LA fitness Case Study from Ink Digital Agency
 

Case Study

Company Name:
Ink Digital Agency
Company URL:
http://www.inkdigitalagency.com

LA fitness

LA fitness
LA fitness
LA fitness
URL:  http://www.lafitness.co.uk
Key Industries:
Business
Entertainment & Leisure
Internet
Key Sectors:
Behavioural Targeting
Design & Build
Display Advertising
e-commerce
Usability
LA fitness


Brief

To develop an interactive web application for use on a self-service touch screen kiosk to enable members to sign-up for gym memberships in club without the need for a sales advisor assisting them. 

Strategy

The traditional approach to kiosk-based systems is to use Windows applications as additional security typically needed for kiosk systems is easier to achieve using Windows applications. As there are 83 LA fitness clubs, and 2 kiosks per club, deploying and managing separate installations across 170+ kiosks scattered all over the UK would have been a huge undertaking. As a web development company, however, we decided to focus on what we do best and develop a web-based solution that can run in a secure browser using kiosk mode.

Execution

Unlike the public facing websites that we develop, where cross-browser compatibility is a key requirement, running a web application on an unattended kiosk meant that we could focus specifically on a single browser…the best one for the job required. Internet Explorer 8 had recently been released by Microsoft and this certainly provided the best features for a kiosk environment whilst also having a great adoption of W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) web standards. By focusing on a single browser, it not only made the development process quicker, but also gave us the opportunity to develop some advanced features that the chosen browser has excellent support for.

Deploying a centralized web application makes it really easy to roll out additional kiosks with a minimal amount of setup needed. All membership prices are stored in a central database and a simple one time browser-based setup routine enables the correct prices for each club to be displayed to the user.

Results

For the initial pilot program 2 kiosks were deployed in 8 clubs and after an initial period of people getting used to new installations, some members asking questions like “is there a fee to use your cash machine?”, the take up has been excellent. In a 6 week period since the first kiosk was delivered, almost 400 members have signed-up through the kiosk, generating about £250,000 in revenue.

The roll-out stage is underway, with a further 50 kiosks been delivered over the next 2 months.