OREANDA-NEWS. April 05, 2016. Well, we’re now officially in April territory. “Dry January” is far behind us and even the most resolute resolution-ers are starting to waver. Fitness is tied strongly to New Year’s resolutions, and it’s no surprise why: 66% of people who create resolutions set goals around fitness. But the numbers indicating success rates aren’t quite so promising, with at least 1 in 3 people having ditched their resolutions by the time this blog post is published (hat tip to Washington Post for the stats).

Planet Fitness recognizes these trends, which is why it’s imperative for the company to create a great experiences for both its members and its franchisees. By developing that superior experience, franchisees are prepared to grow their customer base, and those customers are able to keep their resolutions long after the ball drops on New Year’s Eve.

With more than a thousand owner-operated locations serving 7 million members and a thousand more committed openings within the next seven years, Planet Fitness isn’t slowing down in its massive growth toward becoming one of the most successful gym franchises in the United States. By bucking the trend of pricey health clubs, Planet Fitness has become a destination for those outside of the notoriously macho clientele that frequent many health clubs.

However, the explosive growth proved challenging for Planet Fitness to sustain on a few different fronts. First, Planet Fitness had to find a way to streamline the franchise development process. Second, the company had to find a way to deliver exceptional customer service as the organization scaled. Relying on spreadsheets, manual data entry, and legacy systems to manage relationships made it difficult for the Planet Fitness corporate staff to serve customers and franchisees in an efficient and error-free way. The company needed a solution that would effectively serve the franchises and customers it has now, as well as the 1,000+ additional franchises it anticipates over the next seven years.

The determination to create a smoother, easier experience for onboarding franchisees was solved by Community Cloud. Launching a Franchise Community allowed Planet Fitness to deliver actionable information and resources that help franchise owners understand how to better manage their business through FAQs, a knowledge base of best practices, key contacts, and much more. The single source of information facilitates everything from the onboarding of new franchisees, to the management of existing locations, and everything in between. So franchisees can hit the ground running (and get customers running on their treadmills) from day one.

Service Cloud solved Planet Fitness’ need of providing a scalable customer service tool. The implementation gave the customer service department a consolidated view of all cases coming in from multiple channels, including email, Web form, social media, or over the phone. Regardless of how the customer (or potential customer) connects with the company, Planet Fitness is equipped to deliver the personalized, friendly experience that has become synonymous with its health club.

To learn more about how Planet Fitness is growing with Salesforce, check out the webinar, Planet Fitness Powers Franchise Management with Community Cloud.