As a new gym owner, you have much to consider before opening the gym doors. One of those things is choosing software that manages the gym operations seamlessly. Because you don’t want to overspend time on operations rather than training members. Then again, finding gym management software with the right features is a new struggle. Because most software either has too much or too little you need.
Since you are just starting out, you might only need some of the features and a scalable solution. So, it is better to specify features as primary and secondary based on what you need the most and least, respectively. If you need to know which features in the best gym management software you should be primarily looking for, here are some important ones for managing your daily operations, including management, sales, and marketing.
Online scheduling and booking
As a gym owner, you want to spend the minimum time on admin tasks and more on building bonds. So, you need an online scheduling and booking feature that replaces manual labor with an automated booking feature. Additionally, the booking feature allows you to set schedules and classes for each day, week, month, or even year.
Also, your members can book their feasible slots with their favorite instructors. The process is far seamless and automated. Once members book their slot and pay, they receive a confirmation message. Overall, the booking feature reduces the chances of double booking or clashing classes.
Automated billing and payments
No gym owner wants to chase their members for on-time payments. Also, managing the cash and billing process can sometimes be so draining. And a slight negligence in payments could result in a heavy loss. And you don’t want to risk it in your initial stages of the gym. To avoid that, you need a POS feature.
A POS system performs the billing process. When a member or a client purchases an item or a membership, they pay via terminals like Stripe, PayTabs, and GoCardless. It also collects the payments from their cards. Moreover, it is easy to manage the payment status with a POS. You can identify the recurring, late, or failed payments without missing anything.
Members’ portal
Manual member management and keeping members’ registers are too hard to manage. That’s why you need a members portal that allows members to sign up, update, and save their information automatically. Once a customer becomes a member and fills out the sign-up form, their profile is automatically updated.
It reduces the need to update the forms manually. Besides, it keeps records of their membership status, past payment histories, preferences, and fitness goals. This way, you can enhance their experience while giving them a personalized treatment based on their goals.
Staff management
Managing your staff and instructors is also an important thing that needs to be meticulously managed. That’s what a staff management feature helps you with. You can empower your staff and instructor to book, edit, and view their schedules. You can also manage their time off, breaks, and suitable substitutes in case of unavailability.
Moreover, they track their productive hours and monitor their progress in one place. This way, you can ensure that no instructor feels overworked and stays productive. In this way, you can seamlessly monitor and manage every staff member without losing track of anything.
Access control
Safety is an important concern for members. And chancers are always looking for a chance to slide in. Some invaders might cause potential damage to your gym facility and members, so you need to ensure who comes in and when.
You can do that with an access control system that allows only authorized members to check in. Additionally, members can unlock the gym door via their smartphones using NFC, BLE, and key fobs. Besides, you can install a system with a one-time payment and integrate it with a turnstile, magnetic doors, and strike locks. You can also limit the access time and space within your gym. This way, your members can work out peacefully in a safe environment.
Communication tools
Don’t rely on the outdated communication methods. Instead, go for built-in communication features like two-way communication via SMS, personalized emails, built-in dialers, and push notifications. You can also communicate directly through integrated WhatsApp, reducing the communication gaps.
You can communicate with your staff and members in one place for booking confirmations, failed payments or any other announcement. Sending bulk messages and emails can save you ample time. So this way, you can communicate with your members without spending hours.
Marketing
As a gym owner, you need a marketing module to engage, attract, and convert prospects into members. This requires a fully built marketing suite that spreads your word to a broader audience. You can create journeys and page builders, and run campaigns at your ease. This means you can implement your marketing strategy and reach prospects through as many touchpoints as you like.
Additionally, you can create customized templates to send emails and personalize them accordingly. Also, a clear dashboard allows you to analyze the performance of your marketing strategy. This way, the marketing process is automated and more transparent for planning future strategies.
Lead management
Lead management is a great feature that lets you capture, nurture, and convert leads into members. You can manage your leads at 10 different stages. This allows you to reach prospects through multiple touchpoints.
Also, you can categorize and specify lead status as won, lost, interested, or not interested. You can reach prospects via SMS, emails, and calls through a built-in dialer. This way, you can make sure that people interested in your gym get converted and become long-term members.
Waitlist feature
Gym owners sometimes struggle with members cancelling their bookings at the last minute. The slot goes empty, and they have to bear the loss. But the waitlist management feature is the saviour. It allows you to set a limit on the number of members in each class, and the rest are added to the waitlist. And if even a booked member cancels for some reason, members from the waitlist are moved to the empty spot.
You can configure the waitlist and sort waitlist members based on the highest amount, first-come, first-served basis and as you like. This way, you never have to bear the last-minute cancellation shocks.
Reports
When running a gym, you can’t rely on the guesswork. That’s when you need the reporting feature the most. Whether it is about planning new strategies or seeing your gym’s performance over time, you need solid insights.
And for this, you need a reporting feature to get a clear idea through a well-built dashboard. From cash flow to sales, members’ check-in patterns to marketing, you can get detailed analytics of your gym operations to make data-backed strategies and better moves for the future.
Wrap up
The more functional features the software has, the smoothest your gym operations will be. And instead of opting for multiple tools and software to make things work, choose one that does it all. This way, you can spend most of your time bonding with members and less time managing the day-to-day tasks.
And if you are looking for comprehensive gym management software that simplifies and streamlines everything, consider taking a look at how GymRoute helps you with it.
