Customer-centric gym, SportCity, was searching for an adjacent service to expand on its live group classes. The company already delivers Funxtion’s virtual classes, digital workouts, and training plans to its members via a dedicated app and wanted to provide this extra service inside its gyms, too.
“We pride ourselves on our exceptional live group class experiences and will continue to offer this service to our members. However, some members cannot attend scheduled class times and we needed a way to offer this core service to those members,” said Debbie Koekkoek, group fitness product owner at SportCity.
SportCity chose Funxtion’s Virtual Player (VP) to do the job and started with 30 of its 113 clubs in the Netherlands. The Funxtion VP is in-gym technology that streams content to SportCity’s group studios via a control panel and a display screen.
How it works
The VP connects to Funxtion’s SaaS content platform that houses an extensive library of digital fitness content, including SportCity content, its selected third-party provided content and hundreds of Funxtion’s white-labelled virtual classes. This allowed SportCity to customise Funxtion’s virtual class videos with its own company logo and colours.
“Funxtion supported our strategy to evolve our services adjacent to our live classes, helping our members to work out with greater flexibility and choice – be it in the physical facility or digitally at home,” said Koekkoek.
“Our member attendance in the group studios has improved since we introduced an omnichannel approach, while our member engagement has also increased overall through greater participation as our members combine virtual with live group classes,” she said.
SportCity has started trialling Funxtion’s MultiScreen Solution (MSS) across four of its sites. The MSS streams single digital exercise demonstrations and workout circuits across multiple screens across the functional gym floor space via the VP control panel.
“With customisable content and the ability to extend the capability of a brand through omnichannel integration, operators can effectively reach and engage consumers beyond those willing and able to visit a physical facility, hugely elevating the commercial opportunity of the business,” said Mendel Witzenhausen, co-founder and chief innovation officer at Funxtion.
