Health Club Cleanliness Plays a Huge Part in Your Success
According to experts at the International Health, Racquet & Sports Club Association (IHRSA), a health club’s cleanliness is integral to its financial, social and operational success. And for their members, the perception of hygiene in the facility is a reality, and if it is perceived to be dirty then customers will act accordingly. In fact, a gym’s cleanliness has the most impact in maximizing member retention and satisfaction as well as average revenue per member a club could get.
As a general rule in the business, gym owners like you have to recognize that cleanliness is the main reason members and prospects will select your gym over others in the community. And according to studies, your premise’s cleanliness is the biggest factor that affects someone’s decision when deciding to join or renew membership in your club.
So without even saying, you, as a gym owner, have the main responsibility to keep your facility clean. Helping your members to shed fat or tone muscle isn’t the only goal, but it’s to keep them healthy, too. Having a clean and tidy club will go a long way to making your membership feel healthier than, say, a club where the dumbbells haven’t been re-racked in a decade.
Expert Tips and Tricks to Keeping Your Members Healthy
Revisit your current maintenance and cleaning plan with the contractors, suppliers and key staff. First, make sure your people are educated and trained to implement your current gym-cleaning plan, but revisit or apply changes or make additional cleaning requirements, if needed. See to it that your locker rooms and gym equipment get cleanings and inspection before and after peak hours. Remind your staff to wash their hands with soap and water and provide protective gloves for employees who do the cleaning. And then, review local health code and regulations to see that your health club complies with all of them.
Aside from those we’ve mentioned, other tips include making sure disinfectant bottle sprays are refilled and clean, dry towels or disposable wipes are available upon request of members to wipe equipment and its surface before and after use. Post signage in specific gyms areas—on specific equipment, training section and reception, among other key areas in your health club. Designate cleaning assignments for staff that will inspect and clean surfaces of equipment and locker rooms at intervals during operation hours. Remember, your members want a clean gym too – so having access to disinfectant sprays and paper towels to clean machines after they’re done using them will go a long ways towards keeping your gym spotless.
If you have a club laundry cleaner or offer laundry or towel service, avoid the spread of germs by using bleach for club towels and the hottest water and highest dryer heat setting for laundry. Avoid overfilling the washers because they become less effective in washing as well as avoid piling up used towels for extended time because bacteria and virus can survive and reproduce in the laundry bins – rampantly.
Remind members that daily exercise can improve their immune system and not only tone their muscle or shed off weight. Ask them to report any cleanliness concerns to your staff, but make sure you have an organized support system to respond or attend to these concerns right away. You should also encourage your members to wash their hands with soap and water, especially after using the washroom. You may also want to interview a doctor, gather information from health sources, such as CDC.gov and share important health tips to members in newsletters and mailings.
Club members and operators typically perceive gym common areas ‘dirty,’ and these include restrooms, locker rooms, floors, showers and EQUIPMENT. And owners reason that such dirty areas are due to high usage and traffic. And the dirtiest is during evening peak hours, 5 to 10 pm. No matter, it is still important to communicate standards of cleanliness as well as promote it all the time.
It goes without saying, creating a clean club culture is important, as is developing a strong philosophy and building a good brand for your business, and the first step to doing it is employee education and management.
Great clubs should have a value system, mission and vision with cleanliness as a part of these and that it should be tied into these three core makings of your gym. All the staff should participate in up keeping and maintaining your club, even your managers. As you see, gym cleanliness is everyone’s responsibility.
So aside from health club cleaning tips we’ve shared, you can also make a checklist of chores and maintenance tasks to do on a daily basis, and have your gym supervisor see to it that all the tasks are completed. And if you own several gyms, have your maintenance director conduct a surprise audit in every gym at least every month to see and compare results.
By keeping the cleanliness of your health club, you can prevent members from leaving your club and terminating their membership. Because according to studies, about 10 percent of members quit a gym due to an unclean environment. (Cleanliness is something that affects their decision to keep your business or not). On the other hand, health club members who find their gym clean are about 20 percent more likely to use it for at least twice per week than among members who think their health club is unclean.
Overall, you should know and communicate why keep club cleanliness and that begins with you and your team members who understand the importance of cleanliness of the facility. You should also revisit all the cleaning policies and protocols and conduct refreshers or training when necessary to keep the members current on the cleaning practices and procedures. In addition to these, ask cleaning staff to do inspections before and after busy hours and that they clean up after peak hours for a well-maintained and cleaned facility during operation hours. In short, be able to communicate the message of keeping your facility clean to keep members healthy so that you can also have a continuous flow of income for their business.
Definitely, keeping your gym clean all the time is one of the most crucial elements for your business’ success and performing necessary measures to keep it tidy all the time is one of your main roles, needless to say. And for expert tips on gym maintenance and used gym equipment preventive maintenance, feel free contacting us at the UsedGymEquipment.com at +1 (310) 638 4800 today!
