Most of us know the studio’s schedule and have a general idea of utilization. But active clients? That’s a nebulous, changeable number depending on how you define it.
Attendance is the easiest number to pull from most scheduling software: unique clients who showed up in a given period. Unfiltered, this will include the gamut: intro clients, drop-ins over ACL weekend and a client’s sister visiting from Vermont. Interesting, but not immediately useful for noting trends.
Subscriber reports are also common. These generally list clients on autopay, which is great for cash flow projection. But it misses a whole category of clients who are better suited to packages.
But there’s another group of clients that most scheduling software miss completely.
We have a couple of drop-in class clients at Somaspace who hold standing reservations and have been with us for more than a decade. They don’t have a contract or package, so they don’t show up in our subscriber report. Instead, they appear as drop-in clients, which sounds transient.
They are anything but.
When I calculate our active client count, I include them. That means a bit of manual work, knowing their attendance patterns and how they interact with the studio. It’s not complicated, but I have to look past every report to include them.
All to say, what most reports miss is the behavioral dimension. A steady, weekly-attending package client is as embedded in your business as any contract holder. A drop-in client with a decade of consistent attendance is more stable than a new member who signed a 12-month contract last month.
The question is not which pricing option they prefer. It’s whether this client has a genuine, recurring relationship with your studio. And this requires knowing your clients well enough to answer it.
This week, I recommend running your active client report, however your software defines it. Then ask whether that report captures how those clients actually interact with your business.
Would love to hear what you find.
-Amanda