Creating a personalized experience for every customer can improve your business if you run a personal training business. This is because everyone wants to experience a service that’s just for them.
Think about it; if the training service isn’t personalized, they could get what everyone is getting instead of coming to you. The twist is that you can’t personalize the service without sufficient information.
One way to get the necessary information is to use personal training questionnaires. A personal trainer questionnaire guarantees you the information you need to curate more personalized experiences for your clients. They are, however, to be done right, so here’s what you need to get started.
What is a personal training questionnaire?
A personal training questionnaire is like the bio data of your customer, and it contains details you may need when working with a client. With the information in a questionnaire, you are aided in creating a plan that is designed just for them and to address precisely what needs to be addressed.
With a personal training questionnaire, you become privy to information like what the client needs to be achieved, what the short terms & long-term goals are, what milestones to set, and other important information.
Usually, a personal training questionnaire is given to a client just after they indicate interest in your service. With the questionnaire, you can ascertain that you can help them and that their goals are within the scope of what you can do.
Usually, a personal training questionnaire will contain a client’s current and past history, any conditions you may need to know of, their goal and services they may need, any complaints from previous training, what their training schedule should look like, etc.
Why Personal Training Client Questionnaires Are Important
Potential for Top tier customer service
Everyone loves to be treated like royalty, your customer inclusive. With a personal training questionnaire, you get a chance to get the information you need to treat them this way. A well-utilized personal training questionnaire will help you create a tailor-made service for your client.
You can map out precisely what your client wants and offer them the service they have experienced.
Evaluate the Client’s Strengths & Likely Risks
A personal training questionnaire has information on your client’s risks and things you may need to avoid overall as you train them. This information helps you mitigate risks and help prevent what may harm your client and potentially ruin the working relationship.
Based on the questionnaire, you can keep your client within limits they do not want to cross or have to bring up at any time.
Understand Your Clients Goals
A personal training questionnaire gives you first-hand information about your client’s needs and pain points. Often, this provides clarity first on whether you want to take them on. This is foremost because, based on their current goals and needs, you may be unable to assist them. This will, in turn, save costs, time, and energy for both you and the client.
This will help you map out a strategy or plan to ensure your client will hit their goal. You may even map out milestones. With this, you can further streamline what you expose your client to, making your training sessions more purposeful. Also, you can add exactly what you know motivates them, what counts and matters to them, what you can do to make them commit fully to their training, their lifestyle habits, and what about them you need to change.
Build Customer Confidence in the trainer
If a client is skeptical about making you their trainer, you’d be surprised at the effect a personal training questionnaire could have on them. With this questionnaire, a client sees you are committed to genuinely making them better by sourcing the necessary information. This, in turn, makes them confident that you know your onions and are committed to helping them achieve their specific goals.
It is also important that your prospective client trusts you before they make their decision. Usually, many clients may interpret you asking specific questions as being empathetic and non-judgemental. This will improve their honesty with you about things they struggle with and possible things that may cause them to derail. Usually, because they’re more confident and more relaxed to share with you, you’d find that you can get the information they may not have told you previously that may play an essential role in your training sessions.
Improves Business Branding
A personal training questionnaire gives your training business a more professional outlook. It not only hints to your clients that they’re working with a professional but also helps your business’s branding and general view. With personal training questionnaires becoming more popular in the industry, you don’t want to miss out on this.
Personal training questionnaire questions
If you run a fitness business and have been wondering what to include in your client’s personal training questionnaire, here are some questions to include:
- Do you have any condition that hinders you from participating in rigorous physical activity?
- Do physical activity cause pains in any area of your chest?
- While exercising, do you feel dizzy or lose balance?
- Have you ever lost consciousness while exercising?
- Do you have arthritis or any condition that causes your bones and joints to hurt while exercising?
- Do your joints hurt while exercising?
- Are you currently on any drugs?
- Are there side effects you experience from your use of drugs?
- Have you incurred any injuries while exercising?
- Have you had any accident that affected or currently affects you physically?
- Have you had any surgery that hinders any physical activity?
- What do you do?
- What is your current activity level?
- What forms of exercise do you currently do, and for how long?
- How long do you sleep on average?
- How much water do you drink in a day, on average?
- What is your day-to-day nutrition like? (You may include a 24 or 48-hour recall chart that details what the client has eaten within that time to help you get an accurate picture of this).
- Are you a none, light or heavy smoker or drinker?
- Rate your stress levels on a scale of 1-10.
Fitness Personal Training Questionnaire Questions
- What are your short-term goals for this training?
- What are your long-term goals for this training?
- What is your time frame for your short-term goals? (This should be subject to change depending on whether you think it’s realistic or not).
- What are some milestones you would like to set?
- What sort of activities do you enjoy?
- Do you have a bucket list of activities you’ve wanted to try?
- How would you know this training has been successful?
- What is an important driving factor for your goals?
- What fitness equipment do you have access to?
- What do you expect/hope to get out of training?
- What obstacles, behaviors, or activities could slow your progress in reaching your fitness goals?
In certain scenarios, you may also need to assess their mental health. Here are questions to include:
- How would you rate your mental health?
- Has your mental health taken a toll in recent times?
- What are the boundaries you’ve set for your mental health?
- Are you dealing with anxiety, sadness, or depression?
- If yes, how often do you experience them?
Check-In Personal Training Questionnaire Questions
While you may give your clients a personal training questionnaire at the start of their training, you may decide to provide them with another questionnaire after a while in the program. This helps you re-enact your commitment to their progress and goals.
With a check-in personal training questionnaire, you can help your client track their progress, and find out what’s working and what’s not, so you can help create even more tailored schedules for them. Important questions to include in your check-in questionnaire are:
- What would you like to change about your current training program?
- What do you currently enjoy about the current training?
- What do you currently find challenging with this program?
- What has improved since you started training?
- Have you achieved any of your goals?
- Is there anything hindering your progress?
- How has this training affected your mental health?
- Are you happy with your progress this week?
Things to avoid when you draft a personal training questionnaire?
Long questions
You want to be sure to satisfy your clients with questions. All questions on your questionnaire should be direct and easy to answer. While trying to make the questions as plain as possible, ensure that your clients can still give very comprehensive answers, as these answers will help you create a better service for them.
General questions
While general questions may seem okay, they cannot be used for a service that offers multiple benefits. This is because they can affect the quality of the information you’ll get from your clients. Be sure to create a different personal training questionnaire for the various services you offer. Ensure to create tailored questions to what the client may be facing or can relate to.
Some general questions may apply to all clients, but still, be sure to include more specific ones.
Not using the information supplied
If your client took any time to fill out your questionnaire, it is only fair that you read their answers and infuse the information from their responses.
