Gym Customer Reviews and Why they are Important
Does your gym have customer reviews online? There are many ways to collect reviews, including through your website and social media pages, through Google, and through various third-party websites like Yelp or Trustpilot. As you know, if you ever read reviews when making a purchasing decision, customer reviews are incredibly important for a business. This includes your gym business. Here’s why:
Stats on Customer Reviews
These stats offer a sense of how important customer reviews are to a gym business:
- 88 percent of consumers have the same trust in online reviews as personal recommendations
- 72 percent have more trust in a local business with positive reviews
- 92 percent visit a local business when it has a 4-star rating or higher
You can see that reviews have a significant effect, especially for local businesses like a brick-and-mortar gym.
The Value of Customer Reviews
Why do customer reviews make such a difference? There are several reasons why.
Customer reviews:
- Act as a modern form of word-of-mouth marketing, which instills trust in another person’s point of view and experience
- Show that your gym is credible because real-life people have interacted with it and found value in your service (This is also called social proof)
- Offer signs of positive experiences with your business
- Help your gym look better than competitors if you have more positive reviews and comments
- Give potential members an idea of what your gym’s brand and culture are like
- Help improve your online rankings so more people can find you when searching for local gyms
- Allow satisfied members to share their feelings and experiences
- Provide free marketing without any effort on your part
Overall, customer reviews can offer that tipping point that takes someone from being unsure about your business to deciding to give it a try. For instance, you may have someone in your area who Googles local gyms. They may compare a few and notice that your gym has many positive customer reviews that mention a good experience and give a sense of the gym environment or culture. On top of the information your website and social media pages provide, this extra real-life information could encourage someone to give your gym a chance.
How to Gain More Positive Customer Reviews
Now that you know how important online customer reviews are, your goal is to increase your number. Here are some tips to gain more positive gym reviews:
- Make sure your business can receive reviews by setting up a presence on Google My Business, Yelp, and Facebook, and consider adding a way to ask for reviews on your website
- Send an email or text to members asking them to share a quick review, and include a link to make the process seamless
- Respond to online reviews to thank for the positive feedback and provide a response to negative feedback, making attempts to improve negative experiences
- Tell employees to encourage members to leave reviews when they express satisfaction
- Provide an excellent gym experience worthy of good reviews, and create good communication that encourages members to interact with you (such as through social media, email, and a gym app)
Note: Be careful about incentivizing reviews, as they may be weeded out and are illegal if not disclosed.
Customer reviews offer a free way to effectively market your gym. Make sure you provide ways for customers to share public feedback and do everything you can to earn those positive reviews. In time, you can build many positive reviews that boost your gym marketing with minimal effort.Â