Operations and Digital Turnaround Plan for a Legacy Gym Franchise
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Overview
What we built
A legacy gym franchise was losing members to boutique studios while joining still meant a paper form and cancelling meant a phone call. We rebuilt the member journey end to end and gave franchisees a shared playbook, and cancellations, bookings and adoption all moved together.
In plain terms: this 35-location legacy gym franchise was watching members drift to boutique studios, and its own everyday processes were part of why. Joining a club meant filling out a paper form at the front desk. Signing up for a class meant finding your name on a printed sheet by the studio door. Cancelling meant picking up the phone and reaching the right person at the right site. Every franchisee ran their front desk and class floor their own way, membership had declined for six consecutive quarters, and nobody inside the business could say, with data, why members were actually leaving.
We ran a business optimisation engagement across eight representative sites, shadowing front-desk and class operations to see the member experience as members actually lived it, then mapped that journey end to end and benchmarked the offer against boutique competitors. The output was a sequenced turnaround plan: standardised operating procedures, a fully digital joining and booking journey, franchisee performance scorecards, and vendor selection for the member app to carry it. Monthly cancellations fell from 4.1% to 3.2% within two quarters of the first rollout wave, and 31 of the 35 franchisees adopted the standard playbook within the 90-day window.
The Problem
Members defecting to boutique studios
Joining this 35-location franchise still meant a paper form filled out at the front desk, the same ritual every new member endured while boutique studios down the street offered sign-up from a phone. Class sign-ups lived on printed sheets pinned near the studio door, so a class filling up only became obvious once someone walked over to check. Cancelling a membership required a phone call to the right person at the right site, an extra piece of friction boutique competitors had already engineered away.
Because every franchisee ran their site their own way, the member experience varied from location to location: some front desks moved people through in minutes, others turned the same errand into a wait. That inconsistency showed up in the numbers. Membership had declined for six consecutive quarters, long enough that leadership knew something was wrong, yet nobody could say, with data, which sites were losing members fastest or why boutique studios kept winning them over.
Paper-based joining
Every new member filled out a paper form at the front desk, a slower and more visible first impression than the instant digital sign-up boutique studios already offered.
Printed class sheets
Class sign-ups lived on sheets pinned by the studio door, so members only discovered a class was full after walking over, which held occupancy back.
Phone-only cancellations
Cancelling a membership meant a phone call to the right person at the right site, friction that made leaving easier to justify than staying.
Inconsistent franchisee operations
Every franchisee ran the front desk and class floor their own way, so the member experience differed site to site with no shared standard to follow.
What it was costing them
Six consecutive quarters of membership decline meant the franchise was losing members it could not fully explain, while its own paper joining process, printed class sheets and phone-only cancellations kept giving boutique studios an easy comparison to win. Every site ran to its own standard, so leadership had no consistent read on where the problem was worst, and every quarter without a fix meant more members chose to walk instead of renew.
The Solution
Sequenced operations turnaround plan
We structured the engagement around eight representative sites, chosen to reflect the range of markets and formats across the 35-location franchise. Rather than starting from head-office assumptions, we shadowed front-desk staff and class instructors through real shifts, watching where members hesitated, backed up or simply gave up partway through joining or booking.
With that ground-level view, we mapped the member journey end to end, from a prospect's first enquiry through joining, booking a class and eventually cancelling, and benchmarked every step of the offer against boutique competitors. The gaps were rarely about price; they were about friction the paper processes and inconsistent franchisee practices had built into the everyday experience.
The output was a sequenced turnaround plan built to be adopted, not just read: standardised operating procedures so every site ran the same way, a fully digital joining and booking journey to replace the paper form and printed sheets, franchisee performance scorecards to make the variation visible, and a vendor selection for the member app that would carry all of it into daily use.
Key decisions
Standardise before digitising
We set standardised operating procedures first, so the digital joining and booking journey replaced a single consistent process rather than 35 different local habits.
Shadow real shifts, not interviews
Findings came from watching front-desk and class operations directly across the eight sites, not from asking franchisees to describe how things worked.
Scorecards make variation visible
Franchisee performance scorecards were built so every site could see how its numbers compared, turning inconsistency from an assumption into something measurable.
One vendor for the whole journey
We ran vendor selection for a single member app rather than leaving each site to pick its own tool, so the new digital journey stayed consistent everywhere.
Sequence the rollout in waves
The turnaround plan was sequenced rather than launched all at once, so early franchisee feedback could shape the standard before the remaining sites adopted it.
Measurable Impact
What changed after launch
Monthly member cancellations fell from 4.1% to 3.2% within two quarters of the first rollout wave, a direct result of removing the phone-call friction that made leaving easier than staying. Joining moved from a two-visit paper process to a digital sign-up completed in under 8 minutes at all 35 sites, closing the gap with boutique studios that had always offered instant enrolment.
Adoption of the new standard spread faster than the rollout plan assumed: 31 of the 35 franchisees adopted the standard operating playbook within the 90-day window, well inside the timeline we had set. And once digital booking replaced printed sign-up sheets, members could see real availability instead of guessing, which lifted average class occupancy from 54% to 66%.
Joining process
Two-visit paper form at the front desk
Digital sign-up completed in under 8 minutes
Class booking
Printed sign-up sheets by the studio door
Digital booking with occupancy up to 66%
Cancellations
Phone call required, 4.1% monthly rate
Down to 3.2% within two quarters
Franchisee operations
Every site running its own process
31 of 35 sites on one standard playbook
Headline results
Monthly member cancellations fell from 4.1% to 3.2% within two quarters of the first rollout wave
Joining moved from a two-visit paper process to a digital sign-up completed in under 8 minutes at all 35 sites
31 of 35 franchisees adopted the standard operating playbook within the 90-day rollout window
Average class occupancy rose from 54% to 66% once digital booking replaced printed sign-up sheets
Tech & Tools Used
What powered the build
Every tool below earned its place in this engagement. Here is the part each one played.
Miro
Hosted the workshops where findings from shadowing the eight sites were mapped against the member journey and turned into the sequenced turnaround plan.
Airtable
Held the franchisee performance scorecards, tracking each site's adoption of the standard operating procedures against the 90-day rollout window.
Microsoft Power BI
Powered the dashboards tracking cancellations, class occupancy and rollout adoption across all 35 sites as the turnaround plan went live.
Typeform
Captured structured feedback from front-desk staff and members during the shadowing work, surfacing where the paper processes caused the most friction.
Club-management platform APIs
Connected booking and cancellation data from each site's club-management system so occupancy and cancellation trends could be tracked centrally.
Lucidchart
Mapped the member journey end to end, from first enquiry through joining, booking and cancelling, to show exactly where friction was built in.
Confluence
The home for the standardised operating procedures and the franchisee playbook every site now follows after the rollout.
Google Workspace
Supported day-to-day collaboration across the engagement, from site-visit notes to the shared documents reviewed with franchisee leadership.
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