Managing a health club requires the monitoring of multiple areas, including POS transactions, staff hours, billing and more. Fortunately, there are many club management software (CMS) providers out there that can make managing your club easier.
In 2011, Charter Fitness began working with ABC Financial to manage all of its transaction and billing. Dan Collins, the COO of Charter Fitness, explained why they chose ABC Financial, and why the partnership has been beneficial.
CS: How were you introduced to ABC Financial and why did you decide to use its software?
DC: Our research showed ABC Financial led in the industry with a new and better offering than our current provider. Our solution at the time was missing a lot of functionality. Once we chose to partner with ABC Financial, they made the transition very smooth. A team of technicians was sent to each of our locations to install software and train staff. Then ABC Financial set up a help desk-style response team that operated from our corporate office to ensure all questions were answered quickly.
CS: What were some business pains or issues you struggled with before using ABC Financial?
DC: We realized we were falling behind with functionality, and felt ABC Financial could get us current. Their world-class call center has been a big help with the membership management end of our business. Our members call and deal directly with the ABC Financial call center to answer any billing questions, handle cancellation phone calls and a wide variety of issues. ABC Financial’s professional call center team follows all of our policies and procedures when speaking with our members.
In addition, ABC Financial offered us some reporting functionalities that have been extremely helpful to our business management. Through the ABC Financial system, we could access a report on membership declines, uncollectable monthly billing and much more. ABC then took over the billing collections function and this freed up our sales people to do more selling, and takes away the negative pressure of potential confrontations.
CS: Are there any other benefits of using ABC Financial’s software you’d like to discuss?
DC: Switching from paper to digital contracts was also a nice upgrade ABC Financial helped us with. Now members can sign on a digital keypad and the contracts are stored in a database. Their system is fully PCI compliant, and it’s very easy for us to make digital changes to contracts now. This was a nice upgrade.
Another feature we really like is the MYiCLUBonline portal, where you can sign people up online at any time. This gives us 365-day, 24-hour access to adding new members and is a great sales tool.
Other reporting options have helped us to learn more about our business and improve our operations, marketing tracking, retention rates, collections and revenue per square foot. For the marketing tracking, we have easy access to member contact information and quickly see the conversion of prospects to new members.
CS: How did ABC Financial help you implement the software in your clubs?
DC: ABC Financial does the implementation. They could not have made it any easier for us. They had technicians at every club to install the software and train the entire staff. They also provide ongoing support and training whenever it is needed. ABC Financial provides one of the best training programs we’ve ever dealt with. Switching was a challenge and a big risk. They made it unbelievably easy.
CS: What should other club operators known about ABC Financial’s software?
DC: Their support has always been terrific. No matter what our question — their answer is always, “Yes.”
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
