Anytime Fitness in Asia tasked Volution with an urgent challenge to deliver a customised technical solution to keep the company operational during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

The challenge
Following the news that each of its 120+ locations would be closed as lockdown measures were enforced, Anytime Fitness quickly realised its members wouldn’t be able to engage with its services as normal – and that position could continue for some time.

“The team has worked with Anytime Fitness on its digital transformation strategy for the past two years, developing a strong partnership, so we were in the ideal position to rapidly develop a remote-focused solution, capable of pivoting the business model to keep staff employed and members engaged during lockdown and beyond,” says Andy Hall, COO of Volution.

The solution
Volution immediately set about designing a virtual platform and mobile application that enabled Anytime Fitness to deliver first-class personal training sessions from any location, to keep revenue flowing and engagement high.

Financial, tech and infrastructure disruption was minimised – in fact, it was non-existent – and budgets were kept in check by ensuring virtual sessions cost the same to run as normal PT sessions.

A rigorously tested and optimised payment module was also built to handle increased user traffic and facilitate simple and secure bookings.

“As soon as the solution launched, we were able to monitor data visualisations of each of our selected KPIs in real-time from a central dashboard, which has been a big advantage,” says Ryan Cheal, MD of Inspire Brands Capital, the master franchisee for Anytime Fitness Asia.

The data enabled senior managers to track key trends in user engagement, how many PT sessions had been sold, where penetration rates were high, which classes were proving most popular and how much revenue had been generated; even providing a clear view of staff availability, to reduce double bookings and other scheduling complications.

The results
Since the virtual platform and mobile application launched, Volution has helped Anytime Fitness to achieve the following results:

• +14.2% increase in PT revenue

• All staff remaining employed during lockdown

• +US$1M increase in revenue

• 50% of virtual hub sign-ups using assisted services for the first time, enhancing member engagement

By integrating a remote model now, Anytime Fitness has not only stayed operational and sustained revenue throughout the most challenging crisis of our time, but has also opened a new revenue stream that will continue to support business growth for years to come.