Universal Athletic Club needed a join online option, as well as a better app for their members and employees to gain access to schedules and account information. They set out to find a management software that had a more open API, the option to continue to run billing in-house and that continually updates and improves their system.
For them, Jonas Fitness was the best fit.
Here, Rick Casselbury, the owner of Universal Athletic Club, shares how Jonas Fitness simplifies their daily operations and why other clubs should partner with them.
How has Jonas Fitness helped your club improve its daily operations?
Jonas’ Empower M.E. has made a huge difference in streamlining member access to their accounts. Having so many pre-billing reports allows us to be much more proactive in managing member accounts. The reports allow us to be more accurate with both the accounts themselves, as well as with our billing. Additionally, we now have the join online option we were missing in the past.
How has Jonas helped you during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Communication with the Jonas Fitness team is fantastic. They offered weekly access to webinars throughout the time we were closed. These sessions offered tips about the best ways to maintain contact with our members — how and what to say. We were able to gather ideas on how other clubs were handling cleaning protocols, billing, communication in-house and with the public. Our account manager, as well as our original sales representative, checked in regularly with us to see how they could help. Our original trainer was open to helping us through these difficult times. We had a lot of help in doing mass conversions of all members to freeze status and back again.
Why is it so important to have a great CMS partner like Jonas Fitness?
Having the ability to manage marketing, billing, scheduling, member agreements through one system simplifies daily operations. We have over 12,000 members and keeping everything organized in one place makes managing things much more efficient.
How would you describe Jonas Fitness’s customer service?
We can’t say enough about tech support. As in any transition, there are inevitably a few struggles but overall, the move to Jonas was manageable. With each interaction with customer service, we speak with knowledgeable, professional staff members. They never make you feel rushed and they don’t hesitate to get another trainer involved on complex issues. We’ve been impressed with the accessibility to help when we need it. It’s rare that you have to leave a message but if you do, the response time is very quick.
Why should other club operators consider working with Jonas Fitness?
We interviewed quite a few other companies. One thing that stood out with Jonas from our very first call was they listened to our goals and concerns and addressed those first. They are upfront about what they can and cannot do for you. The communication among the Jonas staff makes the conversion, as well as daily questions much smoother. It appears they either keep in touch with each other or keep very good records.
With Jonas, you have a dedicated account manager who schedules a monthly call and asks to be included on any issues. He follows up regularly to assure a resolution has been reached. Additionally, there are regularly scheduled new releases with webinars available prior to the release as well as access to a written explanation of upcoming changes. We appreciate that Jonas is always working to make the system better.
