Zen Planner Kiosk App – More Flexibility for Your Fitness Business
We’ve dramatically improved our development and product approach in the past year that has resulted in a new user interface and a focus prioritizing customer-impacting issues above all else. In addition, we’ve focused on investments in our core platform, along with mobile and customer experience. We have heard a fair amount of positive feedback from our customers as the result of all the changes we’ve made. It got us wondering if others might want to learn more about what’s coming next at Zen Planner. Today we sit down with Christina Von Stroh, Zen Planner’s Director of Product Management, to talk about where Zen Planner is heading.
Q: Zen Planner has worked on tablet devices for a long time…we’ve heard that Zen Planner is close to releasing a new App. Tell us more! And, why now?
Christina: We haven’t had an App in the past because Zen Planner’s Studio application has worked well on tablets. And, there hasn’t been a strong demand for an App from our customers until fairly recently. However, now a third of all American adults own a tablet, dramatic growth from just three years ago when only 2% of this population owned one, according to Pew Research. In addition, we’ve seen increased usage in fitness businesses. Clearly, iPads are here to stay.
Q: You’ve sort of hinted at my next question. I know Zen Planner works on tablets now, but are you releasing something specifically for the iPad?
Christina: We are indeed! This is in direct response to customer requests. We are constantly focusing on how we can make fitness owners more productive so that they can focus on building their business and this is a way we can do just that.
Q: Tell us more about Zen Planner’s upcoming App.
Christina: Our customers already tell us that Zen Planner saves them time and resources because it provides a way for members to do many common actions, like checking billing, payments or scheduling, themselves. Leo Dokutoshu Pimentel, owner of SKH Qwest Center in NYC told us, “Zen Planner helps a ton as it enables our members to self-serve.”
The Zen Planner Kiosk App takes things to a whole new level by making it even easier for members to self-serve. In addition, we’re making it super simple for staff members to use so that they can provide their members with personalized service. So, the members who want to do everything themselves and those who want staff to help them out are both covered.
Q: In what ways does Zen Planner’s App help members self-serve?
Christina: We’re providing a very elegant and intuitive interface for members to check in to class, buy in-gym retail items and register as new members. Members will be able to check-in to classes either by typing their names or scanning their barcode. Once the app knows who they are, they’ll see a list of all the day’s activities and can check in with a single tap.
In addition, many gyms, studios and schools use an honor board for retail purchases, where members record their purchases on a clipboard for staff to record later. With the app, members will be able to select the retail item and then either pay with their credit card via an integrated encrypted credit card swiper or pay via their credit card on file, right then and there. The staff member no longer needs to record the purchase manually, and everything is tied in with Zen Planner’s inventory management solution.
Q: Now tell us about the experience for a staff member. How does Zen Planner’s App enable staff members to provide personalized service?
Christina: We know that when new members come in to sign up for a membership that this experience needs to be flawless. Zen Planner has dramatically simplified the registration process, making it so easy and intuitive that members can even register themselves without help. This enables the staff member to focus on the client in front of them, rather than processing the transaction in the software.
The biggest benefit is really for student and member engagement. The Zen Planner Kiosk App gives the gym owner and their staff a new tool to interact with their students. When a new member enters your space, you want their first impression to be amazing. With the Zen Planner App, staff will be able to easily sign up new members, take their profile photo, get their digital signature and gather credit card information, all through an easy-to-use interface. Everything you need to do for and with a new member when they first register is all in one application. You collect their profile information, have them sign all your documents (waivers & contracts) and collect payments, via an integrated and encrypted card reader.
Q: Why have you focused on the iPad?
Christina: We specifically chose to develop the app for tablet as it’s geared towards the staff interaction with members – bigger screens are easier to use when you have two people interacting together and are effective for member self service. Based on customer interviews, analytics and industry standards we chose to develop an app for the iPad, as it is far and away the most popular platform for our customers.
In addition, the iPad has great built-in functionality that we can leverage! The Zen Planner Kiosk App takes advantage of the built-in camera for taking member photos and scanning barcodes. The touch screen lets a gym owner quickly collect digital signatures. Finally, the add-on card swiper plugs into a phone jack for encrypted credit card payments.
Q: We know that Zen Planner uses responsive design. Tell us more about that.
Christina: We know that our customers are always on the go, and often use Zen Planner on a number of different devices, including phones, tablets and small screen computers and laptops. That’s why responsive design is such a core component of our overall strategy. It allows us to develop a cloud-based app that will work on every web-enabled device, “responding” easily to the size of the device’s screen.
Q: Tell us a little bit about how Zen Planner gets feedback from their customers.
Christina: We’ve set up a bunch of forums to enable our Product Team to interact directly with our customers. First, whenever we are starting to think about new solutions, we go directly to our customers to understand how it will help make their lives easier. For example, when we launched a new interface a few months ago, we had our customers vote on things like the color palette and give feedback on the ease of navigation. As we start to build out any new functionality, we conduct customer interviews to ensure we are on track. Finally, when we are close to release, we have a BETA program for our customers to test out the new functionality and provide feedback prior to the “official” launch.
Q: Anything else to add?
Christina: We know our customers use Zen Planner in a number of different ways and it excites us to make them successful in each of those platforms. We’re pleased to introduce the new Zen Planner Kiosk App as an additional product for our customers.
Interested in learning more about what Zen Planner can do for your fitness business? Watch our short video demo to discover the different features and benefits our software offers.
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