
Clients drive your business, but what’s driving them? Offering incentives to clients is an excellent way to add value to their experience and make it more personalized.
For example, when a client hits a goal, reward them with points. They can then redeem for discounts on memberships or free studio merch. They’ll wear it as a badge of honor. These types of incentives are a win-win for both you and your clients. You give them perks for their success, and it makes it feel personal to them.
Incentives don’t only apply to when people meet their fitness goals. Clients can also be rewarded for leaving a review or promoting your business on social media.
Even though implementing a rewards program feels business-y, it’s actually more about building stronger relationships and experiences. Sixty percent of customers in rewards programs say they have better experiences with brands because they feel more connected to them. The relationship becomes deeper than simply a “money for services” transactional one.
A thoughtfully created incentives program that’s relevant and meaningful to clients will make them feel valued and appreciated in the long run.
Elevate and personalize the fitness client experience
It’s time for your business to get really personal. Personalization is key to your success in the fitness industry. And, all the tools you need are right at your fingertips. By understanding your clients, tracking their progress, and elevating their experience both in and out of class, you’ll be able to create the experience they crave.
It’s up to your clients to show up. It’s up to you to know your clients better than the back of your hand, ask for client feedback regularly, track their progress and goals, and enhance communication through personalized messages and incentives. Doing so will go a long way in elevating the client experience in and out of class.
WellnessLiving offers several tools that can help with personalization and enhancing the client experience on all those levels. You have access to transformation logs, client profiles, advanced reporting, automated marketing (emails and SMS), Forms builder for creating surveys and questionnaires, and built-in rewards to build the incentives program you want.
Ultimately, WellnessLiving is designed to make it easy for you to deliver an exceptional experience for your clients. Want to learn more? Book a free, no-commitment demo today and keep pushing towards your business goals.
