Fitness industry challenges—and how TeamUp helps overcome them

With a career in the fitness industry spanning two decades, TeamUp COO Tim Green knows a thing or two about creating and scaling a successful fitness facility. He recently sat down with BFS to discuss the challenges business owners face, strategies to overcome them, and how to leverage the customer experience. Read on for his insights or watch the full interview below!

Where it all began

Tim started working in the fitness industry back in 2008. What struck him even then was the passion the studio owners had: "I found that the fitness space was really based about people and those people were at the heart of all of those businesses and really drove it. Yes, they wanted to make money and be successful but everything was already based around helping their clients to succeed."

That affinity for customer centricity drew Tim in and made him want to focus on those businesses and the problems they were facing, to see how he could help them overcome their challenges. He used his expertise to explore integrations that would power up their marketing campaigns, as well as the technology they were using. "It led me to TeamUp because I was looking for a partner in the tech space and I expected to find a software partner but I found business partners and colleagues and you know started my 10-year Journey with TeamUp".

The way that boot camp and studio owners projected themselves and how they genuinely cared about their clients and wanted to make a difference was a real driver for me.

What are the biggest challenges in the fitness industry?

Tim: Today the trajectory and the speed of change is one of the biggest challenges. We've come from an industry that 15 years ago was very unprofessional and based largely on paper or manual systems. We've watched a complete change towards technology-based and much smarter consumers that expect a much higher level of service.

15 years ago, it was very easy for a business owner to start in a park offering classes and then scale their business. Nowadays, the level of service and experience that a customer would expect has completely transformed. Studios now have to offer hospitality levels of service combined with becoming guru-level business owners who understand simultaneously how to market their business, manage complex parts of an organization, and set up complex operations that will drive them towards success. In many cases, businesses in the space are mid-sized businesses who don't have a large staff, who don't have large resources but now need to operate on all of these spaces at the same time with a level of expertise that will help them beat their competition. The big challenge now is to keep up with the competition and to continue to innovate in services and build strong relationships with clients.

The big challenge now is to keep up with the competition and to continue to innovate in services and build strong relationships with clients.

How does TeamUp help companies enhance customer experience for greater business success?

Tim: One of the things we've identified in the last 10 years is that the customer experience is not a static thing. It is something that is always shifting. It's always moving, always advancing as we move forward in time. Competitive pressure increases, technological familiarity increases, and customers have always got a greater expectation of how they are going to want to interact with your business.

Nowadays a fitness business owner is not competing with the local business around the corner; it's competing with Apple, it's competing with Fitbit, it's competing with whatever AI workout program is being pushed at that time. What TeamUp wants to do is to help businesses to overcome those hurdles by deeply understanding their customer and then be able to provide an experience that is completely tailored to their business and to their brand. The one-size-fits-all customer experience of five years or 10 years ago is no longer sufficient to be able to give the unique customer experience that your business requires to be able to elevate to the next level.

The one-size-fits-all customer experience of five or 10 years ago is no longer sufficient to give the unique customer experience that your business requires to be able to elevate to the next level.

What distinguishes TeamUp from other software providers?

Tim: We are probably the industry's best kept secret! We're not new to the industry but we are not well known particularly in the US market at this stage. We serve over 15,000 locations worldwide with over a thousand business owners and 5,000 locations in the US. As a business, we work fairly quietly. We work on serving our customers and we work on recommendations from other clients so for example some of our clients in the US include Above The Bar Fitness, Power Core Pilates, The Villages Gym, Legacy Center Fitness and a multitude of the highest quality Boutique customer-focused businesses all across the country.

I highly recommend that you check out TeamUp and schedule a time to have a chat with the team. You'll find a group of friendly experts who are very committed to your success and to helping you overcome the challenges in your business, regardless of the size of your business, whether you're a single Boutique studio or whether you're a large franchise, network, or enterprise business you'll find that TeamUp has the power and flexibility to be able to help you overcome the next phase of challenges and craft the best customer experience.