Xplor
In this Q&A, you’ll hear from Ieuan Owen, Chief Revenue Officer for Fitness & Wellbeing at Xplor Technologies, a global SaaS platform for gyms and studios. Ieuan shares how investments in automation and gamification elevate the customer experience for boutique fitness operators.
Get us up to speed on the latest at Xplor.
Ieuan Owen: At Xplor, everything we’re working on is all about trying to find creative ways to fuel studio growth and make them more profitable:
- Gamification. We just launched a new gamification suite, built into Xplor Mariana Tek, to help boutique fitness studios increase class attendance and membership revenue — and motivate people to move more.
- Xplor Capital. We’re giving studios access to “growth capital” to help them open locations, buy new equipment, and run marketing campaigns. These studio owners are visionaries, but most don’t yet have access to investors, so our capital program fills this gap well. We’ve deployed $1M+ to date and will soon enter Canada and the UK.
- Health benefits. We partnered with Dr. B, a telehealth provider helping studios unlock FSA/HSA funds for their clients. Enabling pre-tax dollars to pay for fitness saves customers 20–40% without costing studios anything. At launch, we signed up ~50 studios, and we’ll be pushing education during the US’s open enrollment period.
Beyond product and partnership developments, we’re celebrating new customer wins, with barre3 currently onboarding Xplor Mariana Tek across all their locations, and YYOGA, RTR Pilates, and Free People Movement recently joining our platform as well.
How does the platform benefit fitness operators?
IO: We benefit boutique fitness brands in many ways, but a few stand out.
I can confidently say we deliver the best CX in the business.We were the first in the industry to make pick-a-spot available to studios, helping them to encourage early sign-ups, driving more urgency to book, and allowing instructors to put faces to names.
Boosting attendance, we’ve made it easy for clients to bring a guest to class, driving guest visits up 35% year-on-year. We’ve also enabled studios to sell add-ons and extra value-add items to their clients during the booking process, boosting incremental revenue while removing congestion from the front desk.
Another major benefit is that Xplor facilitates closer relationships between studio and client by putting their brand first.
Studios can customize an app to bring their brand to life outside of the studio. In-app ad banners are available to run promotions or share customizable content, like introducing new instructors or upcoming events. And they have personalization options allowing them to tailor their clients’ app experience, from creating loyalty programs and challenges to recording extra information for a client.
Meanwhile, our built-in marketing automation makes it quick to create unique customer journeys, targeting campaigns, or client outreach when it matters most. These automations aim to advance 90% of “new profile” consumers to first visit, drive a 48% conversion from trial to membership, and drive incremental sales revenue through “win-back” campaigns.
Plus, for growing brands, our platform offers a complete view of their business across multiple locations via a single login. Multi-location and enterprise brands can easily track and compare the performance of different locations, and it’s easy to add new sites as their business thrives.
How do you drive engagement and retention through gamification?
IO: Gamification can help studios create a stronger sense of community and belonging for consumers because accountability equals consistency.
With goals, consumers are more incentivized to book for the week ahead and attend classes more consistently — while streaks can also boost attendance. With unique challenges, studios can motivate consumers, build community, and encourage new class bookings.
In the few weeks since launching our gamification suite, take-up of challenges is steady, and we already count 146 locations using it. We’ve seen over 200 new challenges created so far, and 28% of consumers have already completed a challenge.
How is the broadening definition of wellness impacting your offering?
IO: The rise in demand for wellness is driving a lot more diversification. Many of our studios are adding wellness services and modalities, so they need their tech to work even harder for them now. That means we need to offer tools and systems that are flexible enough to adapt with these brands as their business evolves.
Early findings from a recent customer survey show that studio brands that have embraced more wellness options are seeing clients stay with them longer.
Through gamification and marketing automation features, they can encourage consumers to take advantage of these new wellness services for the first time and more often.
And with our Dr. B partnership, using insurance funds towards movement is game-changing, as we know first-hand the impact these studios have on consumers’ health and well-being.
What’s your strategy for international growth?
IO: Our strategy is about making sure we are available in all the places where all the best brands want to be — and meeting them where they are.
We just launched in the UK, and we’re live in Australia and Singapore, with Japan coming soon. We’re also looking at launching new markets in mainland Europe and Asia, so expect more news on that soon!
Anything else you’d like to share with readers?
IO: A really important area of focus for us is helping our clients really understand their business, their consumers and how to get more people moving and healthier.
A big focus for me in the next 24 months is going to be helping our clients and, hopefully, the industry up their game. Other industries like retail and hospitality are way ahead of fitness and well-being in how they use data to drive decisions, and we want to help lead the way in changing that.
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