Jenny Hutchins

We’ve all been there before, receiving that last minute message of “I’m sorry, I won’t be able to make it today” be it at 6am or 6pm, it can be frustrating. 

Cancellations can not only result in a loss in revenue, but also a poor level of communication between yourself and your customer which is one of the most important aspects of customer service. 

A clear cancellation policy can provide a fitness provider with the power to confidently run their sessions knowing that both themselves and their customers are protected.

Within this blog we will discuss aspects of a cancellation policy that you may want to consider when creating your own.

What should you consider when writing your cancellation policy:

• Contact information
• Cancellation without penalty 
• Timeframe 
• Cash or credit refund
• Consequences 
• Agreement 

Contact information

It’s always a good idea to start any cancellation policy with your contact details so that you are making it as easy as possible for your customers to reach out to you if they do need to cancel a session. It is within this section that you can specify whether you would like them to contact you directly or cancel their session manually on your booking system.

Cancellation without penalty

Are you going to allow customers to receive a cash or credit refund if they provide you sufficient notice of cancellation? Some businesses do not offer refunds at all (this is more typical with block bookings of a recurring session) where others provide a refund no matter when a customer cancels. Most businesses fall somewhere in between these two, but we appreciate that every business model is different so this is an important aspect to consider.

Timeframe

If you’ve decided to offer a refund when a customer provides sufficient notice of cancellation, then you will need to decide on a suitable time frame for how long before the session starts a customer can cancel and still receive a refund. The main thing that you need to consider when deciding on your cancellation period is allowing enough time to maximise your chances of selling the space that your customer is cancelling. If your sessions are frequently fully booked with a waitlist full of customers, then you can afford to have a shorter notice period, whereas if your sessions are harder to fill, then perhaps a longer notice period would be better suited.

Cash or credit refund

Some fitness providers like to offer their customers a full cash refund if they cancel in line with their policy, however if you’d rather keep the money in the business, then a refund credit may be the route to go down. Using a booking software like Gymcatch can help you with this automated issuing of a refund credit if a customer cancels in line with your policy, freeing up more of your time to do what you love!

Consequences

If you’ve decided to issue a refund when a customer cancels in line with your policy, then it’s important to decide what the consequence is if they don’t cancel with enough notice. Most fitness providers will simply not offer a refund when a customer’s cancellation is actioned outside of this notice period, however those who offer full cash refunds upon a successful cancellation, may consider offering a 50% cash refund as a consequence. 

Agreement

Once you’ve written your cancellation policy, the next step is to make it easy for customers to agree to it. Whether that is ticking a checkbox or signing your cancellation policy, making sure that your customer has read and understood your policy will help to avoid misunderstandings since they’re fully aware of how your business operates.

A cancellation policy can be presented to the customer both manually or automated through a booking and management software. With Gymcatch you can automatically present customers with your cancellation policy the first time they book with you without having to lift a finger, helping you to minimise the number of cancellations. 

Our online booking software and management system lets you set your cancellation policy to suit your business needs. You can choose to automatically issue customers with a credit that lets them book a replacement class if they provide you with enough notice and although cancellations are inevitable, when this happens, our waitlist feature allows you to fill up the cancelled space fast with no added admin time!

Social media has become ever more prevalent over the last 20 years. Whether you solely use Facebook or have gone on to the likes of Instagram or the increasingly popular Tiktok, we can all agree that social media plays a big role in our everyday lives and an even bigger one for fitness business marketing. 

When used correctly, social media can be one of the most powerful ways to market your business due to having access to an unlimited audience at no extra expense. 

Whether you’re creating a community on a Facebook group or want to show more authenticity and creativity over on Instagram or Tiktok, having a social media marketing strategy will help to convey your message and what you offer clearly and successfully, making advertising your business on social media easy, fun and a no brainer!

In this blog post we look at the ways you can create a successful marketing strategy for your fitness business during this social media age. 

When planning your social media content, it’s important to consider the 5 pillars of social media marketing:

• Education 
• Personal 
• Entertain
• Social proof
• Sales

Education

Offering value driven content on any social media channel will set you apart from the rest and your audience will see you as the expert in your field. Customers often purchase and invest in fitness providers since they want to learn more about health and fitness from a professional so that they can apply this to their everyday lives. At the end of the day a fitness professional’s main job is to teach, so if you’re able to give your audience a taste for what you could possibly teach them, it will keep them coming back for more!

Personal 

Sharing your personal story on social media is always a great way to connect to your audience and potential new customers. We all love seeing a personal transformation, but what will create that deeper connection is showing your audience that you’re not only human, but have been exactly where they are right now. You understand how they’re feeling and their pain points and struggles which will help them to feel seen and understood by you and in turn build that possible new relationship and trust between you two. 

Entertain

One of social media’s main purposes is to entertain us and provide us with that quick dopamine hit. If you’ve been on social media for a while, you’ll notice that your algorithm can quickly change based on what content you’re regularly consuming, so as a fitness professional it’s so important to include an element of entertainment within your social media marketing so that you can keep your audience engaged and increase those touch point chances. 

Social proof

Providing your audience and potential new customers with evidence of what you can offer them will make you more credible and be seen as an expert to them. Whether that is testimonials, before and afters or showing behind the scenes elements of a day in your life as a fitness provider, this will help tap into the basic human instinct to follow the actions of others, building trust, credibility and reducing barriers to making that first purchase from you. 

Sales 

We’ve educated, shared, entertained and provided evidence, now we can’t forget to tell our audience how they can actually purchase from us. It can sometimes feel a bit ‘hard sales’ telling potential customers how they can work with you, but given it takes on average eight touchpoints (this number can vary depending on the industry) before a customer buys from you, it’s important to make this part as easy as possible for them.  

Once you’ve mastered your social media marketing pillars it’s time to create a visibility plan. Remember to take into consideration what social media channels your target audience are on, possibly investing in a scheduling software so that you can bulk create and schedule content and being realistic with how much available time you have to invest in your social media marketing. 

You can find more information on Gymcatch’s fitness and wellness booking and management software here. Get in contact to book a demo with one of the team or start your free trial.

Streamline your personal training bookings with our intuitive class booking and management software. 

Whether you offer 1:1, 2:1 or small group personal training sessions, Gymcatch ensures a hassle-free experience so that you can say goodbye to the complexities of manual systems and enjoy a simple and streamlined approach to managing schedules, bookings, payments and client interactions, enabling you to do more of what you love!

Over and above everything you’d expect to manage booking and payments, our PT focused features include:

Control visibility of your sessions 

Visibility management on Gymcatch is a great feature for personal trainers, enabling you to set your ‘open sessions’ as public and those for regular clients as private, ensuring you can both take new bookings and ensure clients’ regular spots are protected.  

You also have an automated waitlist feature that is included within our base plan to ensure that, no matter the size of your personal training sessions, you’re giving yourself the best chance to fill the space. 

Run business your way 

Personal trainers need the best of both worlds; a booking system that takes care of automation and recurring clients, whilst also the flexibility to give existing clients the option to book more or new slots. 

We give clients and Admins full control over packages and credit booking, ensuring you can let those that want to book and pay by themselves the freedom to do so, whilst also managing, or part-managing clients that don’t want that responsibility or small admin.

Easily onboard and upsell to customers 

Running a goal orientated course of personal training sessions is a great way to get new starters onboard or even upsell to existing customers. On Gymcatch you can easily create a course for a set number of sessions over a specified period of time and when either you or your customers book onto this course, they’ll automatically be booked onto all of the sessions within it. Saving both yourself and your customers time!

Quickly and tidily schedule your availability 

As a busy personal trainer you’re going to have a lot of identical sessions within your schedule showing your availability, whether that’s to book in with yourself or other trainers at your gym. Not only can you easily create a recurring series of sessions for these availability slots, but you can even use our consolidated sessions feature to group identical sessions each day for a tidier view on your schedule.

Experience the ease and efficiency of our personal training booking software, where managing your sessions becomes as fun as teaching them! Simplify your workflow, enhance your customer’s experiences and streamline your processes so that your business can create a community where accessing exercise is easy and enjoyable.

If you’re wanting to streamline your personal training business, then feel free to book a call with one of the team here.