the concerns franchisees had as part of the
migration. The feedback received at the
mini-huddles has already been incorporated into the development schedule that
is reviewed weekly by the PMC and FACTECH, and we continue to make every
effort to translate the voice of the franchisees into an innovative club management
system that aligns with Planet Fitness.
Since the huddles concluded, FACTECH and corporate have partnered to
design and recommend a full-service
solution for collections that is now
being piloted. This comprehensive
solution focuses on obtaining
updated billing information from members whose
primary billing is in hard
decline status. We
have been able
to customize
ABC’s standard offering
to create
a Planet
Fitnessbranded
solution
that includes
outbound calls,
letters, emails, text
messages, and an interactive voice
response system for inbound calls. The
pilot is expected to run for 90 days to
ensure that it is effective, affordable and
frees up staff to focus on delivering a
Raving Fans experience to our members.
The work of FAC-TECH does not
stop at the point of sale system. We are
working closely with corporate to rapidly
Dave Leon
FAC Chairman
GearedUp | 2015 Issue 2
What began as a 10-club pilot in
November quickly evolved into a fullscale, expedited migration of 909 clubs by
the end of April 2015.
FAC-TECH, in collaboration with
corporate, then drove ABC to redefine
their software to work in conjunction with
the Planet Fitness philosophies. With the
help of FAC-TECH and the PMC, we
approved a club account solution pilot to
provide a method to only draft current
month’s dues after receiving feedback
from the franchisee base that this was
critical. After showing a 22-percent collection success rate on members who would
otherwise not have been attempted in
ABC’s standard way of doing business, we
approved the roll out of the club account
solution systemwide.
As can be expected with any migration, we have experienced, and will
continue to experience, some bumps in
the road. After utilizing three different
POS systems in a three-year span, we are
all aware of the obstacles that can occur;
however, due to the consistent weekly
(and sometimes daily) communication
between FAC-TECH, the PMC, corporate and high-level partners from ABC,
we have been able to ensure a smooth
adaption and implemented a development process to follow for all future
improvements.
In June, FAC-TECH worked with
ABC and corporate, and completed a
six-city tour to provide the franchisees
with additional training on ABC. The
huddles provided franchisees with a direct
line of contact to ABC and focused on a
comprehensive training that touched on
develop a new and improved online join
experience for our prospective members;
simplifying the process and remaining
consistent with our PF-branded efforts.
We are also partnering with corporate to
launch a new Planet Fitness mobile app.
We will continue to develop elements of
the mobile experience that showcase our
innovation and foster our community with
our members.
Lastly, Franchise Management
3.0 will be released later this year. The
updated and improved platform will
provide franchisees with a comprehensive
and easy-to-use business management
tool that will streamline contract management, site submission and day-to-day
operations support.
As a reminder, you can always submit
a new idea to the Ideas Portal through
Franchise Management and view the
development schedule from the Zee
Dashboard.
We continue to explore new technology initiatives that differentiate Planet Fitness from our
competitors. G
FAC update
I
t has been eight months since FAC-TECH unanimously
endorsed, and corporate accepted, ABC Financial as our
chosen POS partner based on the results of the initial POS
pilot that began last summer. Since that time, FAC-TECH, the
Product Management Committee (PMC), and corporate have
worked tirelessly and collaboratively to ensure that our systems
are the best in the industry, align with the PF business model and
that the collective voice of the franchisees is heard.
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