Monthly billing (on account)
Does any allow customers to put products on account? If so, can you answer these questions...
Is it popular?
When someone asks for their list of transactions for the month, how do you provide a report?
Is it more of a pain then it's worth?
Comments
Aaron -
Lots of gyms do this and love it. Hopefully some will respond with their experiences, but I've yet to hear of a gym that went away from it once they offered it...
Very easy for EFT members. If they don't pay it off manually, it gets billed to their card on the billing date with their dues.
Our members use it all the time, since it means they don't have to fish their wallet out of their gym bag to buy snacks, gatorade, chalk, etc.
I haven't checked to see if it had any measurable effect on sales, but making it easier for people to give you money is never bad.
I think the few times someone has asked me about what got billed to their account, I have either opened up their billing history and just read it aloud to them, or used the transactional email system to send them copies of each invoice. Doesn't come up often.
If people always want a monthly report, you can turn on Monthly Billing E-mail by request, but don't turn it on for everyone because it reminds them if they are paying you for a membership they aren't really using. We made that mistake and had a pile of cancellations the first month it was enabled.
The only problem I see is if the card is rejected at time of billing. You're out the money. We just add amounts to the membership card ie 20$, then when the climber wants to purchase a gatorade he just swipes the card as if it was a gift card and it deducts the amount. It works really well.
Yes that happens sometimes but not often. In most cases we contact the member a few days later (they also get an e-mail the next day if you are using the billing e-mail system) and collect the balance. Most common cause is just that their card is expired or has been replaced due to loss or theft and they forgot to give us new info. In the past couple of years there have been only 3 cases where I had to pass a member's info to a collection agency, but in the VERY rare cases where a member is reluctant to pay their balance, usually just the possibility of having their bill passed to a collection agent (which dings their credit score) is enough to bring them around. Most people want to have a good relationship with us and aren't going to skip out on their bill intentionally.
I can see that if you have swipe cards for members anyway, using them as a gift card probably makes sense, since they always need to have it with them to check in. I think you guys put them on the harnesses in most cases. Interesting idea!
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