As part of our evaluation process at The Fit Guide, we send the club a message on their main social media channel.

Globally, 29% of the clubs we evaluated responded within two hours.

London led the way, with half of the clubs we contacted responding swiftly.

New York has some work to do, with 16% of clubs getting back to us in good time.

When someone reaches out to us, their interest is high. The lead is 'hot'.

With every passing minute and hour, there's less chance we'll be able to get them started on their fitness journey.

If you're club is in the 71% that's taking more than two hours to respond, here are four tips to help you improve.

Promote a culture of OBLIGATION

See every enquiry as not just a question, but someone wanting to start their fitness journey. Someone who wants to improve their fitness, health and life. As fitness professionals, we should feel an obligation to get them started - and if we don't get back to them quickly, there's less chance they'll take that crucial first step.

Cultivate this mindset amongst your team, which will help promote more urgency to respond to queries.

Train and EMPOWER your team

Spend time training numerous members on your team to respond to queries. Designate time windows for different members of staff to respond to queries, if you don't have dedicated staff. Let them know about the expectation of responding within two hours (or, better still, one hour or less), and build this into your operating procedures.

Use templates

Build out response templates for all standard queries. Ensure the responses are thorough, engaging and stimulate a conversation with current or potential clients. Where appropriate, ask a question to get more information from the client. For example, if a client asks "What's a good class for beginners", your team can send a template, standard answer that gives them the information that's needed but ends with "have you been to our studio before?", or "may I ask what your goals for your training are?"

By starting a conversation rather than just providing basic information, there's more chance we can inspire them to take the next step.

Add in accountability

There are many ways you can do this, to ensure that messages are answered in good time. At The Fit Guide, our evaluation process will let you know if queries are being answered in good time, or you can simply have your management team periodically check how long it took to answer queries.

Reward good performance and offer extra training for those who need improvement.

UN1T has had a big impact on the strength and conditioning scene since their 2017 London launch 🇬🇧

Their community-focused approach of "We Train As One" has proven to be a hit, helping them expand with franchise locations in Sydney, Dublin, Munich and across Dubai and the Middle East 🌎

We identified UN1T Southwark as a leading London club and anonymously evaluated the full experience.

Here's what our experience evaluator had to say...

“The main coach had an abundance of positive energy, and was very encouraging."

“The whole team did a great job of making first-timers feel taken care of."

Our co-founder Jack Thomas recently launched a three-part podcast mini-series for Fitness Managers to level up and effectively build and manage a team of five-star coaches and instructors 💪

There's lots of helpful tips and approaches in there, so if you're a manager listen today - or share with someone on your team who will value some fresh ideas 💡

Listen from part one here👇