on January 03, 2023
For large companies of every kind, it has become mandatory to have the best technological background. This is no different in the fitness industry.
In the fitness industry the focus will always be in the physical (analog) activity, but in order to put a large group of people to work for a project with different functions and to coordinate all the processes of a company, it is imperative to embrace digitization. In the case of large fitness companies, there are a group of features that can not be missed in order to keep a good level of competitiveness.
With Magicline, we provide the software solution for some of the largest fitness companies in the world and created a summary of some of the most important characteristics that a software provider should offer to enterprise fitness companies.
Access, visibility and comparability of all your facilities in the same platform
When managing a large business, with many facilities, it is decisive to keep certain processes centralized, in order to achieve a great level of efficiency. Yet, reality shows that every location has certain particularities and they should all be considered.
In order to keep up with these cases, it is very important to count on a solution that allows the managers to digitally access the different facilities, have a good overview on what’s going on and how the KPIs for this facility are developing. One should also be able to easily implement processes from one facility to the other with a few clicks.
Infinite flexibility for your rates and memberships
Even the most conservative fitness centers need to adapt to changes of the members’ habits. The last years of pandemic and growing inflation in the western world forced most institutions to change their prices and memberships quite fast in order to gain new customers.
For such cases, it is very important to rely on a flexible solution that offers many different possibilities for memberships with some clicks. Be it some months for free, months with reduced prices, membership with automatism for constant increasing prices. It doesn’t matter which is the current option in trend, a good software should offer a practically infinite possibility for configuring the memberships so that if the change is needed, it only takes a few clicks to solve it.
Real-time analysis of all the KPIs of the gyms
In the 2020’s the decisions are data-based. Having all the KPIs from the different gyms, from members’ check-ins to income by the different membership types, including the level of success of the classes and the contract conclusion by employee, is the foundation for the decision-making in the 2020’s.
Connectivity with all kinds of hardware devices
Software is important, but what about the machines in the sports center? Many years ago, the training experience was exclusively analog and the few machines implemented were access control or vending machines that worked independently. Nowadays, machines are mostly digitally connected and all training information collected by the machines should be directly transferred into the member management system as well.
A top-level training area
At the end of the day, it is all about having the best technology for the core business, and in the case of a fitness company, the training area should be flawless and offer the latest possibilities to provide the best training. Training plans with workout videos with explanations on how to execute different exercises and implemented timers should be in place to provide an excellent training experience.
A fully integrated payment system
With a large volume of members, companies face several types of buyers. It has become a priority to offer the members as many payment possibilities as possible. It doesn’t matter if it is to pay an old debt for a training session or to spontaneously book and pay for a single class, all the payment channels should be ready to facilitate the member’s payment and this should be integrated directly with the gym’s software.
A professional project and customer service for your data migration, onboarding and ongoing challenges
Migrating to a new software is not an easy move for large companies. The historic register of every process needs to be perfectly stored and migrated successfully to the new platform. Even more, beyond the technical part, the entire institution will start working with new tools, so that it is always a critical experience.
Moreover, controlling the processes of a large fitness company through an ERP system, requires that if some issue or problem occurs, you can still count on professionals on the other side to help you to solve the technical problems and assist you in the perfect use of the system, in order to make the best out of it.
This is why the people behind the software provider are so important and why always a great level of professionalism in this area is so important.
A powerful member app for successful large fitness companies
The trend is very clear here. Every day, the members use more and more apps for practically every aspect of their lives.
The large fitness companies shouldn’t ignore this trend and think proactively in the future. The app must offer training possibilities, but it should also have the structure that could allow digitizing further parts of the member’s experience. If this is not used today, it will be used in some years.
Professional lead management for increasing your sales
The sales process in a fitness company is extremely important and this needs to be supported with the best tools.
An ERP system for a large fitness company must also provide solid options to systematize and assist the work of your Sales team.
Fully Integrated CRM system for a personalized communication with your members
Exporting lists and uploading them to a CRM is not only a waste of time, it can lead to the loss of important information that can not be transferred from one system to the other.
A software solution for large fitness institutions MUST include a powerful CRM to include something as essential as the communication to the members in the process planning.
Configurable Marketing Programs such as Loyalty and Referral systems
It has become very popular for large companies to motivate their already existing members to bring new customers – word of mouths marketing still works best! And if you offer rewards for the referring person- even better!
This is a very smart trend since this little systematization of rewards can lead to a wonderful atmosphere with your customers.
Rewarding long- time members with a little gift, discount or bonus periods is a very well- accepted and appreciated member engagement tool, too.
Now, the key for a successful implementation of these programs is that the steps and rewards remain coherent with the general concept of the institution and for that, it is very important that the system is as flexible and configurable as possible in order to allow you the freedom of adapting all your ideas and needs.
Openness to connect with other providers
Enterprise software for fitness chains and franchises needs to be open to work with other technologies, if not, they would block the speed of growing the company. A good example of this openness is the OPEN API of Magicline, that allows the connectivity of the system with any other software such as BI solutions or Fitness Devices.
All-in-one finance area
For large companies, this is a very well known must-have. Managing a chain or franchise with many hundred studios underlines the need to keep a perfect overview of all the income sources and KPIs of the different studios. For that, the software solution shouldn’t only provide basic functions of direct debit and a cash register with an Excel export button. This area needs to be professional and allow the operators to easily execute a large amount of functions, as well as obtaining all the information from every single income perfectly detailed and with multiple combinations, so that the data can tell a real story about every item that is being analyzed.
An integrated Task Manager
Although this is a function that is advisable for every kind of studio, for large institutions this becomes practically an obligation. The usage of task management softwares has increased in the last years, but most of them are very generic and demand some effort to make them work for a specific area. Nothing better than having this task manager directly integrated in the ERP system so that the tasks can be related directly to the employees, resources and members from the studio, keeping all the information in one platform
Configurability and systematization
We’ve mentioned these items already along with the other features, but these two aspects are probably some of the central topics that make every feature even more powerful.
Organizing a large fitness institution requires a high level of coordination and brand identity. In other words, your processes need to work similar and efficiently among all your locations.
In order to achieve this, large fitness companies need to systematize every possible aspect that doesn’t block the employees’ positive creativity.
For solving this, the software for large fitness companies must be able to cover as many aspects of the day to day as possible and allow a very precise configuration of every item in order to create the workflows that the company wants and not only those that are available.
Any questions?
