Retaining clients when the Government makes you shut your doors is a challenge – but The Massage Company managed to keep its customers loyal during the pandemic, put its prices up, and emerge even more profitable than before.
“The beauty of our business is we have a combination of the monthly membership model which provides cashflow up-front for the franchisees, plus a lot of customer loyalty,” says Charlie Thompson, The Massage Company’s Founder and Managing Director.
“That mix proved incredibly resilient during lockdown, and we were able to communicate very quickly with our members.
“We effectively stopped people from cancelling their memberships, and they wanted us to be back in business at the end of it.
“When we reopened, the experience was broadly what our clients expected and had been paying for before, so there was very little inconvenience other than they had to wear a face-covering when they came to Reception.
“They came back quickly and thought ‘This is great. This is what I remember from before, I’m in for more of this.’
“People who missed out on their therapeutic massages during the shutdown still had credits to use up, and they not only had more time to relax but wanted a massage even more than before. So they came to us for longer each time and more often.
“We were building a new habit, and our monthly member engagement has been transformed massively.”
That, coupled with the 250 new members a month each centre attracts, means franchisees are finding their businesses to be even more profitable, and much sooner than expected, as clients who originally planned to have a monthly massage are coming more frequently and having longer treatments.
The Massage Company is an industry disruptor, using a gym-style membership model and world-class therapists to encourage people to have regular monthly therapeutic massages.
• If you’d like to know more about becoming a franchisee of The Massage Company, get in touch with us at franchise@massagecompany.co.uk to request a prospectus.
