Are you happy with your club’s new member onboarding process? Are you giving new members what they need to succeed — and what your gym needs to ensure long-term member retention?
Now, more than ever, your onboarding process has to have all the right pieces to help new members feel connected and confident. According to IHRSA, 50% of all new gym members quit within the first six months and 23% of those who cancel do so because they’re not using the gym.
In the first session of Dr. Paul Bedford’s three-part success series, you’ll learn how to create balance in the onboarding experience, what type of content you may want to include, and what new members should be able to do at the end of the onboarding process.
This webinar helps gyms learn how to answer the following essential questions:
- What type of content should be included in your onboarding process
- What do you want people to be able to do after you’ve onboarded them?
- Does everyone need the same type of onboarding?
- How long should it take to onboard new members?
- Highlight new or popular group fitness classes.
- Which is better: one-to-one onboarding or group onboarding?
- How do you evaluate what onboarding tactics are working best?
What to Include in Your Onboarding Process
Known as the Retention Guru, Dr. Bedford starts the webinar by encouraging gyms to inventory their current onboarding processes in order to decide what should be added or taken away. For example, many gyms now include mental health questionnaires, fitness testing, health screening, equipment tutorials, and so on in their onboarding sessions. In the webinar, Dr. Bedford will help you decide what to include in your onboarding process and what makes sense for different types of members.
Dr. Bedford walks through the types of health and fitness skills assessments that you might want to offer during the onboarding process. He also walks through goal setting and how to help new gym members create a realistic vision for what they want to accomplish and what is possible.
“We want to build the confidence of our new members in the use of our facilities. Then, we want to build their competence,” he says in the webinar. “Then, if they get to practice and are building their confidence, we build their trust. If we build their trust, they’ll continue to exercise and achieve success.”
He talks about the importance of getting new members onboarding with your app and any wearable tech — such as Apple Watch or Fitbit — that integrates with your app or other technologies. It’s also important to make sure your team members are trained in the most popular wearable tech and fitness apps to ensure new members feel comfortable integrating with your gym.
How Long Your Onboarding Process Should Be
Some gyms may need a multi-day onboarding experience, and some might only need an hour to integrate new members into the club. Ultimately, your onboarding process may depend entirely on how much manpower you have. No matter the size of your gym or type of members, Dr. Bedford shares his tried-and-true methods for creating a repeatable and scalable onboarding timeline — whether minute by minute or day by day — to help maximize and optimize the onboarding experience.
“We often give people a one-hour onboarding process and then say, ‘That’s it, good luck, I hope all goes well’,” he says in the webinar. “That is why people are turning to YouTube to learn how to exercise — and sometimes from not such a great exercise teacher.”
Don’t forget that not all members need the same onboarding process. Long-term gym users may feel comfortable with the equipment or classes you offer, while other members may need detailed explanations and demonstrations. Not sure which route to take? Dr. Bedford walks through the pros and cons of explanations and assessments versus demonstrations so you can deliver the most successful onboarding experience possible.
Watch the Full Session Now
Are you ready to learn more about creating or revamping your club’s onboarding experience? Watch the full session now to learn how to build an effective and thoughtful member onboarding process.