Fitness First

 

Fitness First is the world’s largest health and fitness group, operating across the , Europe, , the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. It now has over 550 clubs worldwide with more than 1.5 million First Fitness members. In the alone, it has more than 170 Fitness First Gym and Health Clubs. Despite its size, the organisation is keen to maintain what it refers to as the ‘Fitness First one-health club’ mentality – stressing that every single Fitness First member counts.

 

 

 

 

Situation

 

Good customer service is a primary driver for Fitness First. The aim is to ensure that all customers gain a positive experience of its clubs from the outset, starting with the member joining process. As a result, membership applications should be processed quickly and accurately so that new members can start using the club’s facilities straightaway. Fitness First are delivering a programme to deploy Members First, a standardised membership management, point of sale and billing platform to their global estate. A key process in the members experience with Fitness First is the joining process. Vital details that are collected as part of this joining process include name, address and bank account information. The accuracy of this information is essential so that the membership application can be processed quickly and the customer can start using the club’s facilities.

 

 

 

Solution

 

Experian QAS and Experian Payments, who validate both international addresses and international bank account details, were selected as Fitness First global software partners.

 

To ensure that customers’ contact information is inputted correctly into the Members First application, QAS Pro, an address validation tool from Experian QAS, is used. By entering minimal details such as house number and postcode, QAS Pro can return the member’s full and accurate postal address. Bank Wizard from Experian Payments then validates the bank account information to ensure that Direct Debit mandates are set up correctly. Before using this product, mandates were likely to contain errors which would have resulted in rejected payments. Now Fitness First can be confident is has the right information for both entrance and billing purposes.

 

 

 

The software from the Experian group is currently deployed in , ,

 

, the , and . From a maintenance point of view, an API version of the software is integrated into the core of the membership management system and is seamless to the user. This means that updates to the reference data used in the products, such as the Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF), are easier to manage.

 

 

 

Future Plans

 

QAS Pro and Bank Wizard will be rolled out in , , and Asia as Fitness First delivers standardised membership management, point of sale and billing platforms.