Chuze Fitness is a national chain of high-value, low-cost fitness centers founded in southern California in 2008. In order to stand out in an industry in which customers have endless choices, Chuze commits itself to two guiding principles: customer service and member experience. By providing a safe, non-intimidating, family-oriented environment while packing more and more value into every cent of a membership, Chuze has grown from a single, independent center in Carlsbad, CA to 21 locations stretching across California, Arizona, and Colorado.
As the company grew and began to offer premium services – notably Team Training – and different membership tiers, Chuze found itself in a dilemma: how to offer a reliable way for its members to track their progress in a scalable, non-invasive way without creating an intimidating environment or relying on traditional body weight scales? After vetting several different options, Chuze settled on InBody, and customer satisfaction has never been higher.
The quest to track results without intimidation
Walk into any Chuze Fitness location, and you’ll see a lot of familiar sights: cardio equipment, free weights, exercise machines, fitness classes. But, there’s one thing you’ll never see.
“Since we opened our first location in 2008, we’ve never had scales in our facilities. No weight scales, meaning scales that only tell you how many pounds you weigh,” says Cory Brightwell, Chuze Fitness co-founder. “Oftentimes, the weight scale becomes somewhat of an obsession, or even an intimidation factor.”
Intimidation goes against everything that Chuze’s company culture stands for: cleanliness, friendliness, and – above all – customer service. But as the company began to grow and started offering premium services like Group Exercise classes and a Team Training program, a dilemma surfaced: how could Chuze expect customers to pay extra to work out, yet still not offer a way to track results?
“We were at a loss…how do we allow our members – particularly the members that are choosing to pay for a service, Team Training – to track their results? And so, we tried the InBody.”
A value-add becomes a retention tool
Quickly, the InBody became a significant value-add to the already valuable Team Training program. Chuze’s Team Training members are now able to see, on paper, how the program helps them reach their goals and make significant changes in their body composition. Best of all, it’s at no additional cost to Team Training members, but it makes the value of the membership that much greater.
Now that Team Training is included in a membership and the number of Chuze members participating in Team Training has skyrocketed, the InBody has become a popular monthly service offered to members who want a quick, easy, and non-intimidating way to track their progress.
“The InBody for us was a simple, easy-to-use tool for members. All they have to do is come up in their workout clothes, take their shoes and socks off, stand on it for a couple minutes and boom, they’ve got it, they’re done,” says Brightwell. “We just felt like it was minimally invasive – not invasive at all – and it was quick, easy-to-use, the Result Sheet is easy to comprehend, and that’s the reasons [why] we really chose the InBody.”
Once the InBody met this original need, Brightwell began to see how it could help him solve another problem: one not unique just to Chuze Fitness. In the already crowded fitness market, a major challenge Chuze has is member retention. They had been addressing this challenge by steadfastly adhering to their founding principle of incredible customer service. After implementing the InBody, Brightwell found that the InBody perfectly complemented this strategy by becoming another reason for people to stick with their memberships.
“It’s a huge retention tool,” says Brightwell. “It’s something I know is going to help keep the members there because they now have a tool that’s going to allow them to constantly track their progress, and that’s huge.”
Recently, there have even been cases where members have purchased Team Training before construction of the studio for classes was complete, just to get access to the InBody.
A retention tool launches new ways to engage members
Using the InBody Result sheet and the wealth of data it provides, Brightwell has been able to dream up new, creative ways of engaging Chuze’s entire membership base, beyond just the Team Training members. One such idea is something called the “Chuze to Lose” Body Fat Percent Challenge, which focuses on changes in body composition, not body weight.
“It’s way more beneficial than watching your weight…we’re really seeing what’s happening inside of your body and we’re able to track where your body fat starts, where your muscle mass starts, and then where it ends,” says Brightwell.
These challenges are run two, or even three times a year in Chuze locations that have an InBody device. They allow Chuze to engage its members in a fun way, without being intimidating or running a traditional weight loss challenge.
That makes the “Chuze to Lose” challenge unique because it invites members to think about their health in a new way by setting better and more effective goals, and it makes the Chuze facility itself unique for being able to offer this type of member engagement and service.
Finding Success with a Strong Culture
The promise of exceptional customer service and outstanding member experience underpins the culture at Chuze Fitness throughout. It’s the reason they maintain meticulously clean facilities; it’s the reason they offer a wide varieties of amenities.
It’s also a quality they look for in their partners, and on the points of customer service and member experience, Chuze found both in InBody.
“This is a big deal for Chuze and the vendors that we choose… customer service and the support that we get from InBody. Beyond the technology and beyond the machine itself, the support we’ve gotten from the InBody Team has been paramount to us choosing to move forward with them,” says Brightwell.
What about member experience?
“We felt like [the InBody] could enhance the experience that Team Training members have by now offering the ability to track their results. It allowed us to offer fun events like the “Chuze to Lose” challenge…and that’s really the bottom line.”
As Chuze continues growing and expanding its locations across the US, you can count on never seeing a traditional weight scale. Instead, if Brightwell has his way, where there’s Team Training, there will be an InBody.
“InBody has done nothing but meet and exceed our expectations when it comes to the service they’ve provided and the support on helping us launch these devices in our facilities and having them be well-accepted.”
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