Showing you care
How do you say ‘we care’ on the gym floor? Here are a few options for you to discuss with your team:
Members expect good customer service – customer care is about exceeding those expectations
was serviced properly, ready on time and all for the price quoted. That’s customer service. When he got home he realised he’d left his briefcase in the
reception area, so he rang the garage to ask whether they had found it, which they had. Without hesitation, the duty manager immediately dispatched a courtesy car, at no cost to my friend, to return his briefcase. That’s customer care. What do you think he was telling his friends about the
next day? The efficiency of the car service or the fact that they dispatched a car to do a 20-mile round trip to return his briefcase at no charge? That’s priceless. I’ll give you a favourite from our club. A female member
came rushing to the front desk to check in one of her children for a kids’ class. She had to take her other eight- year-old child to Guildford, about 10 miles away, for a piano lesson – but her car had a puncture and she asked if we could call a taxi to take the child to the piano lesson. My duty manager, Charles, felt her child was too
young to be put in a taxi on her own, so asked a female colleague to deliver the member’s daughter to Guildford herself. He then asked our maintenance fellow to change the member’s tyre. What was that member talking about the next time she met up with her friends? When we talked about customer care and exceeding
expectations, every team member – full or part-time – knew that, in the event of a customer being dissatisfied with any aspect of our service or product, they could spend up to £25 to recover the situation without consulting anyone. They were expected to take ownership
August 2014 © Cybertrek 2014
● Never pass any member without acknowledging them ● Choose to work out with a member in a quieter, off-peak time at no charge ● Contact one of the 60 per cent that no one recognises each day ● Fill the member’s water bottle ● Take fresh or dried fruit or mints around unexpectedly and for no reason ● Go up and ask a member for their opinion of the gym ● Do a free ‘Ab Attack’ to 10 members every hour – listen for the whistle! ● Track members’ participation and, when they don’t use the gym for more than 10 days, send them a ‘we miss you’ card ● Check members’ pulse rates at random to show you’re interested ● Publicly recognise members’ achievements ● Acknowledge members’ birthdays and membership anniversaries ● Say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ to everyone, regardless of how busy you are
of any situation on the spot and that was the level of engagement I expected from the entire team. As a manager, you have to create the mindset among your
team to actively look for opportunities to show that, as a company, you genuinely care. The ‘showing you care’ list (see above) offers just a few simple suggestions.
Exceeding expectations Your company needs to be like a stick of rock. No matter which way you cut it, and no matter who cuts it – your team or your customers – it must simply say: “We care.” If companies put their energies into what really matters,
they create a culture focused on the internal customer, and this will ultimately engender a spirit of genuine care towards the external customer, which in turn will contribute significantly to the bottom line. ●
Chris Lane built the award-winning Chris Lane Tennis and Health Club, which he sold in 2002 to Whitbread, then owner of the David Lloyd Leisure clubs. He has recently launched a consultancy, Chris Lane Consulting, which aims to help companies offer an outstanding customer experience by developing their awareness of the link between customer care, bottom-up management and the customer experience. Email:
chris@chrislaneconsulting.com Web:
www.chrislaneconsulting.com
Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 59
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