Paper towels are another paper product MUST have.

Great post, guys! Things (big and little) such as club cleanliness and Kleenex need to be priority #1 if a facility is to be successful, competitive and profitable.

Unfortunately, too many club owners and managers overlook cleanliness and the little things, and forfeit their chance to use, what should be, standard operating procedure as a powerful membership recruitment and retention strategy.

Who suffers from the lack of attention to top-notch customer care/service? Members, members, members...then the owner's bottom line.

'Clean' and 'Kleen'ex -- the words sound the same, and can yield the same powerful positive bottom-line results!

Bruce A. Sherman, Ph.D.
President, GymValet
www.gymvalet.com

It's always the small things. A story that really proves that one should sweat the small stuff. At every turn in our facility are clocks. In every room we have at least one clock. Two and three in the locker rooms. On the main floor we have so many I couldn't guess how many we have. Well a few months ago the one clock at our front desk fell down and broke so instead of running out and buying a new clock at the local Walmart we took one from an area on the fitness floor that has two other clocks within view. Well for the next few weeks till our new clock came in we had several dozen suggestion/complaint cards filled in about the one missing clock.

Never ever forgot the small stuff. Now thinking of clocks I can't wait to change the billion clocks on Sunday.

I'll bet everyone in the industry has stories like this. What our customers are watching is: every little thing. Some people watch one thing, others another, and still others something else. Between them all, every little part of our operations is under scrutiny. Scary thought!

I'd definitely go for 2-ply

We have a long time gym member that keeps the gym in tissues. We are a university a gym that is open to the public. Due to budget cuts the tissues were one of the items that got pulled out of our budget. Arthur takes a collection every once in a while and buys tissues. Others have picked up on this and bring in a box or two now and then Arthur makes sure that the inventory keeps up with demand. Just a little thing that we have fun with and shows that our clients value their gym!

Our club once made the decision to stop offering towels in order to save money on laundry. Members made such an uproar (including showing up at public meetings waving towels like they were in a stadium at a football game) the decision was reversed. They even accepted a fee hike rather than lose the towels.