How to make your gym your customers’ favorite

Gym operators are living in incredibly challenging times. In the first five months of the Covid-19 pandemic alone, the US gym and health club industry lost $13.9 billion^*1.

Not only did the pandemic land a heavy blow to gyms’ profitability, but it also massively increased users’ sensitivity around hygiene and cleanliness, and their expectations of your sanitization regime.

Plus, with hybrid working now a much larger feature of people’s working lives, routines have shifted, and those who were once your most loyal customers may simply no longer be commuting near your gym.

So it’s clear that gym owners need to focus more than ever on creating a comfortable and hygienic environment to attract business, assuage their customers’ anxieties, and retain their loyalty.

Your gym staff’s workload has grown exponentially over the last couple of years.

On the one hand, it remains important that they stay on top of your equipment, keeping everything organized so that customers can easily find what they need. That means returning used weights to their racks, tidying up and making sure equipment is within the right area (whether cardio, strength, stretching, or functional), and attending to any other issues with your apparatus.

On the other hand, keeping that equipment hygienic – as well as the changing rooms and other gym areas – is even more important than before. That means carrying out regular cleaning of high-touchpoint objects, such as door handles, weights, and equipment hold bars, and it also means enforcing any measures expected of users, such as wiping down equipment after use with disinfectant spray.

Equally, odor control is crucial in a gym environment. When people work out they sweat heavily, and that can quickly make for a bad smell in your exercise areas and changing rooms. There’s little more off-putting for customers, and you can be sure they’ll take straight to social media to complain about a bad experience. In fact, 56.6% of social media complaints in a sample of 5,373 posts related to deodorization needs. For example:

“Boys and girls, deodorant is important. Even if you’re going to the gym! I think that’s where you need it the most because you sweat and smell like rubbish! Please!”

That makes tackling foot and body odor in your gym one of the most important parts of creating a pleasant workout environment for everyone – so you can keep customers happy, and keep social media complaints to a minimum.

While your staff has come under greater strain, your customers' expectations have become higher than ever throughout the pandemic.

That, of course, particularly applies to hygiene and cleanliness, with users unsurprisingly hyper-conscious of the risks that can lie on surfaces and in the air.

Now, with gym numbers rising once more, competition has never been fiercer, and that gives customers the power to pick and choose their preferred workout environment. While price of course plays an important role in this decision, the environment is also highly influential.

Equally, customers are now more willing than ever to take to social media with complaints about a gym environment. If your facility is frequently plagued by bad smells; broken, missing, or out-of-place equipment; or overcrowding (especially where distancing is still required), you can expect to see a flurry of critical posts on social media and online review sites about your business. Which, in turn, will have a big impact on your membership and customer loyalty.

A good experience, therefore, means a clean gym with friendly staff, working equipment, and enough space for customers to get on with their workout sessions without excessive wait times.

Providing this will help in affecting buying decisions and attracting (and retaining) more customers – this means that getting your gym environment right is pivotal.

When people work out they sweat and breathe much more heavily than when at rest. That not only means that they’re potentially filling the air around them with saliva particles, humidity, and odors, but also that they’re taking in more of your air. While you’re likely already conscious of the need to control the temperature and humidity in your gym, there are also invisible threats that need to be managed.

Plus, during busy periods, you may well have hundreds of people using your facility each day, so the potential for mixing and coming into contact with health risks is increased further.

These can lie in the air both visibly (as dirt and dust), and invisibly (as allergens, viruses, and bacteria). And with many gyms – especially in city centers – frequently occupying basement plots, tucked away beneath major roads, the scope of your natural ventilation is often vastly reduced.

This all makes getting the quality of your air right a massive part of creating a comfortable and hygienic environment for your users.

But with floor space in high demand in equipment and workout areas, how can you create a healthier and cleaner environment free from bad smells? The solution is air conditioning with integrated purification.