Today, many operators are frustrated with the support they receive from their current software providers. Many feel like they don’t have a clear point of contact, are stuck in generic ticket queues, or are dealing with inconsistent or offshore support.
“A club operator is juggling a packed lobby when a billing run suddenly doesn’t add up,” explained Merissa Williams, the director of client experience for Jonas Fitness. “They call support hoping for a quick solution. Instead, they get a case number and the assurance that someone will be in touch. Then they wait. By the time help arrives, it’s often from someone who’s never experienced the pressure of opening a club before sunrise, managing members face-to-face, or making sure the month’s billing closes accurately and on time.”
This is where the Jonas Fitness team feels they really stand apart.
For gyms, health clubs and wellness centers, membership management software isn’t just another business tool; it’s the system that keeps daily operations moving. Jonas Fitness is committed to the business operations of their customers: improving profitability and creating better experiences for their members.
But the company’s pitch extends beyond the software itself. Rather than relying solely on digital onboarding and self-service support, Jonas Fitness emphasizes a more hands-on approach with dedicated Customer Success Managers, onsite training and access to a dedicated Tier 1 support representative. The team feels they’re not just a software provider, but a true partner that’s in the customer’s corner.
“What clubs leave behind when they move to our Compete Member Management Software is the feeling of being just another account waiting at the back of the line,” said Williams. “When they call, they want to reach a real person who understands both the product and the realities of running a club. They want continuity, not having to explain their setup from scratch every time they need help. And because we have worked in the fitness industry, our customers are talking to people who’ve been at the front desk, managed member issues and experienced the pressures of month-end billing firsthand.”
A recent example of this comes from Madonna Rehabilitation Wellness Club. One of their monthly reports stopped generating the way it should, and in a medical fitness environment, that’s not the kind of thing that can sit in a queue. Williams said Jonas Fitness’ database team got to work on it immediately.
While they built and tested a permanent fix, they prepared that month’s report by hand, so the club never lost continuity. Once the fix was deployed, the report ran cleanly again and everything was back to normal.
What stood out to Williams was how Samantha Kelly, the GM of Madonna Rehabilitation Wellness Club, framed the relationship. She pointed all the way back to the start of their work together.
“When we first came on board, we wanted an export feature added to one of our reports, and the Jonas Fitness team made it happen,” said Kelly. “To me, that highlights how committed Jonas Fitness is to keeping clients for the long term.”
Williams said that’s the role they try to play as partners: Not a vendor customers escalate to, but a team that owns the outcome with them.
Becoming a partner with Jonas Fitness starts with a real conversation, not a pitch. When a fitness business first reaches out, the opening call is about them: how they’re set up today, where the friction is, what their team looks like and what they’re trying to grow into. “We would rather understand the business than rush a quote,” explained Williams.
From there, the demo is built around what the Jonas Fitness team learned. A product trainer walks the potential partner through Compete using their world, not a generic script.
“Your sales executive is with you every step of the way,” said Williams, “Onboarding is where it begins to get quiet with a lot of other providers. For Jonas Fitness, it’s a strategic handoff to the right teams responsible for getting you live and trained; allowing your team to be comfortable from Day One. Once fully trained and onboarded, the relationship moves to continued support and a Customer Success Manager who becomes your partner.”
For Williams, where Jonas Fitness truly differs from other management software is in continuity and intent. The same care that closes the deal carries through implementation and into year three. “We’re not built to win a sale and move on,” she said. “We measure ourselves by how well you are doing and if you are meeting your goals. That changes how everyone here treats the relationship.”
Underneath Jonas Fitness’s commitment to relationship-driven support is a belief the industry rarely says out loud: many software companies aren’t built to last; they’re built to be sold.
Williams said most software companies take private equity money or groom themselves for the next acquisition, and that shapes every decision they make. To make the books look attractive to a buyer they cut nonessential services, trim support staff, outsource or drop training, and swap the person who answered the phone for an automated ticketing portal. The product has stopped improving and the service quietly gets worse, all so the company looks more profitable on paper.
“Unfortunately, those decisions are always at the operator’s expense,” explained Williams. “You signed up for a partner and ended up with a vendor that treats your urgent problem like a line item. Members feel it too, every time a club’s billing or check-in goes wrong.”
Jonas Fitness is built the opposite way. They are part of Jonas Software, which runs on a buy-and-hold model, so they’re not chasing an exit with a large payout.
For Williams that means the team is free to focus on the customer. “When you’re not optimizing for a sale, you can invest in Customer Success Managers, onsite training, dedicated support and product improvement, because the long-term relationship is the entire point,” she said. “The people you work with should have your mobile number, not just your account number.”
A key way Jonas Fitness has done this was through a multi-year, multi-million-dollar investment to develop AI-powered solutions for the fitness and medical wellness industries in 2025. The first phase focused on enhancing the front desk experience within its Compete Member Management Software. At its core, the initiative is about solving everyday problems for fitness operators. By combining artificial intelligence with deep industry expertise, they’re building software that helps clubs work smarter, respond faster and spend more time focused on the people walking through their doors.
Williams said what they’re most excited about is what AI gives back, which is time. Done right, it takes the busy work off your team’s plate and makes their jobs faster and easier. That time does not vanish, but goes back into the floor, members and the personal connections that made someone open a fitness club in the first place. The same holds on Jonas Fitness’ side. The less time Jonas Fitness team members spend on routine tickets, the more they spend helping operators grow.
“But here is what AI does not change,” said Williams. “The fitness business is a people business. A member portal can update a credit card; it cannot reassure a club owner whose billing run looks wrong two days before payroll. As our president, Sandy Crutcher, put it when we announced the investment, ‘AI should reduce friction, not create it.’ That’s the whole idea. Let the technology handle the busywork so both Jonas Fitness and our customers can get back to what matters most: the human connection. That’s the line between a vendor and a partner. That’s the line between technology and innovation.”
As operators continue to evaluate the technology that powers their businesses, software features are only part of the equation. Equally important is the team behind the platform: the people who answer the phone, solve problems and remain invested long after implementation. For Jonas Fitness, that’s the difference between being a software provider and being a long-term partner, a distinction the company believes will matter even more as the industry and technology continue to evolve.
