Gyms and health clubs are customer-facing businesses, meaning that client experiences play a huge role in shaping their reputation and brand image. However, high customer standards and expectations make the fitness industry highly vulnerable to angry and unsatisfied customers.
Gym owners know that even a minor issue, like a faulty key fob, can lead to an onslaught of complaints online. This is a problem since online reviews are major players in maintaining a good reputation in the digital age – 90 percent of shoppers read at least one online review before deciding to buy a product or service. Meanwhile, 79 percent of customers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
These statistics remind us that health club reviews play an essential role in attracting new members and positioning your gym as a trustworthy fitness and health establishment. And that’s why it’s time to be proactive about gathering and managing fitness gym reviews and become the go-to gym in town.
This blog highlights the best practices for collecting online reviews, tips on how to respond to customer reviews and the importance of online reviews to your search engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Let’s dive in!
Best Practices for Collecting Online Reviews
Online reviews are essential in building customer trust and improving your reputation, but most gym owners don’t know where or how to start looking for them.
The following methods help you acquire testimonials to strengthen your gym’s online credibility and attract more potential customers:
Post Instructions Everywhere
The best way to encourage gym members to take action is to clarify that you NEED their reviews. Make sure to have the information on how to leave a review outlined and visible throughout your facility.
Put these instructions on your posters, flyers and even in your gym welcome packs to ensure that members know where and how to leave fitness gym reviews online.
Simplify the Process
Make it simple – customers don’t want to waste their time on a long and complicated process. For this reason, it’s good practice to add a time variable statement in your calls-to-action (CTAs), so it becomes clear to your members that writing health club reviews won’t take too much of their time.
For example, you might say, “Please let us know how we’re doing – it shouldn’t take more than 3 minutes!”
Hire Reputation Management Services
Review acquisition and review monitoring are tedious processes, but agencies offering budget-friendly reputation management services help you generate and manage fitness trainer reviews as effectively and efficiently as possible.
Employing consultants specializing in brand reputation management automates many processes involving review collection. Reputation management consultants also know how to respond to a customer review in the best way possible, saving you the trouble.
Engage With Reviews
Gym owners must respond to every review they receive, whether positive or negative. By simply responding to your customers, you demonstrate that you are committed to providing customer satisfaction and willing to create an open channel for communication.
How To Ask a Customer for a Review
The best way to acquire health club reviews is to ask. According to a BrightLocal study, 76 percent of people who are asked to leave reviews go on to do so.
As for how to ask a customer for a review? There are many ways, but here are the most common ones for fitness establishments:
- In-person – This is the ideal method for fitness establishments since members are always on site. It’s a good idea to ask for reviews from regulars at your gym.
- Via social media – Social media has resulted in many businesses’ rapid growth, especially for those in the health and fitness industry. There are countless active users on social media, so gym owners should take advantage of social media to actively ask for reviews from their customers.
- Via email – Ask for fitness trainer reviews through email. You can go about this in two ways: personalized emails and email blasts. Personalized emails require more time to compose, but it’s a sure way to make your customers feel appreciated. Only select a handful of loyal customers that have trained in your gym for a significant amount of time. Send them an email thanking them for their trust and mention that you appreciate it if they’d give your gym a review. Add the link to your preferred review site to direct them in one click.
- Via website – Add CTAs asking for reviews on various areas of your website.
How To Thank a Customer for a Review
Thanking customers for their reviews is essential in making a customer feel valued. If they left a positive review for your services, engaging with them further only strengthens your relationship with them, and your interactions might encourage them to recommend your gym to their circle.
Keep in mind the following tips if you’re wondering how to thank a customer for a review effectively.
- Mention members by name – Mention the customer’s name in your review response and make your message personalized. Copying and pasting a generic response might send a lazy and uncaring impression.
- Always include a word of thanks – Thank the customer for leaving a review, even if it’s a negative one. Thank them for bringing the issue to your attention and make sure they know that you are prepared to address it.
- Keep it short – It’s a general rule not to make things too wordy in the digital realm. Leaving a lengthy response to a review is often unnecessary. Keep your answer short and related to that specific review.
- Add keywords if possible – When thinking about proper ways on how to thank a customer for a review, SEO might be the last thing on your mind. But keywords should be inserted whenever opportunities present themselves. Online reputation and SEO are closely connected (but more on that later).
How To Respond to a Customer Review
Positive reviews are easy enough to manage, but the negative ones require a bit more finesse. One wrong move in your response can have irreversible consequences.
The following are some critical points on how to respond to a customer review appropriately:
1. Learn from your mistakes.
The mindset around negative feedback is the first thing to address. Negative reviews are not necessarily bad. Some offer highly valuable insights into how you can improve your fitness facilities and services.
2. Be kind and polite.
As a general rule, always be polite in your response and try not to take the review as a personal attack on you. This person has had a bad experience with your gym, and the best thing you can do for them is to ensure that you are willing to make it right.
3. Offer a solution.
Saying sorry won’t make a difference if you’re not willing to offer proactive solutions to solve the customer’s problem.
4. Continue the conversation privately.
Talk about fixing the issue privately, whether through phone calls, emails or direct messages.
Remember: Responding to reviews is the best way to position your gym as an establishment that values the feedback and opinions of its customers. If you ignore reviews, your customers might feel neglected and undervalued, and there’s a chance they will find another fitness establishment willing to hear them.
There’s also an option to employ reputation management consultants for your gym’s brand reputation management. Building customer trust is tricky, so putting it in the hands of professionals is a smart thing to do. Online reputation management companies know the most effective ways on how to ask a customer for a review and monitor what is being said about your business online using the latest reputation management tools.
The Role of Fitness Gym Reviews in Search Engine Optimization
The importance of online reviews doesn’t end in establishing an online reputation and building customer trust. Reviews are integral to your search engine optimization (SEO) and overall search engine reputation management strategy.
Google considers three factors for local search rankings: relevance, distance and prominence. Relevance determines how a local business matches the search query. Distance is how far the establishment is from the user’s location. Finally, prominence refers to how well known and trusted the business is – this is where fitness trainer reviews come in. Therefore, more reviews will most likely result in an improved ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Conclusion
Gyms need to continuously gather, monitor and respond to customer reviews to establish a positive online reputation that attracts customers and converts them into regulars. These processes require extensive work, but they enable your gym to dominate the local fitness scene when done correctly.
If you are searching for online reputation management companies to handle your brand reputation management, contact Rize Reviews. No one understands the importance of online reviews to your gym’s growth like we do. Launch an effective review generation strategy and leverage our state-of-the-art reputation management tool to take control of online conversations surrounding your business.
Whether you want to capture high-intent clients or boost your local SEO rankings, our specialists provide tailored search engine reputation management solutions guaranteed to elevate your gym’s credibility and position you as the best establishment in your area.
Talk to one of our experts today and start creating holistic gym reputation management strategies that will significantly impact your bottom line.
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