How MTG Wangen increased Efficiency & Customer Service
In August, MTG Wangen joined our myGymPoint community. Shortly after kicking off the new process, the General Manager of MTG Wangen, Timo Petersen, reported how satisfied he was. Timo was faszinated on the immediate impact of the myGymPoint introduction. We invited Timo for an interview which we would like to share with you today. It clearly shows how a fitness facility can improve workflows and customer service by working with myGymPoint.
Hi Timo! First of all, we are really glad on how satisfied you are. But other than some competitiors of yours, you decided not to sacrifice your customer experience by simply cancelling your registration service. You managed to keep the balance. Actually, it is also interesting on how you prepared your decision and change. Let´s start and tell others how you have done this:
How do you use myGymPoint or what do you think we actually do?
Timo: Well, we use myGymPont in our fitness facility to run our fitness course communication and booking. Thus, the main point is the process of all bookings, cancellations and waiting list requests online with myGymPoint .
We understand you have some courses where customers HAVE TO book. How did you work before you started with us?
Timo: For some courses, our equipment is limited. As the customer demand for these courses increases significantly during the winter season, we had to work out a process to manage the bookings. Unfortunately, it was a very manual process by phone and paper. Until recently, customers could call us from Monday morning 8:30 AM to book courses for the same week. So, phone rang all the time for several hours and during week we were busy with cancellations and waiting list. This added up easily to 10 or 15 hours effort per week. Mainly, short time cancellation really caused some extra pressure to fill open seats. At the same time, we did not want to switch to a first come – first serve model as this would have meant a significant setback in customer service.
Could we help to resolve this? If yes, how exactly?
Timo: Indeed, you did! We reduced the number of phone calls to ZERO on our first day of operation. That´s amazing! Thus, there is no more involvement of personell to manage this process. All we do is to print off the participants list just before the course starts. That´s awesome!
How long did it take to get up and running with myGymPoint? How did you perceive this process?
Timo: There is two different ways you can start this process. Simply start a testing period with myGymPoint or you conduct a survey right before you take a decision. We went for the survey and got the overwhelming response of 92% voting for online registration. By means of this, we could always refer to these results when customers expressed concerns. In the meantime, they have seen how much more comfortable it is.
What was the effort for you and your team to get started and work with the solution?
Timo: myGymPoint is very easy to use. And it´s also the nice thing about myGymPoint: Very focused on the booking process and very straight forward. That´s why I said that testing would make sense too. Customers would just recognize all the benefits.
After all, myGymPoint is not for free. What are your measurable benefits, respectively what does the ROI look like?
Timo: The main benefit for us is the time effort for our personell. Our coaches can always check on the registration for their courses and the number of participants. The “waiting list” function has proven to be a great advantage as customers move up to the participants list if another cancels his/her participation. Especially for short term notice cancellations, this simplified our daily work and increases customer satisfaction. Nobody is missed out due to time constraints! Previously, this had caused some frustration amongst customers and my team. In terms of ROI, the decision has proven to be right and the investment has been worthwhile after two weeks. We save at least 40 working hours per month; up to 60 hours.
How do perceive your customers the process overall?
Timo: Very well! They have understood how much less effort it is now to do the booking. Always access to information, no waiting time in the phone line and automated notification if they move up from the waiting list. One key element is that booking is possible through mobile app and internet browser which is important for those who are not too familiar with mobile apps. We have received very good feedback. But myGymPoint is also running a survey right now.
May we ask you for some general feedback to summarize your experience with myGymPoint?
Timo: For us, this is the perfect solution which we have tried to find for a very long time. On top of that, the myGymPoint team has responded quickly and is very supportive with best practice sharing. The supported us throughout the whole ramp up. The implementation time was stunning.
Sounds like you would go with us again, wouldn´t you?
Timo: Oh yeah absolutely. We were looking for a booking solution, no more no less. And we are glad that our paths crossed. You helped us to become more professional, innovative and save cost. We can now invest 40 to 60 hours per month into other services for customers.
Timo, we really appreciate your time to answer these questions and share your thoughts. Thanks for joining us just recently.
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