Most business owners would give almost anything to have a crystal ball. Being able to see into the future would let you plan your fitness and aquatics programs with certainly, accurately allocate staff numbers, and decide on opening hours.
Short of meeting Jareth from Labyrinth we can’t realistically hope for that crystal ball. But there are some helpful tools available that can make planning ahead and forecasting future attendance easier for fitness and leisure centre managers. Jonas Leisure’s Envibe leisure management software solution captures key data and information and includes a range of reporting functions that make planning ahead simple.
Planning and managing your fitness programs
One of Envibe’s most powerful but lesser known features is its Group Fitness Planning tool. This handy functionality can help managers and trainers quickly view utilisation rates and attendees for all the fitness classes they run.
“It’s an awesome feature that has helped a lot of leisure centres and fitness facilities to plan ahead, refine their programs and improve their profit,” says Envibe Product Manager Craig Barraclough.
“Using our Group Fitness Planning tool you might see that the body pump classes you run are 97 per cent utilised but some of your yoga classes, for example, aren’t so full. If you noticed utilisation for your yoga class on Wednesdays was only 12 per cent, you might cancel the class, change the day or perhaps try a new class in its place.”
The Group Fitness tool also allows managers to view the names of all attendees, allowing a facility to reach them with relevant communications and marketing. This offers a wide range of possibilities for leisure centres. For example, a leisure centre that runs an aquatic class might send a follow up message to attendees thanking them for taking part and letting them know about a sale on swimwear from its on-site store.
Class participants can tag into their classes online ahead of time or as they arrive at your facility, giving the class teacher a heads-up on numbers and who is coming. The tool also includes a handy timetable so managers can easily view all of the classes they are running and when.
If there’s a change to your schedule Envibe allows you to easily send an SMS to everyone who is part of that class to let them know the time has changed. For example, you might move the class from 9.00am to 9.30am and then SMS all the attendees to let them know of the change.
Make plans based on when your facility is busiest
Envibe’s business reporting functionality includes a report that makes it easy to understand the days of the week and times of day when your facility is busiest. This report uses data captured from members and visitors passing through your gym or leisure facility’s entrance gates to provide a helpful snapshot of your facility’s utilisation.
“It works well for people running a single site as well as for those running multiple facilities,” Mr Barraclough says.
“If you run more than one facility you can easily view and compare data to work out why one might be attracting more people, keeping in mind the demographics of the areas each facility is based in.”
This allows managers to make investment decisions and to gain an understanding of which programs and spaces, such as the gym or aquatic centre, are most popular in different cities and suburbs.
Use real-time data to understand popular areas in your facility
Envibe includes another useful tool for gauging the popularity of your facility and the various spaces within it. Known as Interactions, the tool allows you to view real-time information about who is in your facility, and what area of the facility they are using. This can be used to gauge which of your spaces are most popular at any given time, helping managers to prioritise spending and decide on staffing numbers. For example, if you use Interactions over a period of weeks or months you might see that your aquatic centre is always particularly popular on a Saturday morning, but less busy on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Conversely, you might see that your gym is busiest during the evening on week days, but quiet on the weekend. Understanding this can help you decide on required staffing levels for different days. The fact that the data is available in real time means you can even re-allocate staff throughout your facility if you find one area is particularly busy.
Looking to the future
Envibe software is always evolving to ensure it remains the premier gym and leisure management software solution in Australasia. There are some big plans on the horizon to make the reporting it provides even more powerful, so watch this space.
If you want to learn more about what Envibe has to offer or have any feedback on how it could be made even better, please contact Jonas Leisure.
