Reports — whether it be on club usage, membership sales or cancellations — provide important information that help club operators run their businesses efficiently. But what reports should you generate, and does any CMS offer it all?
According to Ralph Rajs, the executive vice president of Leisure Sports, Inc., the answer to the latter question is, “No.”
“There isn’t an all-inclusive software suite that gives us all the information we need,” said Rajs. “We’re in a current state in the industry where we have to pull resources from [different programs] and [those resources] don’t necessarily talk to each other.”
For example, Leisure Sports’ clubs use The Retention People’s software to track the company’s Net Promoter Score; InTouch Technology’s sales reports to track sales data; and GroupEx PRO’s reports to track group exercise information.
“Club management is complicated at this point, and hopefully in the next 10 years we won’t have to cobble together all these pieces,” said Rajs.
In the mean time, Rajs highlighted a couple reports from different systems he generates on a daily and monthly basis that he has found essential to running his business.
The first report Rajs looks at daily is The Retention People’s Net Promoter Score report. Every day, The Retention People software sends out a question to a segment of Leisure Sports’ membership. It asks whether or not each member would recommend the company to a friend.
Based on their answer, members are designated as “detractors,” those who wouldn’t recommend the company, “promoters,” those who would recommend the company, or “neutral,” those who would do neither. At the end of each day, a full Net Promoter Score is generated based off the survey’s answers.
“It’s been an awesome management tool for us,” said Rajs. “The report has short-term and long-term projections in an easily digestible format that we can follow. It also allows us to take action and follow up with members who have specific problems.”
The second report Rajs has found valuable is GroupEx PRO, which allows Leisure Sports to track most data concerning the company’s group fitness programming. “It can cross analyze room usage and you can compare what time slots are doing better,” explained Rajs. “Instructors can use it for subbing — there’s a communication component.”
GroupEx PRO allows Rajs to make management decisions that might have been more subjective beforehand. “I can see what’s going on every month and make sure that we’re managing low-activity classes to either boost their participation, or replace them.”
Other reports that Rajs looks at on a common basis include InTouch Technology’s sales reports, which track the activity of sales staff, for example, and Kronos, which tracks the company’s payroll information.
Until a company comes out with an all-inclusive CMS, Rajs has found success utilizing a multitude of software programs to help him run his business. However, he’s constantly on the lookout for new programs and continuously evaluates how the existing ones are doing. “We’re always analyzing and asking, is it worth the cost?” he said.
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Rachel Zabonick-Chonko is the editor-in-chief of Club Solutions Magazine. She can be reached at rachel@peakemedia.com.
