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Q&A with Shayan Azizbaeigi, SVP Product, Fitness & Wellbeing, Xplor Technologies: How Technology is Changing the Boutique Fitness Landscape
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Q&A with Shayan Azizbaeigi, SVP Product, Fitness & Wellbeing, Xplor Technologies: How Technology is Changing the Boutique Fitness Landscape

Shayan Azizbaeigi smiling
Shayan Azizbaeigi, SVP of Product, Fitness & Wellbeing at Xplor Technologies spoke about the future of the boutique fitness landscape and Xplor’s offerings

Xplor Technologies is a global platform integrating enterprise-level SaaS solutions and embedded payments for small businesses and gyms. As boutiques continue to evolve in the post-pandemic world, small businesses and gyms continue to focus on customer experience and community for retention. Athletech News spoke with Shayan Azizbaeigi, Senior Vice President, Product, Fitness & Wellbeing at Xplor Technologies about Xplor’s offerings, how gamification is changing the boutique fitness landscape, and why consumers are moving away from traditional gym memberships.

ATN: How can Xplor offerings boost customer retention and bottom lines, and what sets it apart from competitors?

SA: Xplor offers a unique combination of verticalized, cloud-based management software, embedded payments and tech specifically designed to help businesses grow quickly. For example, we provide marketing automation and CX tools developed by fitness experts to help fitness businesses connect to their customers when it matters most.

In the boutique fitness space, our Mariana Tek product for boutique fitness studios is specifically designed to help studio brands build a direct relationship with their clients using their own branded studio app, and business insights, all powered by Mariana Tek. Unlike other products available, our software offers:

  • Dynamic customer management: involving everything from membership changes to data analytics, plus behavior-driven segmentation tools for personalized messages and tailored offers.
  • Native integrations: an API-led, mobile-first approach, which allows businesses to operate and adapt their business model quickly and easily, by avoiding shuffling between different logins, or manually re-entering and consolidating data for reporting.
  • Real-time data: allowing people to book instantly, get quickly notified if a class spot becomes available, and get quick responses to their queries.

We also offer a range of useful features that help studios deliver that boutique ‘VIP’ experience. These features include geo-location check-in, to help people avoid queuing when they arrive; bring a friend, allowing people to easily bring a friend to their favorite workout; pre-ordering items, like a bottle of water or spin socks ahead of their workout; and my personal favorite pick-a-spot, where customers can choose their preferred bike or yoga mat for their class.

It’s these types of premium experiences that help to attract new customers, retain existing customers, and differentiate studios from their competitors.

ATN: Why are consumers moving away from traditional gym memberships?

SA: The economic downturn is causing customers to be more conscious of their spending.  Consumers will look to cut discretionary costs to save money where they can. Despite fitness and well-being being important, we may see more contract commitment-phobes this year.

Another factor causing consumers to move away from traditional gym memberships is the increase of hybrid work and remote work. Pre-pandemic, people used to align their workouts with their working schedule using facilities near their office – but the rise of remote working has changed this behaviour. Consumers are more likely to find alternatives close to home or change their fitness routine entirely with at home exercise, social sports or outdoor fitness.

ATN: How are customer expectations changing in the fitness software space?

SA: Customer expectations are changing rapidly. We see a need for greater flexibility, convenience, and personalization when it comes to fitness software.

Flexibility: People want more flexibility from their fitness programs now, whether it’s the combination of in-person and on-demand, more pay-as-you-go cost effective options or even the ability to access well-being activities as part of their package.

Convenience: People expect more now than they ever did when it comes to convenience and speed. This means ease of booking, rapid responses to queries, and all those easy online checkout and payments experiences that we’ve come to expect from ecommerce and apps.

Personalization: As our use of digital technologies and social media grows, we’re also seeing increasing demand for personalization, for example, services and experiences that are catered to the individual. This is particularly true for younger consumers.

ATN: How can small business owners compete with AI and online fitness services?

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SA: The first thing I’d say is that it’s not a competition. Since the Covid days, gyms and studios have been concerned about on-demand classes and wearable fitness trackers cannibalizing in-person fitness, and while that may have been true during the pandemic, nowadays it’s clear that nothing beats the excitement and motivation of working out in-person – whether that’s being able to work out with your buddies, the energy of a class, or getting first-hand expertise of their favorite group fitness instructor.

Start by getting the basics right. Every gym and studio must deliver a great customer experience, so if a studio isn’t asking for and tracking customer feedback, then they should be. Look at the tech being used to run your business, and make sure it offers CRM and CX tools, real-time reporting, and most importantly, marketing automation. Once a gym and studio has these basics running efficiently and effectively, they can then consider using AI.

ATN: What’s the most important trend in the fitness software space right now?

SA: There’s lots of chat about AI and automation technology at the moment, but I think the most important trend in fitness is still gamification, because of the sheer impact it has in motivating people to keep striving towards their fitness and wellbeing goals. As human beings we all need encouragement, to acknowledge milestones and moments that matter, and to celebrate successes in life – gamification in fitness, done well, delivers all these things, and will keep people coming back to their favorite gym or studio.

For example, we launched an industry first ‘Year-in-review’ feature in the Mariana Tek app in December 2022. Just like Spotify’s Wrapped, Mariana Tek’s ‘Year-in-review’ gave customers an overview of their fitness workouts for 2022, with their personal class count, top instructors, minutes spent, longest weekly streak, and most popular weekday and time of day at their favorite studios, via the app. This motivated users to share their results with their friends and family, and most importantly continue their fitness goals well into 2023.

Since launching the new year-in-review app feature, we’ve seen 54K+ total views, and over 1,897 new classes booked at our customers’ studios. Over 300 studio brands switched on the new feature in their app, including Spin/Co, GritCycle and CampTampa. Interestingly, the top instructors and class count stats were most popular, people shared these most on social media.

By celebrating their 2022 activity and milestones, ‘Year-in-review’ has inspired people to prioritize their fitness and wellbeing and most importantly, it’s helped studios bring an engaging experience to their customers and drive new class bookings. Spin/Co told us, “Everyone has been going absolutely CRAZY for year-in-review. We are totally obsessed with this feature.”

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