Johal Andrew

[nahida098765]

October brought a new wave of uncertainty to the fitness industry — what to expect this time? Will it be possible to do without radical measures and maintain the flow of clients at a sufficient level? But for some fitness facilities, the crisis became a growth point — for example, the Yourways acrobatics school for children and adults felt an increased demand for its services against the backdrop of the closure of the SDYUSSHOR.

How the school is surviving off page seo service the second wave, how the USP and interesting niche help here, what is the secret to forming a loyal community and how the fitness business will develop in Russia, we discussed with Roman Yemelyanov, the head of Yourways.

We currently have about 1,500 clients aged 3 and up at 3 work points, another location is currently being renovated and will open in November. Not all of our clients strive to obtain ranks and professional results. Let's say a 40-year-old man who has dreamed of learning to do a somersault all his life can come to us - and we will teach him. Such people do it for themselves, for their own pleasure, and there are quite a lot of them among our clients.

Of course, some of the clients stopped training. But over the past 10 years, so many people have come through us that word of mouth works even during a pandemic. Those who leave are replaced by new ones. The longer you work, the easier it is to have a stable flow of clients. Our people have been training for years, bringing their husbands, wives and children, making friends with each other, communicating with the trainers - so school attendance is quite resistant to the influence of external factors.



In the summer, there were 2-3 training sessions per week. Compared to the flow of training sessions in the gym — 20-30 per day — it was more of an experimental format. I wanted to test it and see if something from the outdoor training would result in separate formats. So it was less of a commercial story and more of an entertainment and experiment.

How did you come up with the idea to sell merch and clothing in your centers? How actively do people buy it?

Previously, in addition to developing sections, I was involved in the development and sale of sportswear. Now we have integrated one into the other, but clothing is a small part of the business, not the main story. There is demand for it, but now, due to the pandemic and the jump in the dollar exchange rate, difficulties have arisen - the cost price has increased significantly, plus we expect supply disruptions.

Let's talk about your loyalty program. You have a rather unusual format: discounts for meeting standards and performing at competitions. Tell us more about how it works?

There are four types of cards - classic, silver, gold, black. It is not difficult to get a classic - it is enough to renew your membership three times in a row. To get silver, you need to participate in competitions and pass the standards. Only the winner of the competition will receive a gold card. Only those who confirm their victory once again will receive a black card. In addition, there is a link to the number of renewals made in a row.



We used the 1C: Fitness Club loyalty program , which we customized for our processes. Most clients are willing to get involved in the game: they try to keep up with all the conditions. This allows us to maintain the renewal rate at a high level .

What other automation tools do you use in your work?

I am an engineer by education, a nuclear physicist, so I have this mindset: something needs to be constantly improved, refined. We try to automate everything — we squeeze the system’s capabilities to the maximum. I studied Bitrix24, AmoCRM, in 2016 we had our own home-made CRM system. Now we are switching to 1C: Fitness Club .

We have already implemented a personal account, widgets, and implemented a major revision of the loyalty system. For communication with clients, we have integration with WhatsApp , with a client mobile application, a trigger system has been set up - in general, everything that we consider reasonable to achieve our goals.

Automation is about streamlining work with clients
Just as a car replaces dozens of horses, so an automation program works for an entire department, relieving administrators, sales managers and trainers in a fitness club.
Get a consultation

I think the entire fitness industry will go into automation — there will be more stories with electronic memberships, applications for clients. Perhaps, there will be no need for some personnel and reception (which means costs will go down). The client will come, enter information on the screen and receive a key, or all the information will be stored in his bracelet. This is not a unique process, the trend towards automation can be seen in all industries. But the offline format of training will remain in any case — as we have seen for ourselves this year, social contacts have been and will be very important.

As for the trend for the “near home” format, not everyone will be able to do it. For example, I can’t find a suitable facility in my area due to special requirements for the premises. It won’t be possible to open a hockey arena or a swimming pool “near home”. People will still go there, but for Muscovites, this is unlikely to ever become a problem.
_________________
off page seo service

[Reklama]