Gold’s Gym Costa Rica: A 9X Increase in Bookings through Instagram Automation

Gold’s Gym Costa Rica is a leading fitness center located in San José, the country’s largest city. The gym has three different locations and has built a loyal following on social media, particularly on Instagram, and a dedicated community of local fitness enthusiasts and gym-goers who support the brand. The gym's clientele is diverse, but a significant portion of its members are younger clients who prefer to interact and book classes through Instagram. These members are tech-savvy and appreciate the convenience of digital solutions. They value quick response times and efficient service, which was the driving force behind Gold’s Gym's decision to automate their booking system on Instagram.

Gold’s Gym Costa Rica, a premier fitness center in San José, faced a significant challenge during the pandemic. Government guidelines required all gyms to have a booking system in place to reopen in early 2020. The gym had to adapt quickly and turned to ManyChat for Facebook Messenger and Calendly for help. However, a problem arose when younger clients started requesting booking links on Instagram, which required Gold Gym’s community manager to manually reply to each person on Instagram Messenger. This manual process was time-consuming and inefficient, taking roughly an hour to confirm a class sign-up. The gym had a strong community on Instagram and wanted to leverage this platform to get more sign-ups. The challenge was to cut down on message response times and avoid tedious phone calls and manual messaging through WhatsApp, like some of its competitors.

To address this challenge, Gold’s Gym, with the help of TBS Marketing, built an interactive class scheduling system through Instagram, tailoring its Instagram Messenger experience to accommodate the younger generation on the platform. They used Instagram Automation by ManyChat to automate the booking process. The gym directed leads to Instagram Messenger to start the booking process. Once in Instagram Messenger, people simply typed “citas” into the chat, which triggered the booking process and allowed people to schedule a class entirely inside the Instagram app. The gym also integrated ManyChat and Calendly to make booking easy for users. The TBS team created content specifically to promote the Instagram Messenger experience through Stories and Feed posts. The team’s ManyChat workflow then sent a message to the person with booking links through Calendly. Once the appointment was booked, the member would get an email confirmation.

• The implementation of Instagram Automation by ManyChat resulted in significant operational improvements for Gold’s Gym. The automated booking system not only increased class sign-ups but also improved support agent productivity, freeing up their time to focus on other important tasks. The system provided a better customer experience, as members could easily book their classes without having to wait for a response from the community manager. The automation also eliminated the need for tedious phone calls and manual messaging, making the booking process more efficient. The success of the campaign, which continues to run today, proves that Instagram Messenger is an effective way to increase user interactions and enhance customer experience.

• 9X increase in bookings through Instagram

• 40% of total bookings were made through Instagram

• 99% decrease in support response time