Members centric   mem·ber/ˈmembər/

Noun:     An individual belonging to a group such as a society or team: “a drama club member”.  An animal or plant belonging to a taxonomic group: “a member of the lily family”. cen·tric/ˈsentrik/

Adjective: In or at the center; central: “centric and peripheral forces”.  (of a diatom) Radially symmetrical.

Therefore member centric is a specific approach to doing business that focuses on the member. Member’s centric businesses ensure that the customer is at the centre of a business’s philosophy, operations or ideas. These businesses believe that their clients are the only reason that they exists and use every means at their disposal to keep the client happy and satisfied.

When making any decision about your business you should always have this definition at the source of it. If you are developing a new procedure at your club: like membership suspension policy or the joining process they should always meet this definition.  As if they are members of your family and you try to consider everyone’s thoughts and feelings and make them the centre of all processes.  Like all families, mine included, there are occasions where you never see eye-to-eye and this will be the case in your club.  4,000 or 40 members each one needs to be considered at the point of making decisions that affects them.  But you know your members and how they will react.

The member centric definition also needs to be top of mind when purchasing products and services that have a touch point with your members i.e. fitness equipment, cleaning services, software and marketing and billing.  But how would you know if the product or services had a member centric focus when it was being developed or produced? Here are 9 questions you should ask your suppliers and see if they think about your members.

1. What experience does the business have in the fitness industry?
2. Are any of your staff members of clubs?
3. Has any of your staff worked in the fitness industry?
4. What do you do to keep up-to-date with changes in the industry?
5. What aspect of the members experience does your product or service engage with or affect?
6. What are your core business values?
7. What was the initial market your product /service was developed for?
8. Can you provide reference from a business that is the same as yours?
9. Does your business engage in any sponsorship of an industry event, or are members of an industry association or body?

Why not test your current suppliers; get them to answer your member centric questions and see how they fair.  Also add these questions into your procurement process and put your members at the centre of all your decisions.

For more information about member centric software and billing services contact Ezypay: on 1300 762 726, email on hello@iconnect360.com or visit www.ezypay.com.au.

This is now a lot easier to accomplish with online tools and software which can store your contracts and legal documents.  With the rapid growth of the iPad and tablet computer market documents stored on the software are now portable and can be read in a normal manner rather than on a PC screen.   These mobile tools are also at a price point that is cheaper than printing the normal duplicate and triplicate carbon pads.   An additional benefit is that most software will send an automated email to your customer with their copy of any documents and contracts.

Secondly and more importantly how do we get the customer to sign the contract?

Is the digital signature accepted and safe?  Well with advances in technology it is, all you need is a secure connection and encryption as part of the software you are using.   The software will then encrypt the signature when it is used on a signature pad so that nobody else can pick the signature up and use it:  The encryption scrambles the data from the signature pad and a key is used to “unencrypt” it when needed.   A time and date stamp is also attached to the signature to verify that the signature was done at the right time.  This is done in the same way as normal data encryption that banks use all the time.

In advanced signature pads GPS location or other information could be captured even a “biometric capture”.  This actually means that the signature pad captures the pressure of the pen as the user signs. This is then stored with the signature to show that it was done by a human signing the document in one go.

For more information on how digital signature pad have advanced, check out this article; $100 million contract being signed on iPads.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/11/know-whats-crazy-people-are-signing-100-million-nba-contracts-on-an-ipad/

For a paperless solution for the fitness industry check out iconenct360 or contact the team on 1300 762 726 and arrange a time for a demo.

What are the real benefits of a paperless system?

When you change your systems and procedures from those that have been around for years you have to weigh up the benefits. Here are 7 benefits of moving to a paperless membership system.

1. Cost

Ever wondered how much your files are costing you? You might be surprised at how much you can save by going paperless.  In an average facility approximately 30% of receptionists/administrator time is spent retrieving, replacing or adding to members files, this equates to 30% of time spent away from face to face customer service.

2. Minimise lost and misfiled documents

With paper records, each time a document is used, there is a risk that it may be misfiled making it substantially harder to find in the future. In a paperless system, various constraints can be imposed to help ensure documents find their way into the correct location. In the event that an electronic copy of a document is stored in the wrong spot, it is still possible to locate the misfiled document, usually quicker than a correctly filed paper based document.  If for example, a letter was accidentally stored in the wrong members file, it would be possible to perform a search to locate the missing document quickly and efficiently.

3. Space

As your business grows, space is often found to be at a premium. In an average fitness club the space occupied by members form and documents doubles every 5 years.

What else could you be doing with the space you are using for filing cabinets?  How much are you paying per square meter that you are paying to store these files? Once paperless, the areas previously used for document storage are free to start making you money.

4. Data Portability

Once in electronic format, it becomes possible to securely access documents from remote locations. For example, a gym owner could view member’s details without having to travel to the gym. You could even be in another country and check on club performance in another country.

Electronic documents also make it easier to share documents between different physical locations if your business has multiple locations.

5. Data Security

Paper based documents are susceptible to fire, water, theft and other damage. With robust offsite backup procedures your data will survive even if your office doesn’t!

6. Data error

From the point a pen hits the application form mistakes are being made, a miss-spelt word, the miss-interpretation of someone’s hand writing and the list goes on.

With an online form mandatory fields are possible and detailed formatting and automatic selection is made easy.  Here is an example of how data error can escalate.

• Data entry of bank account details could delay the payment of membership fees.
• Incorrect address means you can’t contact the member to update their details.
• The failed payment cannot be followed up correctly and promptly.
• The club doesn’t get paid and the member ends up with a bad debt.

 7. Everything in the same place

With a paperless signup system the membership agreement and direct debit agreement is all in one place and link directly with the member’s information.  If issues arise where the club needs to produce legal documentation linked with a specific member, everything is in the one place.

To find out more about paperless membership signups book a demo of iconnect360 today.

Here are 5 ways a truly integrated fitness membership system can help overcome these issues.

1. Paperless signup with mandatory and pre-populated fields ensure you have the correct contact details and spelt correctly for excellent member communication and follow-up.
2. Integrated membership agreement with the clubs terms and conditions to ensure each membership has a signature against the terms of the club stored with the members details.
3. Immediate communication with the members with a welcome letter with membership and payment agreement sent to their email.  This also means ongoing club newsletter and promotional material goes via the right channel.
4. Payment details are verified as they are entered into the system and linked directly with the billing system and membership system.  No double entry or forms required.  Payments can be activated immediately.
5. All payments, payment history, and payment follow-ups are all managed with the one system at one time as soon as a payment it requested and received.

The integration of all your membership activity is an innovation the membership industry has never seen and will change the way your run your business.

To find out more about how iconnect360 can help with your business contact us on 1300 762 726 or email on hello@iconnect360.com.

But you know as the gym manager that this is just the start of a long day managing the membership payments of your members.  From not enough contact or payment information, missing paper work, missed payments or unaccounted for money in your account.

Here are 5 things to look out for when managing your membership payments.

1.  At the time of joining ensure all the contact information is complete; make this a mandatory requirement for membership.  The forms must be complete before they can use the gym.  Especially the payment details on the direct debit form, this is the only way you can keep a track of their payment.   Missing digits, wrong codes or not filled out means you are not going to get any money.   Your priority is to get unfinished paper work complete as soon as possible.  Follow-up over the phone or put a notice on their gate entry swipe.
2. Set the membership payments to match the members pay cycle, weekly, fortnightly or monthly.  You are less likely to have a missed payment for lack of funds.
3. As soon as you receive a failed payment, which can be for a variety of reason, if the direct debit provider does not have a follow-up process and re-payment system, you need to action it straight away.  If they are paying weekly they will soon owe 2 weeks and so you need to have a system in place to follow up the payments.
4. You have just received your payments and a report from your DD provider / bank which states which members have paid and which have not.  You either have to import that information into your membership software and hope the reference numbers match so they sync in some way. Sometimes you will have to manually match payments with member’s records.  This process may take a day or 2 after the payments are made they is always a day or two lag when your members are visiting and you don’t know if they have paid or not.
5. You are 3 months into running your gym, you have a pile of incomplete membership forms of varying degrees, you have 2 weeks of failed payments but now you also have members that need to amend their arrangement with you.  Change the payment date, change their payment frequency, bank account or contact details.  You have members that paid a missed payment by credit card and one with cash.  One is disputing they have paid and a few that didn’t pay and have never been back.

You thought you had opened a gym to help people get fit when really you are running a finance company collecting people’s money.  You need good manual systems if you don’t have integrated software or a billing company without customer service assistance.   Membership payment should be your number one priority and investing in this area will make your business strong and your life easier.

Membership software that offers paperless joining, online sign-up functionality and integrated billing system all automated to make your day-to-day operation easier for you to concentrate on getting your members fit and enjoying your business.  iconnect360 and Ezypay billing is one of the easiest and most cost effective gym management solutions to help you enjoy your business.

Turn it on, turn it off.  No! Hmm, maybe it’s your hard drive or a disk space problem – it’s definitely not our software.  Finally you got through to someone and now you can’t even understand them because they are speaking another language.

Sound familiar?  Well things are different with iconnect360.

As a cloud solutions provider we don’t just sell you software we provide software as a service (now we’re speaking another language).  We host your system securely over the internet and provide you with the server, the geeks to support the system along with our incredibly easy to use membership system, all for one small monthly fee.

There are no servers to buy, no expensive licencing, extra support costs or training fees, all you need is a computer and the internet.  We provide all the system monitoring, maintenance, back-ups, security and support so you can get on with business knowing that you have a team of people making sure you can manage your members safely and securely anywhere, anytime.  Now that’s service!  It’s like having your own IT provider without the need for annoying conversations and the expensive invoices.

Ezypay is the Australian and New Zealand distributors of iconnect360.  We will be at the FILEX health and fitness expo at stand W24 on the 27 – 29 April in Sydney.  This year you won’t see much of the traditional Ezypay orange – instead we will be showcasing the new software solution called iconnect360 and you will see lots of blue, white and clouds.

To find out more or for a demo of iconnect360 come and say hi to us at FILEX stand W24 or call 1300 762 726 or email hello@iconnect360.com.

We will be releasing iconnect360 at FILEX the health and fitness expo in Sydney on 27th of April, however if you would like to find out more, or book a demo please contact Daniel Moy, National Sales Manager on 1300 762 726 or email hello@iconnect360.com.

Here is an in depth look at how Hamper Magic uses their customised Ezypay direct debit gateway payment solution.  It collects varying payment amounts on a weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis.  Click here.

Would you like some more information about how your business might benefit from the direct debit gateway online payment system? Please contact Ezypay on 1300 762 726 or newenquiries@ezypay.com.au or view the Ezypay website.

1. How to go to your secure account and log in
2. Where the online DDR form is in your secure account
3. What the online DDR form looks like
4. What fields you need to fill out
5. Automatic notifications your customer will receive

If you would like to organise training on this or another area of the Ezypay system please contact customer service on 1300 300 553 or customerservice@ezypay.com.au.

If you would like more information or futher training on this or any other Ezypay topic please contact our customer servcie team on 1300 300 553 or customerservice@ezypay.com.au.