When we are able to welcome a new member into our gym family there is a sense of achievement and excitement that can turn a day completely around. Working in the wellness industry creates many joyful moments, as we are able to have a direct impact on another person’s overall health. Hopefully, that impact will translate to a better life outside of the club, and not just inside it.
However, there are times where certain occurrences can cause a negative impact on an employee or a facility as a whole. But if these occurrences are handled with a sense of urgency and optimism, the end result may be quite surprising.
In order to flip these “unwanted” situations, there has to be an understanding of both your facilities’ service standards, along with a realization of why the specific negative situation is occurring. I would like to give two examples of how I turned a negative into a positive at my club.
The first happened a few months ago. A member came in to cancel, and she stated that she was going to a low-cost competitor with her friends, because they all wanted to do this together. I processed her cancellation for one month from that day, as we require a 30-day notice. I then set a task to call her one week from when she gave her notice.
The time came to call her, and I reminded her that her membership was still good at our facility for one month. I also asked how her experience at the other “facility” was going. She had actually not even stepped foot in the door yet. I took the opportunity to invite her friends that she previously spoke of to try out our facility for a 14-day free trial. She appreciated this very much, and it saved the cancellation.
We now have the opportunity to gain a few members, rather than losing one. I made sure to ask her questions to show that we still wanted to service her as her membership was still active, and I over delivered by presenting a convenient and personable option to help her achieve her goals.
The next example occurred about one year ago. We have a tailgating policy at our facility that states that a member cannot let somebody in who is not a member after staffed hours. We had a member do this twice in one week with a guest. My other manager, Dillon, happened to be working out after hours at the time and had the sense of urgency to get the guest to sign in with his information. Instead of calling the member and possibly fining him, I called the guest and said the following: “What’s up man, I appreciate you trying out our facility. I’d love to hear how your experience is going. Now I noticed when you came in the alarm actually went off. I also saw that it happened to you twice this week. So, I have good news for you. That actually means you set off the secret password and you get half off your enrollment fee if you would like to join our family!” He was ecstatic about that, and I signed him up with no problem. To this day he uses the gym about three to four times per week faithfully.
I again became personable to build a relationship with trust, to show that I valued his time with us and had his best interest in mind.
If you take this approach with any negative situation, it’s easy to turn it around to a positive experience.
