581803 Supercharge x Basic-Fit: Building an app strategy for lasting fitness habits

Building an app strategy for lasting fitness habits

Basic-Fit, Europe’s largest gym chain, embarked on a mission to empower people in their pursuit of fitness, health, and well-being. In their efforts to enhance their mobile app, they called for Supercharge’s behaviour design experts to evaluate the experience of their app and turn it into a powerful tool for building sustainable fitness habits.

Making fitness basic for everyone

With over 1000 clubs, Basic-Fit is the largest gym chain in Europe. Their approach revolves around providing affordable, unlimited memberships to their vast club network, granting access to a wide range of services beyond core gym facilities. These offerings encompass both in-person and virtual fitness classes, group workouts, and personalized online coaching services, all designed to assist users in their pursuit of healthier routines.

Complementing the gym subscription, millions of customers rely on the Basic-Fit fitness app as a valuable tool to enhance their fitness endeavors.

Through the app, users gain access to tailored workout guidance, enabling them to select exercises and programs that align with their unique goals, fitness levels, and motivation.

The app features a diverse array of workouts, each accompanied by detailed video instructions, ensuring safe and effective exercise execution while minimizing the risk of injuries. Furthermore, seamless integration with smart devices capable of measuring body composition allows users to track their progress and access insightful analytics, providing a comprehensive overview of the rewards reaped from their fitness dedication.

Building fitness requires building habits

As a leader in the retail fitness industry, the Basic Fit team recognized that the primary obstacles people encounter when building their workout routines revolve around the challenge of habit formation. We're all too familiar with the formidable task of cultivating new routines, and we understand that brief bursts of motivation to maintain regular gym attendance can quickly be derailed by demanding work schedules, family commitments, or the myriad of daily responsibilities that vie for our attention.

Attracting a consistent stream of gym-goers demands a well-thought-out strategy, incorporating techniques and tools grounded in the science of behavior design that leverage the latest insights from habit formation psychology. Consequently, stumbling upon our whitepaper on transforming apps into effective instruments for fostering healthy habits, the Basic Fit team engaged Supercharge's behavior design experts.

They sought our expertise to assess their mobile app and collaborate on optimizing it as a powerful tool to support customers in initiating their fitness habits.

Developing an app strategy around the habit loop

Our collaboration started with a systematic analysis of the mobile app. Our team conducted a meticulous expert evaluation of how the app’s functionality, user experience and visual experience support people in developing their fitness routines through the lens of the habit loop. We created a visually explained, screen-by-screen report of the current app experience along with functional recommendations and UX concept ideas illustrating the proposed changes and additional features lined up for the mission of habit forming.

The new app strategy primarily centers around newcomers, with the objective of making their first three months at the clubs a success, that builds the foundations for sustainable future routines.

This involves ramping up their motivation, helping them discover schedules that seamlessly fit into their everyday life, and customizing exercise regimens and workout programs to align with their specific fitness levels, goals, and personal preferences.

A roadmap to building healthy habits

Similar to having a personal fitness coach at your disposal in the club, the app offers practical guidance to users in creating a workout schedule that aligns with their motivation and lifestyle. Its goal is to transform lofty fitness aspirations, such as becoming fitter or stronger, into feasible, motivating, and trackable steps that users can realistically implement.

The personalized recommendation system plays a vital role in overcoming the challenge of "choice paralysis," ensuring that every user discovers workouts tailored to their fitness goals and levels.

This not only helps them make progress but also fosters a sense of accomplishment and success.

The developed app strategy applies a balanced mix of gamification elements, such as thematic challenges, a custom-made badge system and progress tracking that all contribute to building up motivation and help reinforce the right routines.

From vision to reality – a journey of impactful collaboration

Through our collaborative efforts, we delivered Basic-Fit, a strategic roadmap infused with features tailored to bolster the company's KPIs in user engagement and habit formation. In addition to this, we provided concrete design concepts for translating these ideas into tangible improvements.

Subsequently, our partnership transitioned into the execution phase, where our experts provided frequent reviews and consultancy to facilitate the smooth implementation of these enhancements. As our collaboration continues, we are appreciative of the opportunity to contribute to such a significant goal, making a meaningful impact on the health and fitness journeys of millions of gym-goers.