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What is a freeze?
From time to time our members take a break from the gym, and in turn they would like a break from their payments. A freeze is when a member asks us to freeze or pause their membership as they will not be attending the gym.
A common mistake relating to a freeze is the misconception that a freeze is a Win when compared to a cancellation. This is not the case and each request we should try and overcome the freeze objection and help the member continue to exercise.
How to stop a member from going on freeze!
Before we put a member onto freeze we want to everything possible to stop them from going on freeze. Freezing memberships is a last resort and we want to do all that we can to keep our members from going onto freeze in the first place. It may be worth doing some extra role play on this with the team as sometimes if we freeze to save a cancellation it is only putting on the inevitable of them cancelling later down the line. If they are wanting a freeze then it is even more important that we get those members to pay for the freeze. I would recommend running a report in debit success (If you log in to the Debit Success portal, go to Insights > Analytics > Daily Status > Suspensions & Breaks > and then click on Accounts on Suspension and choose the ‘Focus mode’ on the far right, it will give you a breakdown of all your members on freeze and who's paying the fee). This report will pull up all your members who are not paying for their freezes. I would take some time to look through each member's profile and if they are meant to be paying for the freeze but are not, changing it so that they are!
Below are some scripts to use when a member asks of they want to go into freeze. Freezing members even though can sometimes help prevent cancellations it can also really affect your turnover. Even if you have 10 members on freeze you end up losing about $250 a week, which equalts $13,000 a year! Thus shows how drastically freezing a member can affect your turnover!
T & C's around Freezing!
Freeze Fee's exist! A freeze is not completely free of charge. The member will not be paying their full monthly rate however they will be paying a $2.50 per week freeze fee. This freeze fee covers the cost of holding an active membership with our systems and a fee is charged by Debit Success so we must charge the fee to cover those costs.
A freeze will extend a commitment period! A freeze cannot be used to hold a cheaper fee until the end of the members agreement. If they member chooses to freeze their account by 2 months and are still under their minimum commitment term, this will extend their minimum term end date by 2 months.
A request must be in writing! One way or another the freeze request must be confirmed in writing. It is often found that members forget the length of their request and will come back insisting it was longer than it was requested. Ensuring that every request is confirmed in writing means that when this happens we can kindly produce their original request.
We cannot backdate a freeze! Should a member request a freeze to start from the day/week prior unfortunately the answer is no. This option is not available to be backdated
There is a maximum freeze period! This is 3 months in any single block, and 6 months within the last year (12 months).
How to process a Freeze
How to process a Freeze
Under the member tab in Clubwise, search for the members profile and select the member you wish to freeze.
In the top right hand corner select the button "Update membership status". This will take you to another screen where on the right hand side again select Freeze Membership
3. This page will show 4 sections that you need to check.
First is the start date. This can only be adjusted Forward and not Backward.
Second is the number of billing cycles. This is to be a maximum for 3 months unless a supporting Dr Certificate states otherwise.
Third is the reason behind the freeze
Forth is the Freeze fee. If they are on weekly debits it is $2.50. If they are on Fortnightly Debits this is $5. If they are on monthly debits this is $10
4. Now just continue through and complete the transaction.
Unfreezing a member
Unfreezing a membership is a similar transaction, the only difference is you need to add the pro-rata onto their account.
Follow steps 1 though 3. At the bottom of this screen there will now be an "unfreeze" button.
On the right hand of the screen there will be $0.00 displayed. Here you click into this and complete how much the pro-rata is. The member can pay for it over the phone or you can charge it to their account.
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