Gyms are customer-service companies, and every now and again the customer complains. With any company that is so customer-service-driven, you can do your best, and gym complaints will still erupt. A good and strong reputation takes years to build and can be destroyed easily with a blistering complaint. By handling grievances well and having some idea of how to handle angry customers, you can master the situation. By doing that, you can rectify the issue before it becomes even bigger. So what is the proper way of handling grievances and resolving them effectively.
Warren Buffet once used to say these great words It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently. Your reputation is a valuable asset of significant worth. Although you can’t put a dollar figure on it, it’s your reputation that attracts and retains committed members. Authority, credibility, trust, and loyalty are hard to gain and build. It’s not at all easy to obtain these. Fitness businesses take years to build a spotless reputation, and human error, that’s all, can sabotage your work.
Complaint Management for Gym Owners
Even as you can do everything you can to reduce complaints before they happen, sometimes they catch you by surprise. You have to resolve complaints promptly and under your composure. Your members have to be heard, understood, and appreciated. It’s very easy for the process of complaining to rise to being hot-headed, but you have to turn your focus towards de-escalating. By acting on complaints and resolving any issues that do arise in a timely manner, you are able to deal with complaints and improve your overall service at the same time.
With a global world of Trust Pilot, Facebook, and Google reviews, complaints are heard in so many ways, and you must monitor them all. They might hear them in person, by email, through social media, and through online reviews. It’s too easy for a complaint to slip through the net and escalate into something more than it ought. Being responsible for filtering forum complaints is ensuring the customer is moved into a private conversation as soon as possible. Whenever you see a complaint, answer right away and give the name, email, and phone number of the person who will be dealing with your complaint.
Monitor All Forums of Complaints
Gym complaint management and reputation building go hand in hand. If you manage to sort out problems in a timely and effective way, then you are sure to avoid letting them get out of your control. Complaints are to be dealt with differently depending on the situation. You might even prefer to apologize and own up to a fault before you start receiving complaints. Adidas did this by sending an apology through an email to commend the 2013 Boston Marathon survivors. The company owned up and made a chain of statements, including one on Twitter where they declared, We are very sorry we sincerely apologize for our mistake.
Create a clear road map of how you will rectify the situation. Remain calm and remain polite. Your body posture and facial expression must also be in congruence with your soothing tone and words. Be pleasant but show that you’re listening to the customer. You should now have an idea of how you can correct the fault. In case you don’t, it’s acceptable to ask the customer about what you can do to rectify it. Once you are running a health club or a gym, it won’t be long before you have to handle a complaint. If you handle it properly, you might end up with a lifetime member and some referrals.
How to Handle Gym Member Complaints
By handling an angry member and taking full charge of the situation, you can turn an angry customer into a loyal one. Depending on how the complaint comes to you, you will probably handle it slightly differently. However, one thing remains the same, and that is being able to empathize and understand your customer. Keep calm and do not allow anger or emotion to take over. That will not make things any better. Remaining calm will keep you in good stead with a reply both on- and offline.
If it was your fault, accept it. If you completely disagree with the argument, try to see where they are coming from politely. Don’t be confrontational as this will only anger them further. Agree wherever possible and make sure that a member of your staff deals with the issue themselves. The complaints experience should be as good as the rest of services that you offer. Start to discuss how you are going to solve the issues and reach a conclusion.
Conclusion
You should have a complaints system. With a complaints system, you will not miss any outraged members and you will know when to call follow up on each person. Even after having solved an issue and resolved the problem, it is a good practice to follow up with your customer by way of email, phone call, or social media messaging to ensure the issue is settled. There should be a clear complaints process for members. Your complaints process allows you to deal with complaints promptly, fully and fairly investigate them, and implement an effective remedy.
No matter how well your fitness business is performing or how wonderful it is, no one is immune to customer complaints. Members will have a myriad of reasons for complaining. Some complaints will be expected when something has gone awry, and others will come out of left field. These are nine of the most common gym complaints and how to resolve them. Unacceptable hygiene conditions in the gym is a huge red flag for gym members. Hygiene was big enough in pre-coronavirus life; now rigorous hygiene protocols are necessary. It’s not just the cleanliness that can cause complaints, but the general fitness environment. If it’s too hot, too cold, or too dark, this is likely to cause issues.
