One of Europe’s fastest growing fitness and health club franchises, Fitness Space, has recently taken on GoCardless as its new Direct Debit solution, with the payments provider now handling up to 70 per cent of all membership payments.

Fitness Space has 23 sites in the UK, with another 16 in the works. Much of its success to date is down to offering a highly personalised and bespoke service.

“With other gym and fitness operators members are paying for access to the facilities and equipment. With us, they’re paying for a service that’s bigger than the four walls of our studios,” explains Fitness Space operations director John Pye.

With such a high proportion of monthly membership payments coming from Direct Debit, Fitness Space required a solution that could handle an ever-growing number of payments.

The franchise was also moving to a new CRM system, called ClubRight, meaning the existing integration between GoCardless and ClubRight was key.

Rather than targeting the volume of members, Fitness Space instead focuses on higher yields-per-head. This means its service needs to reflect this, and additional products and services, like hot yoga, nutritional programmes and DNA testing are available to accommodate even the most demanding of members.

Instant payment visibility
This progressive approach carried over to its way of thinking across all areas of the business, including payments. “We saw GoCardless as the most forward-thinking option and a good fit for us,” says Pye. “We like the fact that it integrates with ClubRight and gives us an instant view of the status of member payments and mandates.”

The GoCardless reporting functionality means Fitness Space is much better equipped to communicate with members regarding payments and subscriptions.

With the new Direct Debit solution in place, the franchise was able to improve its effectiveness. Previously, it was limited to doing one Direct Debit run a month – to the frustration of employees and members alike – however, with GoCardless, Fitness Space now has the flexibility to take payments at any time, removing a significant barrier in the joining process.

It’s not just during the initial sale and sign-up process where payments became a key consideration for the franchise, but also for the benefit of existing members.

It can now tailor its payment to suit the needs of individual members, including splitting off pro-rata payments.

An unexpected, but very welcome side effect for Fitness Space is the option to take one-off payments via Direct Debit, rather than by card. This transition has helped the fitness franchise save costs, as transaction fees on Direct Debit are lower.

Ross Pert, payments specialist at GoCardless, says: “As Fitness Space continues to focus on offering a top-quality experience to members, GoCardless will be there to take care of payment processing, compliance and regulations on their behalf.”

Find out more: www.gocardless.com/gyms