Whether you are setting up a new fitness studio or looking to expand you operations, deploying technology is a no brainer. One look at the successful fitness studio business models, and you will notice a common denominator is deployment of a gym and fitness studio management software. Thus, while leveraging technology to assist you in running your operations is given. However, to an owner or a manager, it begets the question on how does one find the best gym and fitness studio management software in a market that is abuzz with a bunch of choices and each professing better capabilities than the other? Thankfully, we have done the research and here are our top tips that will assist you in finding the top fitness studio software for your operations.
- Understand your business model
Prior to delving on the task of finding the best fitness studio management software, much care must be given to understanding the objectives of your business model and what makes your business unique. Once the goals and objectives of your business are defined, you will create the foundation for evaluation of the software.
- Gather market information
Familiarity with the market is the second step. Talk to industry veterans, search on Google, read online blogs or forums to ascertain what software products are available in the market, and why are they popular. Having shortlisted some of the top contenders in the market, it is time to dig into details to ascertain what are the features that the software has. A comparative table maybe handy here to evaluate the basic features and the additional modules. Many software come with just the basic features such as client management, scheduling, invoicing and POS, and reporting. Additional features such as inventory management, employee management, are often add-on modules thus creating a bundle of products. On the other hand, some top notch software include all the features in their product and allow for customization to meet your business needs.
- Seek Credentials
Having shortlisted probable choices, one has to now initiate discussions with the software providers. While understanding the features and benefits of their product, it is important to seek client credentials. Are the clients single store operators or do they run a city wide or nation-wide chain? How does software respond to scaling requirements? How many years has the developer spent in the industry? Needless to state that experienced developers are more likely to be able to handle complex requirements.
- Check Experience
Having shortlisted probable choices, it is time to gather feedback from existing users. Once again, it would entail talking to existing customers and reading online forums and blogs to ascertain the user experience. The process is important as you don’t want to buy a software and then engage in unfruitful tasks such as constantly seeking tech support, being stuck with something that has a steep learning curve, and having half completed tasks.
- Understand Back End & Front End of the Software
Each software has two sides. The backend side or the business side is equipped with features that shall be used by the business. Membership management, payment management, employee management, scheduling, reporting, marketing management are the features that the fitness studio staff will be using. On the other hand, front end software or the client facing software as the name suggests is what the clients will engage with. Booking, Check-in, payment, nutrition tracking, fitness goals tracking are the features that clients will use. While it is important that both back and front end of the software should come with an easy learning curve, user convenience and state of art user interface holds high importance in the front end of the software.
- Affordability
While it is great to have all the features, and a robust workhorse to run your operations, one must bear cost of software in mind. The deployment cost of the software should be prohibitively high that it negatively impacts your profit. The financial impact of deploying the software should be evaluated based on your business requirements, and the processes that shall be automated. As a business manager it is not wrong to save a few bucks, and procure the best product at the right price.
We hope that the above tips will help you in find the best fitness studio management software for your operations that will help you propel your business into the modern league and allow you to give your customers the modern experience. We particularly like gym and fitness studio management software from Zenoti for its robust features, scalability, and state of the art user interface and easy learning curve.