In part 2 of this series, we explored how operators, trainers and instructors might harness the power of digital to improve customer interactions.
Taking these ideas one step further, in part 3 we explore how you can provide your customers with greater added value through digital.
Surrounded by digital, we have to find ways to embrace, engage and enhance our offerings through online practices and services.
Digital is more than just advertising, marketing a mobile app or a payment system, it now touches everything that we do and must be included in our business plans and strategies for the future.
For digital to be truly impactful and useful to your customer, it has to be accessible. It has to help, assist and improve the customer experience. Encouraging customers to use digital should not only be for the benefit of your business; it has to enhance and enrich your customers’ lives.
This is why simply turning your website offering into an app because you think it will make your experience quicker for the customer will not work!
Aside from digitising services so customers can access your offering anywhere / anytime or creating communities on-line so that customers can talk to other customers, LEADING with digital in your strategy will ultimately help improve engagement levels, and enrich the lives of customers.
Of course, you may need to re-think your entire business model, breaking it down before you can build it back up again. The good news is, if you know your values and identity and are truly customer centric – putting the customers’ needs and experience before your own – integrating digital into your story should be a piece of cake!
Digital can provide fantastic value to your customers, whether it’s through social media content (nutritional advice, behavioural change guidance or exercise options); home workout sessions led by one of your coaches or cooking lessons with a local chef to deliver nutritional advice.
Consider partnerships with medical or life insurance, or subsidised tracking devices with offers on Apple Watches, Fitbits or Garmins. If exercisers allow access to their data (both inside and outside the facility), it can be a win-win for both parties, whether you are an operator or a self-employed PT.
Offering a digital magazine subscription or even a reward system where members provide data can be a great way to provide added value. For example; spa days, weekend breaks, a session at a barbers or hairdressers, a meal in a restaurant or a gift token for a local sports shop.
Encouraging customers to actively engage with you through digital provides information that will ultimately help to grow your business.
Remember, in the digital world, the organisation must exist in the customers mind, outside of a facility and the offering must give them more than just somewhere to exercise.
