How to improve effectiveness of the reception?

There is a lot of work to be done at the fitness club reception. Registering entrances, allocating and receiving cabin keys, selling memberships, answering club members' questions, answering phone calls, replying to customer’s emails, enrolling members  for classes, up-selling services and items from the bar – these are main responsibilities of your reception staff, but not all.

Probably every customer who was in the gymduring a week in the afternoon, did not receive satisfactorily servicedue to reception overload. So as a manager or owner of the health club can you do to improve the work of your reception? How can you relieve your employees from some mundane, repetitive actions in order to have as much time as possible for their customers?

Routine activities automation

Speeding up routine activities is important, but to improve your club's performance you do not have to go straight to radical solutions such as installing control gate or reel. Nothing will replace afriendly, warm welcome done by the reception. You can perform many actions much faster without investing huge sums of money. It can be done by implementing management software like i.e. PerfectGym. It can significantly help and improve:

1. Premises management and working out group classes schedule
2. Customers enrollment for group classes - give your club members the ability to subscribe to your organized activities through booking system or mobile app. According to many surveys, every second fitness club user would like to be able to do it herself/himself. By booking places on-line, you will also save up to 20% of your reception time which is already quite a lot.
3. Sending users notifications about changes in your club (i.e. canceled classes or substitutions; different working hours). Automation centre allows you to send either e-mails or text messages quickly and at the same time it is done in bulk.

Plan the processes and schemes plus educate

When hiring a team, be sure to choose people with specific values and attitudes. This is particularly important in the context of aproper customer service, because the course of action in different situations - including managing crisis situations – and processes can be learned. It is essential to have such schemes worked out and train all employees in such areas. To give you an example - what would you recommend to a customer who was not informed about canceled group classes and who turned up on time to participate in them? Question is what reception staff should do with such a customer – what to say and how to compensate.

Take care of the quality of your legal side

Do not forget about legal aspect - take care of the content of your rules and agreements. Make sure that they are not only legal but also understandable and clear. Thanks to this you will show respect to the customer. In addition, unclear and complicated records in contracts and regulations can discourage and scare potential customers of your club.Also make sure the reception staff understands and is able to explain the terms of your contracts and knowsin details current deals. Build the image of your team members as service-oriented professionals.