Whether it's CrossFit, barre, Orangetheory, Camp Gladiator, martial arts, yoga, or anything in between, group exercise has exploded in the last decade. And with the advent of ClassPass, it's easier than ever for anyone to try something new.

So how can a gym owner retain new members when trying somewhere different is as simple as clicking around in an app?

Communication. New members might be shy or intimidated or scared, so hearing from a coach at the gym, whether by email or text, can help that member feel welcomed and more inclined to stick around.

And finding a way to scale that communication can lead to more sign-ups and long-term gym members. This is especially true during busy times of the year, like January, when gym sign-ups spike thanks to New Year's resolutions.

Lots of the gyms running on Zapier rely on the shared email app, Front, to regularly email and even text new members. With features like a shared inbox, notes, and tags and labels, coaches and staff create clear communication channels with each other while connecting with new and existing members.

Immediately talk to new leads with Front

When a potential lead reaches out to your business, response time is critical. Think of it from their perspective: Would you rather work with an attentive business that quickly responds or one you have to follow-up with?

With Zapier, you can pair Front with your preferred lead generator, like Facebook lead ads, to create a contact for each new lead. Once the lead finishes responding to your ad, Zapier can even send a message from your team through Front just moments later, showing the lead that they have your complete attention and that their journey matters to you and your team.

With these Zaps, our term for automated workflows, you can include the lead's name to personalize the message and give it an even more friendly touch by including a video greeting or gifs.

If you collect information from your website with a form, like Typeform, these are the Zaps for you. You can create a contact and send them a message through Front, all without having to monitor Typeform for new responses.

Automatically remind clients of upcoming appointments

A lot of gyms with group fitness classes, like CrossFit, like to have a face-to-face meeting or phone call to work through goals and make sure it's the right fit for everyone. To help facilitate the meeting and make sure the client doesn't miss it, a lot of gyms use a scheduling app, like Acuity Scheduling, to send reminders ahead of the meeting.

You can get as granular as you like, too, sending an email 24 hours ahead of the meeting or a text an hour beforehand. Using the "Appointment Start" trigger in Acuity Scheduling in a Zap, you'll be able to specify how far in advance you'd like to send a message. When that time arrives, Zapier will send an email or text through Front to the client.

These messages help cut down on no-shows and help qualify the lead. After all, if they take the time to show up to the meeting, it's far more likely you can get them to sign up.

Plus, these Zaps are easy to adapt for any challenges a gym might host, reminding members to log workouts or record photos and measurements, for example.

Create an automated database of customer interactions from Front

Building a back-up database is smart business—systems inevitability hit downtime or experience an outage, but with a thorough backup, your team won't miss a beat. The best part? A database doesn't have to add any costs to your tech stack, and you're already using the apps you need to create one.

If you connect Front and Google Sheets in Zapier, your new Zap will log any new messages in Front to Google Sheets. You can even add a step to the Zap to search the sheet for an existing record from that specific customer and add it to their row. That way, you can catalog all the interactions you have with each customer—without needing to copy over every message by hand.

Front makes chatting with your customers a pain-free process—and with Zapier, speeds up the time it'd normally take to reply to each individual lead as they come in. While a lot of the above examples are strategies gyms have adopted, they're easy to apply to any business. Want to combine Front's powerful communication features with the easy automation of Zapier? Give Zapier a try for free.