Maintain customer Service to retain customers
Fit and Fab is a well-established CBD gym. It currently employs a manager, two assistant managers, four Reception/customer contact staff, four full-time personal trainers, two casual personal trainers, and has eight independent personal trainers on its books.
You are the Team Leader of the Reception/Customer Contact Team. Critically, Fit and Fab continues to receive an increasing number of complaints.
The staff at reception are young and inexperienced. Recently, a couple of face-to-face complaints have been made by particularly irate customers at times when no senior staff were available to help the customer service staff. The complaints rattled the young staff, and one girl ended up crying.
Based on your knowledge as a customer service professional, you have decided to hold a training session on how to deal with customers.
Task
List the main areas of customer service that are critical to the success of your gym.
Design a personalised survey form to help you measure customer satisfaction in regard to your customer service.
Develop a procedure that outlines the expectations of your Reception/customer contact staff when dealing with customers over the phone and also face t face.
Describe the key points that you will cover in your training session.
Explain any considerations that should be covered in order to ensure that legislative requirements are met.
Fitness is important for every individual, it keeps human body fit and healthy. To remain fit the people join gyms and for gyms retention of customers is very essential and for that the owner/ manager of gym needs to provide best service to their clients. To provide the best service they need to hire a good and experienced staff who can take responsibility for providing service to their customers and best quality gym equipment’s. This report contains the main reason why gym needs to provide best service, also include survey to know desired level of service, Face to Face and on phone customer service, key point to discussed during training and legislative Requirement.
The member of gym always want few basic facilities and centre of quality control will be, all the gym equipment’s are harmless, clean and working appropriately. The staff should offer wipes and hand sanitizer to members to clean the handles before or after use of equipment’s. The trainer or other staff members should create a service calendar with the help of which they come to know which machine service date is arrived and make sure that each part of machine will get serviced (Peter, 2018).
Survey
Give new clients or visitors or members a decent first impression by keeping locker rooms and waiting area safe and clean. Create a cleaning checklist that each member of staff must follow, sign and date as part of their closing duties.
Keep the staff updated by offering pay for new certification and training courses, or gym can make rule that they will hire only certified professionals. The owner or manager should brief the new staff about its membership, classes timing, and product and services details. Conduct group meetings to deliver new information and to make sure that employee is on the same path when it comes to nutrition and health fitness (Current 360, 2017).
Which of our Facilities/Service do you use at Fit and Fab?
- Gym
- Personal Training Sessions
- Fitness Classes
- Body Building
How often do you use the Fit and Fab centre?
- Less than week
- Once a week
- Twice a week
- More than two week
I visit the Gym to
- Loss Weight
- To keep fit and healthy
- Have fun, meet people
- Enhance Sports Performance
How satisfied are you with space/size of the gym floor?
- Very Satisfied
- Satisfied
- Just Ok
- Disappointing
How satisfied are you with Availability of machine/weights?
- Very Satisfied
- Satisfied
- Just Ok
- Disappointing
How satisfied are you with changing room?
- Very Satisfied
- Satisfied
- Just Ok
- Disappointing
How satisfied are you with cleanliness and hygiene?
- Very Satisfied
- Satisfied
- Just Ok
- Disappointing
How satisfied are you with Staff friendliness?
- Very Satisfied
- Satisfied
- Just Ok
- Disappointing
How satisfied are with you opening and closing timing?
- Very Satisfied
- Satisfied
- Just Ok
- Disappointing
How satisfied are you with Cost?
- Very Satisfied
- Satisfied
- Just Ok
- Disappointing
What other Facilities/Service would add most value to your experience at Fit and Fab
Procedure to flow by Receptionist/customer contact staff when dealing with customer face to face:
- Greet the customers as they walk through the door and ask them “how you can help them”.
- If customer has to wait the receptionist should greet the client and let him/her known how long they have to wait.
- Checking of members will also be helpful. The receptionist can ask them if they like the gym or they are facing any problem.
- In case any customer asks them a tricky question, to answer them the receptionist should have full knowledge of gym (Pay, 2015).
Procedure to flow by Receptionist/customer contact staff when dealing with customer on phone:
- Receptionist should adopt positive tone
- Clear Enunciation
- Be sincere
- Use their Name
- Leave the customer satisfied (Zendesk, 2015)
Retention of members in the gym is the primary concern of almost every gym. It is a very complex task. Investing in customer services will boost gym membership and retain its existing members. To retain the customers the Customer service professionals need to conduct training and development program. Key points to be cover during training are:
- Empower team to face their issues on their own: Customer service becomes well when the team will handle their issues on their own, rather than calling their manager or owner.
- Apologize when things go wrong- The people value honesty and transparency and if something wrong happens to the client and gym staff is in default position, the owner or manager should teach the staff members that instead of being rude and just say sorry and resolve the matter there only.
- Measure the Satisfaction within Gym industry- If the staff or manager will not ask the members whether they are happy with the service or not, they can’t get an actual position of customer satisfaction level. So it is important to ask the customers and if any problem arises, they need to solve it.
- Look for ways to Go Beyond the Basics- Maintain a great service is the foundation of the gym but there are always ways to go beyond the basics to truly delight the members e.g. make members feel special, practice active listening (Zenplanner, 2018).
Fitness Australia was formed by the fitness industry to govern the fitness industry. The AOA of Fitness Australia legally binds the fitness centres to follow the guideline and rules designed by the administration few are:
- Client Confidentiality: Privacy Act 1988 includes requirements about confidentiality of client’s information. The gyms are not allowed to provide personal and confidential details to others.
- Being truthful- Unfair sales practices and false or misleading advertisement can result in a poor image the Fair Trading Act 1987 has described some boundaries in this area. The gyms are not has right to mislead their customers by false presentation or advertisement.
- Ethical sales: A supplier can gain unfair competitive advantage by misrepresenting their qualification or be endorsed by an organisation the code of practice rules out this type of practice. The gyms need to follow the path of ethics and need to provide best service to their clients (Janis, 2014).
Conclusion
To conclude, to provide good service a proper training is required. Fit and Fab gym need to provide a complete and professional training to their staff and also need to fulfil all legal requirements to maintain a good and healthy atmosphere in the gym. Good service and quality equipment is a key to success.
References
Zenplanner. (2018) Exceptional Customer Service: A Simple Investment to Boost Retention. Retrieved from https://zenplanner.com/customer-service-and-retention-for-your-fitness-business/.
Peter, P.S. (2018) Maintain customer Service to retain customers. Available from https://uhurunetwork.com/gym-member-retention-customer-service/ Accessed on 18-06-2018.
Current 360, (2017) SIX STRATEGIES FOR ATTRACTING NEW GYM MEMBERS AND KEEPING THEM. Available from https://current360.com/gym-members-get-them-keep-them/ Accessed on 18-06-2018.
Pay, S. (2015) 10 Face-to-Face Customer Service Essentials. Available from https://www.business2community.com/brandviews/spark-pay/10-face-to-face-customer-service-essentials-01326882Accessed on 18-06-2018.
Zendesk, (2015) How to interact with customers on the phone. Available from https://relate.zendesk.com/education/support-customers-phone/ Accessed on 18-06-2018.
Trainingtoday, (2018) How to Conduct an Effective Training Session. Available from https://trainingtoday.blr.com/article/how-to-conduct-an-effective-training-session/ Accessed on 18-06-2018.
Janis, (2014) Fitness Industry Regulation. Available from https://fitness.org.au/articles/latest-industry-news/fitness-industry-regulation/45/464/184 Accessed on 18-06-2018