Navigating the Back-to-School Fitness Cliff

Every August and September, members’ routines change, gym attendance drops and cancellations rise. But the back-to-school “churn cliff” need not be an annual inevitability. 

It happens like clockwork, yet fitness operators keep finding themselves “caught unaware” as clients set fitness aside to juggle travel, work, family, back-to-school shopping, and other summer-to-fall transitions. And the clients don’t always come back. 

In the webinar “Stop the Back-to-School Churn Cliff,” experts from ABC Fitness and GymLaunch gave insights on how to deal with this seasonal challenge. First, recognize that the problem often has less to do with the gym itself and more to do with members’ disrupted lives. Second, have a plan. 

“The biggest mistake is acting like it’s never happened before, but we know it happens every single year at the same time,” said Ryan Carson, director of coaching at GymLaunch, noting that members aren’t working in the fitness space, and other things just take priority in their lives. 

“Fitness can fall down if you’re not intentional about it,” he said. “Operators need to plan for the predictable.”   

While August and September represent a recurring period of elevated churn risk, the warning signs begin before a cancellation — fewer check-ins, lower class-pack purchases, even reduced engagement on social media.

“If someone goes away for a few weeks and they walk away from your club, even though they’re paying a monthly membership, when they come back, they may look at that as an item they might not need,” said Mo Iqbal, chief strategy officer, ABC Fitness. “Or maybe they go to a lower price gym down the street because they’re not valuing what you have to offer them.”

Retention as Relationship

Since habit formation is crucial to retention, operators need to treat retention as a relationship. That means keeping the relationship going even during disruption, and this is done by what Iqbal calls the Three Cs: Consistency, Community and Continuity. 

How an operator responds to member disengagement can make all the difference. Outreach should feel like genuine concern rather than a collection attempt. Instead of leading with, “We haven’t seen you,” operators can check in on the member and ask whether everything is okay so they don’t feel attacked.

“Members can feel a bit of shame [when they drop off]. Maybe they’ve told you all their goals and then they fell off the wagon. And if you’re like, Hey, Susie, are you alive over there? That can embarrass people,” he said, and they’ll stop responding to outreach. 

“It’s like ghosting in dating.” 

Since member outreach is so crucial, operators should also assign ownership of it to a staffmember. “If everyone is responsible for retention, no one necessarily is,” he said.

Staying flexible with at-risk members goes a long way in turning a cancellation into something less permament, like a pause/freeze. The goal is to give members a way to maintain their relationship with the business while life is temporarily getting in the way.

‘Be Like Netflix’

Want to keep members coming back after a slowdown or hiatus? Give them something to look forward to each season. In other words, be like Netflix. 

“Just as streaming platforms keep subscribers engaged by giving them another episode or season to anticipate, gyms and studios can create recurring programs, events and challenges that keep members connecting and coming back,” said Mike Ferreira, president of GymLaunch. “It’s the Netflix Effect.”

Challenges can be particularly effective because they stack community and accountability on top of fun. Team-based competitions, gamified attendance challenges and seasonal programs can create reasons for members to participate, even when they are traveling.

For example, members can record workouts while away, contribute to team challenges or share photos with their community. The objective is to maintain the relationship with the gym and community no matter where you are. 

“Want to show your team that you worked out while traveling? Drop what we call a ‘Sweaty Selfie,’ in the group chat,” said Carson. 

Iqbal agreed: “Challenges are a great retention play. And they’re great for win-backs.” 

Find the Activation Point

The panel highlighted the importance of identifying the point in the member journey when engagement turns into a habit. Iqbal pointed out that members attending twice a week during their first month are at lower risk of churn, making early habit formation a critical retention lever.

Different operations have different sticking points, though. For boutique businesses, the activation point might be purchasing and quickly using a class pack. For a traditional gym, it could involve completing an onboarding program, personal training sessions or another structured experience.

“Everyone feels it differently, so you have to be close to the data. You don’t want to solve the wrong problem in your business,” said Ferreira.

When it comes to retention, however, the most effective strategy is bringing human connection into the mix. Churn-prediction tools can flag declining attendance, reduced time in the club, late dues or other risk indicators, but data alone won’t retain a member. It just tells the team when and where to act, and counterintuitively, that is often outside the operation.

“If you only track what happens to a member with in the time that they’re in your club, that’s only 3% of their week.” said Iqbal, noting that operators need to think about the the other 97% of customers’ time so you stay top of mind.

Paid reach, he said, should also include current members, as the nationwide average to acquire a new member, depending on the club, is between 180 to $300, but the cost of retention is $80.

And now that Summer is ending and Back to School is underway, it’s time to start thinking about that third shift in the fitness year when customer’s time and priorities change: Holiday.