Why is Monitoring and Support Important?

Good monitoring and support of clients is fundamental not only to the success of the client individually but to your business as a personal trainer and the business of the club you work from.  Monitoring refers to all the ways in which we keep an eye on our clients and check that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing, turning up when they should be and completing their prescribed exercise plans and programmes. 

Support on the other hand refers to the things we do as personal trainers to keep our clients on track, happy, encouraged and progressing.  Think of it like the supports of a building, it’s important to maintain them so the building remains in good condition for many years.  In order to do this it is vital that we monitor the supports regularly to check that there are no cracks appearing and that the supports are working properly to hold everything together.

So why is monitoring and support so important?

Build it and they will come!  Help them use it and they will stay!  Support them when they need it most and they will be loyal!

It’s pretty obvious that’s the case.  There is a clear link between visitation (how often someone uses a club) and retention.  More importantly, we have one of the very few business models in our sector where most of our value is delivered and experienced by the customer after the purchase is made (i.e. after the club membership is sold or the pt session paid for in advance).  What this means is that what all customer facing (front line) staff do on a daily basis greatly affects the bottom line profitability of the business because it directly impacts on rejoins and referrals – not only to the clubs business but the business of each and every personal trainer within the club. 

There are many types of business model operating in the fitness industry.  Some clubs market and sell memberships very effectively, whilst others support members more frequently and rely on that process to build membership.  Regardless of which model your club is involved with there is simply no more effective way to retain members and get them results than dealing with a client of one, and treating them as you would like to be treated (if not better!).

There is another factor at play too.  Nearly all of the other competing health and fitness ‘solutions’ (e.g. equipment sales, diet supplements, nutrition regimes) don’t have the ability to monitor and support their consumers behaviour as effectively as we do as personal trainers and fitness consultants.  We are able to, through effective consultation/screening techniques; essentially know more about our customers than any other competitor.  Therefore, we have an exceedingly obvious advantage.  On a day to day basis we can see if someone is doing what they planned and if not we can try to help – in fact we are paid to help.  In terms of a customer loyalty programme, this has to be the ‘gold standard!’

It is a little sad to say though that we are not, yet, taking full advantage of this uniqueness.  In terms of the behaviour change model (the stages of change model) we have greatest value to the customer during a ‘slip up’ or ‘relapse’.  After all, they pay membership and personal training fees for this support even if they buy membership originally for more tangible equipment and/or the facilities that are shown to them.  All the equipment in the world won’t help a customer if they aren’t using it! 

The challenge we have in front of us in the fitness industry is a perplexing one.  Can we concentrate on servicing our members/clients more effectively by developing monitoring (what is happening with this client) and support skills (what can I do to help this client) within our staff or will we again be ‘lured’ by the quicker ‘initial’ sales dollar as so many of our competing health and fitness solutions are? 

It is our belief that growing these skill sets and setting up all front line staff with systems to better monitor and support the customer will lead to growth in our overall market share and therein decrease competition between clubs and trainers.  That’s right, we are crazy enough to say that if we get good enough at what we do (particularly those unique things) that people will stay with us and there will be less people using alternative solutions. 

In fact we firmly believe that fitness clubs and personal trainers will become the preferred choice for people when actioning health and fitness change in their life (if we get good enough at what we need to do of course). 

Finally, it seems that price is not as much of a barrier to customers as we sometimes choose to think. 

Interestingly, those practitioners who provide the most monitoring, support and valuable experiences are getting paid the most in our industry.  Currently there are personal trainers earning over $100/£100 an hour (a few even more).  If you take the ‘rough’ average session rate of $60 (slightly less in £) and even with a low visit frequency (fortnightly) clients are investing $1560 per annum on personal training.  This is significantly more than the typical investment on club membership fees.

So while price is not the barrier many people believe it is, what is a barrier is a perceived low value, club (staff) indifference to customers, and a lack of real support (staff) when it is needed most by the customer.   

If you think that people vote with their feet (and money follows their feet too!) industry research has shown the following (from ‘Winning the Retention Battle” research from Fitness Industry Association, UK, 2001)

• The difference in retention rates between the least frequent users and the most frequent users in month 3 of a membership is 14% (66.9% vs 80.9%).
• This compares to retention rates of 67.3%, 72.2% and 78.2% for once a week, twice a week and at least three times a week members respectively.
• Members who manage to achieve at least 4 visits in the first month of membership stay on average at least 13 weeks longer than members who don’t achieve this visit frequency.
• Assuming monthly membership fees of $80.00 that equates to a minimum of an extra $240 per member.

If you want to be a highly valued fitness consultant, an effective and profitable trainer, a club owner who grows a strong business, a builder of a national brand, we believe you should take advantage of what is not yet being done well by others and what could easily be your strength.