Spa and class bookings: what is planned
How bookings arrive in the Fitness pack's third wave, why no class-booking system is read, which reminders exist, and what a spa should settle first.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Fitness businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
A day spa lives and dies by its appointment book. A facial at ten, a couples' massage at eleven, a nail technician double-booked at noon because two people wrote in the same diary. A studio has the same problem with classes: the spin room holds a set number of bikes, and the waiting list lives on a clipboard.
The Fitness, wellness & spas pack in Achekam's Industry CRM takes on bookings in its third wave. This article explains where bookings sit in the pack, what the pack deliberately does not connect to, how reminders work, and the decisions a spa or studio should make before it moves its appointment book across.
Bookings arrive with the third wave
The Industry CRM is released in waves. Its third wave brings bookings, together with subscriptions and renewals and deferred revenue. For a fitness business, that is the wave where the appointment book and the membership records start to sit in one place.
Bookings join the records the Fitness pack already keeps for each Member:
- Memberships, with their freezes.
- Session packages, counted down session by session.
- Trials, for people trying the club before they join.
The third wave also brings revenue spreading for packages: income from a session package can be spread per session as the sessions are used, rather than recognised all at once when the package is sold.
No class-booking system is read
Many studios already use a booking app for classes, and many clubs have turnstiles or access cards at the door. The Fitness pack reads none of them. It reads no access-control, turnstile or class-booking system, and visits are recorded by staff.
That has a plain consequence. If you keep your existing class-booking app, the pack does not know who booked what in it. Running both side by side means two appointment books, and two appointment books is how double-bookings happen. Decide which one is the real diary for each kind of booking, and keep the other out of it.
For how attendance reaches the pack without a turnstile link, see recording member visits without a turnstile.
Reminders: e-mail and in-app only
Reminders are where bookings pay for themselves, because a client reminded the day before is less likely to forget. The Industry CRM's reminders go by e-mail and in-app only. There is no SMS and no WhatsApp.
Three rules apply to every customer reminder:
- Off until switched on. Each reminder stays off until a workspace administrator switches it on.
- Sent at most once. A client does not get the same reminder repeatedly.
- Capped. Sending is limited by a daily cap.
For fitness businesses, the pack can remind a person the day before a trial visit, and a member 14 days before a session package expires. The second one matters more than it looks: a package that quietly expires with sessions unused is a disappointed client, and a timely reminder is a simple way to turn it into a renewal instead. The detail on trial and package reminders is in trial and package reminders.
If your clients mostly live on WhatsApp, plan for that gap. Make sure every client's e-mail address is captured and correct, and tell new clients at sign-up that confirmations and reminders arrive by e-mail.
What a spa records alongside its bookings
A booking is one record among several. Treat the others as the foundation the booking stands on:
- The member and their e-mail address, because every reminder depends on it.
- The session package, if the treatment comes out of one, so the count goes down as sessions are used.
- The membership and any freeze, so a frozen member is not booked into a class by mistake.
- The trial, for a first visit, so the day-before reminder has something to attach to.
A worked example in words: a client buys a package of massages. Each time she books and comes in, a session is used from the package. As the package nears its expiry date with sessions left, the pack's reminder goes to her by e-mail, provided the administrator switched it on. Reception sees the remaining sessions and offers to book the next one while she is still at the desk.
Questions to settle before you move the diary
Settle these before the first booking goes in:
- Which diary is real? For each service (treatments, classes, personal training), decide whether bookings live in the pack or stay in your existing system.
- Who books? Reception only, or therapists and trainers as well.
- Cancellations and no-shows. Write down your late-cancellation rule and whether a missed session is taken off a package.
- Which reminders go on? List the reminders your administrator will switch on, and test each with a staff member's e-mail address first.
- Package rules. Agree how expiry dates are set and whether you ever extend them, so the reminder that goes out 14 days before expiry says something reception will stand behind when the client phones.
- Staff availability. A booking is only as good as the therapist or instructor behind it. Whichever diary you choose, agree who keeps each person's working days current in it, so nobody is booked on a day off.
- Clean contact details. Check e-mail addresses on your current client list now; bookings and reminders inherit whatever is there.
The International Spa Association offers research, insights and tools for spa owners on everyday business challenges, which is useful background when you are rethinking how your appointment book runs.
Bookings bring the appointment book and the client record together, but only if one diary is the real one. Choose it, switch on the reminders you mean to keep, and clean up your client e-mail addresses before the first booking lands.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
