For Gyms & Studios, Online Reviews Are King. Here’s How To Improve Yours
As consumers become more distrustful of traditional ads and influencer-led content, online reviews figure to be more important than ever. An expert shares tips for winning the digital word-of-mouth game
Gyms and studios put a lot of time and money into acquiring new members, investing in things like sophisticated marketing campaigns, AI-powered tools and slick social media posts.
But for fitness businesses, the most effective way to win members might be word of mouth – digital word of mouth, that is.
As consumers become more distrustful of traditional advertisements and influencer-led content, online reviews figure to be more important than ever.
“We have a saying that the only thing more important than your reputation is your online reputation,” says Steven Toole, the founder of online reviews marketing firm Toole & Associates. “It’s a bit tongue in cheek, but it’s true.”
Athletech News spoke with Toole to get his thoughts on how fitness businesses can win the online review game, including strategies for getting more positive reviews, minimizing negative ones and how to respond to dissatisfied customers.
Why Online Reviews Are Your Most Powerful Marketing Tool
According to Toole, online reviews are the most important marketing tool gyms and studios can leverage in 2025 to boost business. This is because consumers tend to place a high level of trust in online reviews compared to ads.
Close to 50% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from family and friends, per BrightLocal. Meanwhile, only 4% of consumers trust ads, according to the American Association of Advertising Agencies.
It’s not surprising, then, that a Harvard Business School study found that for each extra star rating a restaurant earned on Yelp, it saw a 9% increase in revenue.
“Reviews are as good as personal recommendations and are more compelling than ads,” Toole believes.
Online reviews are essential to search engine optimization (SEO), too. Major search engines reward businesses that have more positive online reviews, Toole notes. If you search “gyms near me” in Google, for example, the businesses that appear in the Google Maps snapshot tend to be the ones with the highest number of positive online reviews.
“No matter how good your SEO person is at getting your organic sites higher in search results, it’s never going to be higher than the map, and reviews are a major determining factor in which three businesses show up in the map,” Toole says.
Google isn’t the only game in town, though. Fitness businesses should ensure they’re getting good reviews on all three major review platforms (Google, Yelp and Facebook), since these platforms feed reviews into major search engines including Google, Yelp, Apple Maps, Microsoft, Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo, Toole notes.
Want To Get Better Reviews? It Starts With Customer Service
All of this begs the question: how can gyms and studios make sure they’re getting plenty of positive reviews?
Unsurprisingly, it starts with making sure people have a good experience inside your facility. Having clean facilities, a friendly staff and being communicative about broken-down equipment are all highly important, per Toole.
“If I had three tips for every gym owner: be clean, be friendly and fix broken equipment as quickly as possible,” he says. “Or at least communicate to members [about why equipment is broken down]. Don’t just tape it up and say, ‘Out of order.’ People want to know when it’ll be functioning again and why it isn’t working right now.”
Make It Easy for Members To Leave Online Reviews
Gyms and studios must also make it easy for people to leave reviews – on their own time.
Toole says businesses shouldn’t use QR codes as a way to encourage reviews, since busy gym-goers often walk right past those signs in a rush to move on with their day. Instead, gyms should implement things like text message and email campaigns that allow members to quickly write a review from their phone in one click.
“You need a process that can communicate with them on a continuous basis and make it fast and easy for them to leave a review when it’s convenient for them,” he says.
Companies like Toole & Associates have cropped up to help gyms manage their online review strategy.
“It’s not easy for gym owners to put a process in place that’s consistent, 365 days a year, to make it easy for members to share their experience,” he says. “Hundreds of gyms throughout North America turn that over to us because we make it happen.”
Whatever You Do, Don’t ‘Bribe’ Your Members to Leave a Review
While it might seem tempting to offer members discounts or free perks in exchange for leaving an online review, it’s against the law. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued a rule in 2024 that makes it illegal for businesses to offer any compensation to people in exchange for leaving online reviews.
Businesses that break the rule are subject to hefty fines but also public ridicule. Yelp notably has a “Wall of Shame” for businesses that offer money or other incentives in return for soliciting reviews on the platform. Other review platforms are taking action to crack down on pay-for-play reviews, Toole notes.
However, there are certain things fitness business owners can and should do to encourage happy members to leave reviews.
“You can’t bribe the member, but you can say, ‘Hey, your instructor will get a nice little thank you if you mention them in your review,’” Toole says. “That appeals to people’s human nature.”
“You can also do something similar with a charity,” he adds. “You can say, ‘It’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, so we’re going to make a donation to the American Cancer Society for every review we get this month.’”
Respond to Every Review, Whether Good, Bad or Ugly
Fitness businesses should respond to every review they get, whether that review is positive or negative. Toole points to studies showing that consumers are more likely to choose businesses that respond to reviews.
For positive reviews, a simple “thank you” message will do the trick. Responding to negative reviews requires a more strategic approach.
“Don’t get combative in your responses to negative reviews; it’s not an online conversation for the whole world to be a part of,” Toole advises. “But that doesn’t mean you should take it on the chin and just apologize for everything that everybody complains about.”
In writing responses to negative reviews, Toole recommends that fitness businesses stay calm and measured. Usually, it’s best to stay on script.
“A response template like this will get you very far in gaining goodwill: ‘We strive for a five-star experience with everybody that we see, and if ever we fall short of that, we ask people to bring it to our immediate attention,’” he says.
At the end of the day, Toole stresses that for gyms and studios, managing online reviews is often about damage mitigation, since everyone’s got a platform these days.
“The whole ‘customer is always right’ thing has never been more true than it is today, because now a customer has a bullhorn so loud that everyone in the entire world can hear what they say about your gym,” he says.