A.I. Based Retention: Techno-BS or Real Opportunity?
Love robots or hate them, this is pretty damn interesting.
Yee-fucking-haw.
If you’re in the Nashville, TN area, we might get to hang out pretty soon.
I’ll be presenting a keynote at the FitPro Growth Summit (May 19-21). I’ll discuss branding, marketing, and unveiling my complete strategy for getting your staff involved in social media to help drive traffic to your microgym.
There are a ton of awesome industry SMEs who are also presenting on a wide variety of topics, and you’ll be able to get into small group discussions with speakers, break bread, drink drinks and be around other like-minded people.
I’m pumped AF. I hope to meet some of you in person and talk shop!
Meet Pressly - the A.I. your microgym needs.
It’s ok to be skeptical, but don’t be ignorant.
Recently, I interviewed the CEO of PushPress, Dan Uyemura, on my podcast to learn more about the A.I. assistance of Pressly™ and how they plan to leverage this technology to help improve the microgym industry.
At a high level, Pressly™ will be able to use 159 data points to predict when a client is more likely to cancel. They’ve named this algorithm their Churn Model in hopes that with more accurate predictability, it will allow the staff to begin their proactive attempts to prevent cancellations.
At full sophistication, though, Pressly™ will be able to report on member buying habits to increase retail sales, communicate with leads and schedule appointments, upsell current members, launch reactivation campaigns to re-engage former members and even create paid social media campaigns.
The full scope of this software’s capabilities was explained in the bi-annual PowerUp event, in which Uyemura went into full detail about what PushPress has been working on and what’s in its immediate roadmap.
MY TAKE
So for the record, I’m the last guy to get excited about technology in the microgym space.
Sure, I’m all for any leverage an owner can get to maximize their efficiency and accuracy of operations - but I’m generally a big skeptic.
But that’s why I’m not a CEO like Uyemura.
That’s why I would never be able to conceptualize A.I. opportunities for the microgym industry like PushPress has done.
Am I skeptical of this technology? Sure as hell am.
But I believe that a crew as dedicated to this mission as PushPress is bound to find success and deliver opportunities to microgym owners that currently do next exist.
For me, it’s the way they understand that A.I. is not going to replace the human connection but free up owners and operators to do more of it.
PushPress is very transparent that they believe there are many situations in which A.I. is not the appropriate communication vehicle with a client. Pressly™ will allow owners to determine when they step in with human interaction and when they defer to the robots.
See, “hard work” is not the real variable of success, it’s the business that works smarter, and more efficiently that wins at the end of the day.
That’s what A.I. can do for our industry - allow average owners to command an above-average efficiency level.
Historically, and even currently, A.I. technology at scale has been reserved for much larger, lucrative industries. The independent microgym owner doesn’t have ample access to impressive technology, so this seems like tremendous stress.
For years, the financial industry has allowed A.I. to create predictive markers for investing.
Look at Tesla or Apple. Two industry giants who produce consumer products where A.I. is commonplace.
It’s so commonplace for your car to park itself or allow you to summon it (Teslas are so dope, btw) that this tech loses its ability to blow us away on that level because we are seeing it often.
But for the fitness industry, we’ve never really seen A.I. show up and assist us in our daily tasks, so we are overly skeptical about its practicality.
So I simply keep an open mind.
I want to see awesome companies like PushPress push the envelope of what owners think is possible. I nailed that pun right there.
And I want to see owners stay skeptical - but accepting and encouraging of technology entering our space and making the daily, mundane, low-skill tasks less burdensome and time-consuming than they are today.
YOUR TAKEAWAY
Don’t get this twisted as a PushPress advertisement. It’s not.
However, in the world of member management software, I think most companies have been too comfortable providing you with dressed-up billing and scheduling software.
I’m not even going to comment on the reporting aspect that every MMS touts as “industry-leading” because that’s just such a complex feature set to put together and to be accurate for all the various types of microgym models in existence.
I’m very impressed that visionaries like Uyemura will rewrite the playbook and raise the bar of expectations for the MMS industry.
Here is a quote I often use when asked, “How do I pick the right MMS for my microgym?”
“MMS is like being in a relationship with a person. There’s no perfect person out there. Everyone you’ll ever be in a relationship with will piss you off at some point. But it’s about finding the person (or MMS) that meets your must-have needs, is there for you when you need them, and because of that, you can put up with their bullshit.”
As it relates to A.I. and its integration into retention efforts, communication, and other time-consuming tasks - I highly recommend you stay curious.
Be curious about what Pressly™ and others like it are actually capable of doing.
Even if you love your MMS, book demos and test drive other software if they possess features and technology that your current provider doesn’t offer yet.
Curiosity over complacency is what keeps some of us ahead of the curve while others are always last to the table.
So instead of being the owner who instantly dismisses the “Introducing The Self-Driving Gym” article as “techno-babble-bullshit,” stay curious and think about how awesome it would be if this tech proved their proposed success at scale.
Remember, an owner not too long ago thought digital class registration and auto-billing software was a complete sham.
They heard of computer programs doing it for them and they scoffed at it.
They stuck with collecting paper checks and using clipboards to register members for classes.
A.I. is the same as everything else we’re using today.
The concepts start off sounding like a complete stretch from reality, but in due time they become status-quo.
I’ll be staying curious and keeping my eyes on innovators who are looking to elevate the industry.
