Author:  Francisco Martinez

Challenge

I work for a marketing consultant firm whose client is a Gym and wellness center in Guatemala  City, due to current pandemic quarantine, government closed all business premises to protect  population from COVID 19 infections. Therefore, this gym and wellness center needs to find a  way to continue in business, generating revenue from customers and continue their purpose to  let customer stay fit and be healthy.     Given the current situation is more challenging to achieve both goals, to continue business and  let customers live a healthy life and relieve their stress at the same time form home without  visiting gym premises?     Selection

Our team had been brainstorming and given the urgency for this emergency, we decided to act  ASAP, as soon as possible, and use Learning Launch tool, to try with real customers and new  business idea and continue Gym and Wellness services remotely for customer to stay at home  and continue their daily routines.

The main hypothesis was that if we could deliver same health benefits remotely to customers,  we could continue revenues and business life with an innovating business model and finding a  new way to deliver value to our current customers.

Better yet, to grow in this new experience, increased revenues and yearly subscriptions to gain  new customers, the actual business could have a fighting and surviving chance in this new  normal life.

Application

The main idea is to translocate gym machines and health benefits from actual premises to users  at their homes. The problem is that it has never been done before and we needed to learn this  new way to conduct business and fine tune success details, to learn What Works.

Therefore, we selected 20 customers that were interested in new remote service, and we offer  to deliver an exercise machinery to their homes, they could select form treadmills, stationary  bikes or climbers. This subscription service included daily routines in live exclusive internet  sessions with live instructors, professional nutritionist and social connection through group  challenges and follow up, even one to one professional advice via internet.

We wanted to learn what wows and what works to fine tune service and details, before we  launched officially subscriptions to reach new customers and try new business model to increase  revenues.

Insight and Approach

We monitored outcomes and tested our assumptions with real customers, asking daily  questions during first month. We asked and measured results with instructors and customers to  find out which techniques and services worked best than others, and what challenges customer  faced during home lock down that made working out a bad experienced.

We asked about home available space for workout, internet speed connections, and better time  schedule, duration of virtual classes, food routines, and family members that benefited from  these new services.

Now the challenge for this gym and wellness center is to provide a real healthy experience and  motivate remote customers to stay in these programs. With all the gathered information form  this survey and Learning Launch tool mechanism, I´m sure that this interruption of normal  business operations could p emerge anew business opportunity that could´ve been impossible  to think before this lockdown situation.

This is an ongoing process at this moment, but we hope this will work out for success.

I conclusion, design thinking process and tools is a determinant aspect in this ongoing  experiment and investigation; a helpful aspect that conducted manager and teams members  from this company to find new way to deliver value to customer and continue business growth  through this uncertain times.

The information and customer insights will be priceless to assure the renewed business model  success.

