Guest Blog: Automating Onboarding – Where Technology Works and Where It Hurts

Hi {{subscriber_firstname}}, thanks for reading {{blog_name}}! Here at {{company_name}} we’re so glad to see that we can help you with {{product_category}}.

Ugh… okay, if that misguided mad libs makes you sick, I’m with you.

Whenever you see those terrible templates, I’m guessing the immediate thought you have is something along the lines of, “automation is so impersonal. It’ll never replace real human contact.”

Well, even though I agree with you, we’d both be as righteously right as we are woefully wrong.

Automation is like a hammer…

You can use it to build a house, or you can use it to whack yourself in the head.

Digital tools just exaggerate the effect so you can build a boatload of houses… or you can hammer your head into oblivion with a level of ease you’ve never imagined, and likely won’t imagine again after that cascade of repetitive blows to the head.

When it comes to using automation to standardize and supercharge your member onboarding, it’s important to make sure everybody stays on the happy end of the hammer.

Where Automation Works

Using the tools we have available with modern technology can allow us to do some pretty incredible things while freeing up time and resources. Let’s see where automation shines.

Staying Connected

Your members want to hear from you… assuming you follow the rules we outlined in the last article (LINK). If you’re doing a great job connecting to your members, your Net Promoter Score will refect it. The goal of any customer-centric company is to create more Promoters – people who love what you do and will recommend you to their friends and family.

If you’ve checked the boxes for quality content, then you might like to know that members who receive email communication are 240% more likely to become a Promoter. Not a number to take lightly considering Promoters are 33% more likely than Passives or Detractors to stay a member for at least 2 years.

Cutting Out Redundancies

Anything you find yourself doing over and over again could be a prime candidate to automate, especially if it involves manually entering or monitoring data.

Let’s say you want to keep an eye on your at-risk members. You could figure out how to manually create and run a report, check each member, and then try to dedicate the staff time to reach out to each person… or you could have automation automatically detect at-risk members, send them personalized support and resources, check to see if they move out of the at-risk category, and if not, trigger an alert directly to your staff with info about the member to follow up.

Not only does that provide immediate, tailored support to every single member who needs help, it multiplies the impact of your staff whenever they do reach out.

Eliminating Human Error

This one is self-explanatory but worth drawing attention to. I’ve seen clubs where more than 20% of member records have incorrect information due to human error. Any time a human is moving data around, things are going to get messed up. Computers (when not in the hands of your grandparents), on the other hand, are extraordinarily reliable. “Yes, you have to plug it in first Peepaw…”

Collecting Data to Make Informed Decisions

“Go with your gut” isn’t always great advice when it comes to making important decisions, especially when you could use data.

Automation allows you to collect information about member behavior, interest, and opinion that can guide your decision-making process and ensure that you’re giving them what they want.

Educating the Member

Anyone who has spent enough time working with new gym members knows… they’ve got a lot to learn. But that doesn’t mean you have the time or capability to provide that education to every single member.

Luckily, technology does.

With automation, you can design a member journey that learns, adapts, and provides ever-improving levels of personalized educational content and resources to every single person who walks through your doors.

Where Automation Hurts

Truth be told, just like the painfully cookie-cutter introduction to this article (and the 37 robocalls you received before lunchtime), automation can be used poorly.

Here are the most common ways I see well-intended businesses make fabulous flubs:

1. Using “email blasts” that aren’t tailored to the audience.
   “Check out our new mom ‘n tots class and tone that tummy!”
   [18 year old guy] “Um, no.”
2. Sending only transactional sales/promo emails.
   “HEY OUR ONE-TIME-ONLY SALE IS ON… AGAIN. BUT BUY IT THIS TIME!”
3. Messing up the technology (e.g. wrong emails, wrong time, wrong person).
   “Sorry to see you go ?”
   [Happy member] “Where am I going?! Hank, did you pay the mortgage?!”
4. Not connecting the digital experience to the in-person experience.
   “Welcome to our amazing fitness family!”
   [Front desk person staring at their phone] “Sup.”
5. Over-automating and coming across totally impersonal.
   “Hello {{member_name}}. You matter to {{company_name}}.”
   [Any reasonable human] “Wow, they care SO much…” ?

Fortunately, the pitfalls pale in comparison to the benefits of proper automation.

Set up a solid system, refine it, test it, and use it to make data-driven decisions. Do that, and I won’t make you hand over that hammer.

Next week, we’ll be looking at the Holy Grail of member onboarding… the Hybrid approach.

Take Action

Look at all of the email broadcasts (or if you have it, automated emails) that you’ve sent your members or leads over the last couple of months. Count how many of them were focused ONLY on adding value to the reader. That means you aren’t telling them to buy, sign up, call, or do anything that ultimately serves you. If the percentage of value-only emails is less than 50%, you’re damaging the relationship with your audience. Write out a strategy to create more value rather than just extract value. If you need ideas, return to the survey results we suggested in the previous article.

***Haven’t read the first article in the series yet?  Click here to read The Biggest Mistake with Member Onboarding***