“Dirty” is the last thing you want your fitness center to be known as. Imagine checking your facility’s Google business page, Facebook page, or company website and seeing this … it’s is an actual quote from a review left by a customer fed up and dissatisfied with a dirty athletic center in California…
“I can definitely understand why the overall review score is so low. The place is dirty, carpet smells, no amenities in the restrooms, the equipment is broken and they can’t even refill the paper dispensers so you can wipe down the equipment. I’m surprised California Health inspectors haven’t been out here to write them up.”
Keeping surfaces, equipment, and machinery clean is the key to keeping reviews like this one off your business pages, as well as retaining members and attracting new ones.
This should be no surprise since cleanliness is ranked as one of the most important things people care about when choosing a fitness center. According to one study which surveyed participants about the importance of facility cleanliness on deciding to join a gym, the majority of them ranked it as “10” – meaning very important.
7 REASONS A DIRTY FITNESS CENTER IS BAD FOR BUSINESS
A dirty fitness center doesn’t just upset customers. It can have far worse consequences such as a negative impact on operations or destroying your brand reputation.
Why is a dirty fitness center bad for business? We’ll share what we believe are 7 reasons. If you have others share them in the comment section below.
You’ll likely lose current members
Memberships are the lifeblood of your business. If members notice surfaces collecting dust, grime, and odors, it may prompt them to cancel and look for cleanliness elsewhere. Health club attendees say that an unclean health club would lose their business.
Letting cleanliness fall by the wayside tells customers you don’t care about them. It sends the message that you don’t care about their safety, well-being, or experience – only about collecting their payment. Customers may start to wonder about the health and safety status of your facility as well.
And you can be sure that if they do cancel their membership, they’ll encourage friends, family, social media followers, and anyone else they know to also cancel their membership or to avoid joining your fitness center altogether.
A dirty space will scare off prospective members
Related to the above, prospective members who visit your facility may be completely turned off. They’ve likely done their research at this stage and found a few places that fit their lifestyle needs — location, cost, amenities — and now, they just want to find out if they actually like the place.
Seeing a dirty health club won’t close the deal. Dirt and disorganization communicate that you don’t value cleanliness and hygiene, which means you don’t value them. No client wants to join a club where they feel unsafe and unvalued. Americans associate cleanliness and hygiene with status and morality. Your facility needs to reflect their values or they will look elsewhere.
Your brand is social, and Social is everything
Today, people have no qualms about sharing their negative experiences on social channels. In fact, studies show people are more likely to post bad reviews than good ones. Our brains are wired to assign more weight to negative experiences than to positive ones.
Angry customers share their thoughts and feelings. This can lead to big problems for your business, because, as summarized by Forbes, “84% of people trust online reviews as much as they trust their best friends’ recommendations”. “80% of people [will choose] to go elsewhere if they read bad reviews of your business online”, and, “One negative review online (when not countered by positive reviews) can cost up to 30 new customers.”
The more bad reviews you get, the more irreparable damage. Many people search and read reviews before deciding on a health club. A collection of bad reviews can act as a red flag to potential members who would have otherwise been interested in joining your fitness center.
Reputation. Reputation. Reputation.
You know the real estate cliche, “Location, Location, Location.” In a service business like fitness, you can substitute the word “Reputation”.
If you don’t maintain a clean and tidy facility it could easily develop a reputation as being “a dirty place”. When this happens, it reflects poorly not just on the specific facility, but on the entire company and organization, as well as staff and management.
Wouldn’t you rather be known as the go-to fitness center for wellness and health-minded people? This doesn’t happen easily or overnight. You must put in the work to keep your facility clean, as free of germs as possible, and focused on customer satisfaction. This is how you build a great reputation!
A unclean facility can increase the likelihood of spreading disease.
While germs are everywhere, some dangerous and contagious bacteria and viruses are more likely to spread in places like gyms, where sweat and other bodily fluids are common. Contracted infections could include ringworm, MRSA and staph, which are often spread from skin-to-surface contact. When an infected person uses a machine and it isn’t disinfected afterward, the next person to use that machine could be at risk.
Pathogens that cause these illnesses and others like norovirus, rhinovirus, and influenza, can live on a surface hours or even days. Regular disinfecting with an EPA Registered product is the best way to remove germs and demonstrate to members that you care about their health.
A dirty location can be traced as the source of disease outbreaks.
It only takes one sick person to spread disease to many others. Then it’s considered an outbreak. If a disease outbreak is traced to your facility it would certainly bring negative PR. And while it may not entirely be the fault of a gym, the more sound and documented your cleaning and disinfecting protocols, the better the probability of a disastrous event like a disease outbreak not happening in your facility.
In years past several fitness clubs were affected by outbreaks of Legionnaires Disease, where the pool and spa areas were shut down for decontamination and weren’t allowed to reopen until passing through rigorous inspections. While this stopped customers from using these facilities in the present, many more surely opted to skip the fitness centers altogether to avoid the risk of infection.
With an outbreak you’ll lose the trust of your members and community, temporarily if not permanently. It takes much less effort to properly clean and disinfect than to reverse the damage an outbreak would cause to your brand reputation.
A dirty fitness center can lead to equipment malfunctions.
Cleaning equipment is an important part of maintenance and keeping machines functioning properly. You invest in the best modern, high-tech machines your budget allows. But if you aren’t cleaning equipment properly, you’re tossing that money out the window.
Failing to remove dust from treadmills can create safety issues and performance problems as dust builds up under the belt and damages it. When dirt builds up on touch screens, delayed responses or malfunctions are common. When grime isn’t removed from benches and weights they can rust. When yoga mats and exercise mats aren’t cleaned they develop unpleasant odors. These are all red flags to your clients that yoru gym isn’t as clean as it could be. It’s also a drain on profit since your equipment’s life span will be shortened.
Properly cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting equipment and surfaces can prevent this from happening. Be sure to clean with wipes that don’t contain alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, bleach, or ammonia, as these chemicals can damage your expensive equipment by causing corrosion, discoloration, deterioration, and more.
KEEPING YOUR FITNESS CENTER CLEAN HAS REWARDS
Keeping members and employees safe, extending the life of expensive equipment, and even protecting your own professional reputation are all positive outcomes of maintaining a clean gym. Ultimately, while members are in your gym, their safety should be your absolute priority. Investing in cleaning products and services is just as important as investing in top of the line equipment. Keeping your facility clean will reward you in many ways, including keeping you in business!