Kirklees Active Leisure has launched an online membership sign-up system at one of its largest facilities, Huddersfield Sports Centre, as part of a pre-sales campaign for its new low-cost gym model SMART Fitness.

The leisure trust, which manages 11 major sports centres and swimming pools on behalf of Kirklees Council, implemented Gladstone Health and Leisure's new Join@Home system at the beginning of April having redeveloped a large area within the sports centre for the 110-station fitness suite.

Richard Marshall, Information Systems and Technology Manager at Kirklees Active Leisure said: "The launch of Join@Home went very well. We had a few initial teething problems, but fed the information back to Gladstone and, as usual, they fixed these relatively quickly for us. We have already had a few customers comment to us on the application's ease of use."

So far the new system has seen around 130 customers register online, about half of these as part of the SMART Fitness pre-sale and the other half since opening at the beginning of April, which represents around 28% of the current membership.

"We are encouraging members to use Join@Home via a registration link from the SMART Fitness web page," continued Marshall. "And we also have a large sales area with two computers in Huddersfield Sports Centre that customers can use to register online."

Kirklees Active Leisure became involved in the Join@Home program as early adopters at the beginning of this year. The leisure trust reviewed Gladstone's wireframe designs and concepts, making recommendations from their experience of sales and how they would like their customers to progress their online membership.

Online booking through Join@Home will be rolled out to Kirklees Active Leisure's 10 other centres throughout the next 12 months in order to allow time for changes to the trust's existing membership subscriptions options.

Gladstone's Join@Home allows non-members to sign up for a membership online without having to go into the facility.

The software's flexibility offers operators a quick and easy–to-manage process for their customers to purchase memberships, paid for up front, or sign up to a direct debit. Customers can even just register their details for pay as you go, so they can benefit from online bookings.