What’s harder: leg day or booking a gym session through DMs? Gold’s Gym had to fix one of them (and it wasn’t leg day, sorry).
For years, Gold’s Gym Costa Rica had a flawless system: members simply walked in, hit the weights, and got their sweat on.
Then the pandemic hit. Suddenly, reserving your gym time became a government requirement.
Gold’s Gym already had an automated booking system on Facebook Messenger, but its younger members, mainly millennials and Gen Z, wanted to book via Instagram.
That meant the gym’s community managers were stuck manually responding to every DM. (And we don’t have to tell you how exhausting that is.)
So Gold’s Gym teamed up with Costa Rica-based agency TBS Marketing to create a better booking experience for everyone using Manychat’s Instagram Automation.
The Challenge
Gold’s Gym needed to bench their old, slow system for good.
But without automation, booking a session on Instagram was a time-consuming, messy process: members would message the gym to request a booking link, and a staff member would manually respond.
This process chewed up an hour of a staff member’s time, and then they’d have to do it all over again with the next DM.
The Goal
It was clear what they had to do: Make booking a session as easy as sending a DM.
Gold’s Gym wanted to:
- Automate class sign-ups inside Instagram DMs
- Reduce the booking time (after all, speed sells)
- Free up staff from answering the same question 100 times a day
- Give members a quick, pleasant booking experience
“Gold’s Gym is a community-oriented business, known for its amazing automation and customer support,” says Trilce Jirón Garro, CEO of TBS Marketing.
“So for us, providing that same experience through Instagram is vital. Manychat automation for IG allowed us to create our existing flow in a Gen Z-oriented way that guaranteed perfect interaction with the booking service.”
How it Worked
Breaking it down, step by step.
Step 1. Make Instagram a booking hub
Instead of making people hunt down links, Gold’s Gym turned their DMs into the front desk:
- They promoted the new system in Stories, Highlights, and Feed posts
- Members were directed to Instagram DMs to book a class
- All they had to do was type “citas” (appointments) into the chat
Step 2. Let automation do the heavy lifting
Once a user typed “citas,” Manychat’s automation took over:
- Folks received a message instantly, guiding members through the booking process
- They picked their preferred gym location
- And the system sent them a direct Calendly link to book their class
Step 3. No reps, no confusion
Gold’s Gym needed a way to track members’ bookings and avoid confusion. That’s where tag-based logic came in.
Think of it like a “sticky notes” system:
- When a member started the booking process, Manychat added a “Booking Requested” tag to their profile.
- This stopped the automation from re-triggering the same conversation if they messaged again.
- Once they completed their booking, the tag was removed, resetting the process for next time. No repeats, no confusion.
The Results
Gold’s Gym didn’t just speed up the process; they put their booking system on steroids:
- 9X more bookings through Instagram
- 40% of all bookings now come from Instagram
- 99% decrease in response wait time (from one hour to near-instant)
Why This Worked (And Why You Need it, Too)
The old way: Booking a class used to be a workout in itself: DM, wait, hope for a response, and maybe get a link an hour later (if you hadn’t already lost interest and logged off).
The new way: Members type “citas,” get an instant response, book in seconds, and boom! They’re locked in for a gym session. Safe to say, it was a HIIT with members.
Swipe This Strategy
Here’s how to do it:
- Identify a common request. What are people always DMing you about? Bookings, FAQs, support?
- Set up an automation with a keyword trigger. Like “citas” for Gold’s Gym, pick a word that starts the process.
- Use Manychat to guide the experience. Keep it simple, conversational, and get folks to perform the desired action (e.g., making a booking) in as little time as possible.
- Integrate with your booking system. Whether it’s Calendly or another tool, this will make it easy to manage.
- Promote the new system. Use Instagram Stories, Highlights, posts, and Reels to train your audience to use automation.
Get started with Manychat today
| Step 1: Sign up for Manychat (oh, did we mention it’s free?!) Join 1 million+ smart brands and sign up for a risk-free trial. No lock-in contracts here. | Step 2: Build your first automation (with a lil help)Choose from one of our ready-to-go templates and get it up and running faster than making a protein shake! | Step 3: Secure the bag! 💅No, really. Get more sales from Instagram every time you post. |
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