You want your clients feeling comfortable to ask your staff questions. The questions your clients ask you when they are attending your facility, give you an opportunity to build long-lasting relationships with them!

How do you find out what questions are being asked? – Don’t worry, it’s not as hard as you might think to find out.

The questions asked by your customers will fall into 1 of 2 subject categories:

• 1. Your facility
• 2. Fitness / Lifestyle knowledge

1. Questions about your facility

If you are keen on membership retention, your clients have to know ‘their’ facility.  If they feel comfortable with where they need to go and asking questions of your staff, they are more likely to want to continue attending.

Any questions about the facilities – Where are the toilets / lockers / showers / equipment – could point to a poor induction to the facility, or possibly poor signage.

This is straightforward to overcome but essential to retain the member longer term. The learning = change your processes & procedures quickly! Your facility should feel like a 2nd ‘home’ to your clients.

2. Questions about fitness/lifestyle

Questions around fitness / lifestyle knowledge are your golden tickets to long-term client relationships! All you need to do is blog about them!

By taking questions clients/visitors ask your staff, answering them and posting them online (like in a blog), it builds engagement with those clients (who feel that they have been listened to and have contributed to your facility). This is especially true if you let them know or credit them with the questions in the post.

If clients are asking your staff these types of questions, – this may indicate that they are not ‘engaged’ in another information source and give a golden opportunity for you to fulfil that need by giving your organisation’s blog as the reference site.

Your staff will most likely tell you these questions are along the lines of:

• What is the best way to lose fat?
• If I lift weights, will I get bigger muscles?
• Should I do cardio first or weight training first?
• What is the best swim stroke for me?
• Do I need to take dietary supplements?
• What is my target heart rate?
• What’s the difference between free weights and resistance machines, and which should I be using?
• How do I get rid of these ‘Tuckshop Lady’arms?
• What are the main benefits of working with a personal trainer?
• Is walking or running better for fat loss?
• How long should I rest between workouts?
• Which diet is the best to follow?
• If I stop training will my muscles turn to fat?
• How long before I see results?
• I have been working out for a while now and stopped losing weight. Whatis happening?
• I have no time to exercise, what can I do?
• How do I get Candice Swanepoel’s midsection, Irina Shayk’s glutes, Miranda Kerr’s entire body, etc.?
• How much activity is enough?
• I heard that stair climbing will make my rear end bigger. Is this true?
• I have bad knees. What kind of activity is OK for me?
• How should I eat or work out as an ectomorph / mesomorph / endomorph?
• How does this help me get a six pack?
• I have an injury, what should I do?
• How do I estimate my calories?
• What about Paleo / Primal / Keto / South Beach / Atkins diet?
• Does cardio impair muscle gains?
• Should I work out if I’m sick?
• How can I clean my shaker bottle?
• How do I get rid of my love handles?

Whether you take 5, 6, 7, 10 or 11 questions doesn’t matter. The most important thing is to use your answers, not only to reply to the clients who asked, but also put this information out publicly in your client’s language.

If you want to retain clients, engage with them. By taking their questions, answering them face to face and then blogging about it (don’t forget to credit them with their questions) will have you creating conversations, building trust and most importantly connecting with your client long term.

The list above was just some quick questions I pulled off the internet – what are your organisation’s top FAQ? Let us know and how you answered them. …..