How to Maximize Member Engagement When The Odds Are Seemingly Against You

“We would probably not have as good of a relationship [with our members] if it weren’t for Naamly.”

Jordan Rudolph, Unity Fitness

For five and a half years, Jordan Rudolph has been helping the community of La Crosse, Wisconsin live happy, healthy and fulfilled lives. 

While attending the University of Wisconsin he worked as a trainer in a big box gym to pay the bills. He quickly realized that helping people was his true calling.

One day, he accidentally scheduled two clients at the same time on the same day. Instead of cancelling on them, he just ran the session with both of them there and helped them work through the exercises; saying the lesson would be on him. Coincidentally the two clients loved the way the small group dynamic played out so much that they requested to do it again.

“…Then another lady saw them and she’s like: ‘Hey, I want to do what they’re doing.’” Says Jordan. “And I’m like: man, like this could be good. I just wrapped up like nine hours a week into three hours a week. I wonder if I could do that for my evenings. And I did.” 

Cut to six months later and he was opening up his own brick and mortar where he specialized in helping people fulfill their goals on a personal level. Wanting to be accessible and helpful to his client base whenever they needed, he gave out his personal cell phone number to each and every client. On paper it sounds like a good idea, right? The client thinks: ‘whoa, this guy really cares.’ But on the other hand, it can become overwhelming very, very quickly. 

“I was honored and humbled that they thought to ask me for help… I was getting calls and texts over the weekend. Like people were going out to eat and they were like ‘What should I get? Here’s a picture of the menu.’ I took the calls, took the texts, but yeah. It was brutal.”

Eventually a full staff was added to Unity Fitness’ roster, meaning it was time to move away from his personal cell phone and implement a system that allowed not just himself, but his team to communicate effectively with all of his clients. 

“It gave us streamlined communication … That’s kind of like the unity text line, right? That’s the help line and all of us get those messages now. And we can all message from it … It just doesn’t all fall on me, which frees me up. So I can spend more time at home with my fiancé, with my dogs, or I can just enjoy a night out.” 

Jordan Rudolph, Unity Fitness

Unity Fitness found Naamly about a week before Covid-19 came knocking on the door. “I didn’t think it was going to be as good as it is. I was kind of hesitant, saying to my team: ‘there’s no way it’s going to work. Like, there’s no way it’s that good.’ And I was proved wrong within that first day I was like, yep, this is going to be the best thing we’ve ever had.”

Seeing the trend around the country and anticipating an imminent shutdown for Wisconsin on the horizon, they volunteered to shut down a few days before the official state order came through on March 21st. But with Naamly at their disposal, Jordan wasn’t worried. He knew communication with his members wouldn’t lapse. 

“We were able to reach everybody via text and have multiple conversations or phone calls with them [to let them know about the shutdown]. Without it, it would have been so hard to see, like, did we check in with this person, did we check in with that person? It just made it so much easier to communicate with members. I think one of the big things is that our members felt more safe and comfortable to communicate with us as well.”

Jordan and his team were able to take a limitation and turn it into an advantage. Leveraging the tools they had at their disposal they were able to keep their members informed and on track despite the shutdown. 

Organizing when messages went out around members’ schedules proved to be an invaluable way to keep communication consistent. It also opened up the schedules of the team allowing for them to focus on big picture tasks as opposed to mulling over member communication.

“When we have a new member, I can look at the new members schedule and intentionally set, like 30 minutes after their first session with us, I can intentionally schedule a text that says ‘hey Cassie, I know you just got finished with your first session. So no pressure, you don’t need to quickly respond, but I just wanted to see how everything went, how you’re feeling after your first session with us. Is there anything that we can do better? How was Kenzie as a coach?’ So that ability to schedule those things out, and utilize that… Everything’s kind of done ahead of time so you don’t have to worry… And we can live by our core value of being proactive and not reactive.”

Are you having a similar problem? Having trouble reaching out to your customers in an increasingly digital world? Give Naamly a try. Schedule a demo with one of our Naamly Coaches and get your member communications as tightly run as your training sessions!

“Naamly is a game-changer … Out of all of the apps and subscriptions that we have Naamly is right up there at the top with us [and] that took our business to another level and it will continue to take our business to the next level.”

Jordan Rudolph, Unity Fitness

Turn the Odds in Your Favor: Naamly – The Perfect Gym Management Software for Maximizing Member Engagement with Operations Simplified!