Photo by Inha Leex Hale
If your sports facility’s staff is anything like mine at DNA Sports Center, they are passionate about training. So passionate, in fact, that tasks like cleaning can become mere afterthoughts.
However, the cleanliness of your facility may be the most essential factor to your customer retention rate, and therefore your bottom line. Why? Because cleanliness is important to the parents of younger kids, and those parents directly control household budgets.
At DNA, home of the Parisi Speed School in Cincinnati, most of our classes consist of school-aged children, and many of their parents stay to watch them train from our specially designated viewing area. It’s spacious, with plenty of seating and a TV and wireless internet for them to use while they watch.
But it’s not enough to make sure the viewing area for parents is pleasant and clean. The bathrooms need to be maintained meticulously, the machines and stairways should be dust-free, and any equipment pulled out for classes should be put away afterward so it doesn’t clutter workout areas.
The parents of our current athletes have already demonstrated that they are willing to spend the time and energy to seek out the best for their kids – that’s why they decided to enroll them in our programs. Their standards don’t end with the quality of training.
It’s important to remember that while your trainers and staff may be completely comfortable in an atmosphere reminiscent of their college sports practices or weight rooms geared toward adults, the parents of the kids they train are not. Parents should feel as comfortable in your facility as they do in their own homes.
If your staff isn’t able to get the facility clean enough, hire a professional service. The repercussions of a parent deeming your facility unsanitary, or even just less polished than a competitor, are too dire to ignore.
The things we’re most proud of at DNA are our training techniques and out experienced staff, and we think that those are the main factors that attract families to our facility. However, it often takes weeks or months for parents to notice the results in speed and agility that come from our expert training. Cleanliness, on the other hand, is glaringly obvious and can derail any positive effects our training is having.