Ability to interactively Schedule workout day/times with clients?

[Charles Maze]

Does the fitsync professional version allow the trainer to interactively schedule workout days/times with clients?

I am an independent IT consultant and have a personal trainer as a client.
He has asked me to look into possible applications for him.

He has the trouble of his clients changing their workout appointments and times on a weekly and daily basis.
If he and his clients had fitsync accounts could his clients "signup" for specific workout times with the trainer?
Or could the clients look at the trainers schedule on-line, see an opening and move their workout time on the trainer's schedule?

Since I don't have a professional Fitsync account I can't advise him of the features.

Thanks,

Charles   

[Rock]

Charles-
Thought I'd jump in and answer part of your question as I have had real world experience with scheduling systems.  But first, tell your buddy to try FitSync for his clients for a couple months.  I get an annual subscription because its cheaper but your trainer can try the monthly for $20 a month.  I bet he spends more in a week on Gatorade than that. 

Alright, here's my background; I'm a certified trainer and have been using FitSync for several years.  It is far and away the best tool on the market because I have complete flexibility in creating my own routines, can monitor my clients where ever they are, and I can log on my PDA.  I used to carry a 30lb box of files around.  Now I carry an 8 ounce iPAQ!

Here's the skinny - the problem with scheduling systems is they only work if everyone always uses them for everything no exceptions and they only have ONE calendar in their entire life.  In the real world people forget to update their availability or they can't get the day they want so they call you or they're stuck in traffic so they call and you're not at your PC so you forget to update, etc.  The reason I say this is that I know a lot of folks who have spent big dollars on fancy scheduling systems only to find that the majority of their scheduling is done the old fashioned way.

My club tried a scheduling system once for personal training sessions and it was a complete disaster.  Nothing wrong the software but some clients used it, some preferred calling the front desk, some just had to talk to the trainer to discuss something.  Another issue was that some trainers were great about updating it but others not so much.  We had members showing up for PT sessions and their trainer was out to lunch or off or double booked so we went back to the old reliable phone calls.  Bottom line is that everyone, clients and trainers, had at least two calendars because trainers didn't want to put their wife or boyfriends birthday or bowling nite or poker night on the club calendar.  So, folks were always doublebooking or missing appointments.

With FitSync we do a lot of scheduling through the message system or the journal because the messages get delivered to the clients and trainers handheld and their Web account.  So a client will message me saying "how about the 15th at 3" so I say fine and put it in my schedule on my iPAQ which is what I use for logging client workouts anyway.  If the client calls to change it is rare that I don't have my PDA with me. 

Let me be real honest here because I used to manage over 100 trainers across 9 clubs - trainers are no different from anyone else, some are organized and some aren't (gotta say most aren't and the clients are even worse!).  Automatic scheduling systems work great if one piece is 100% guaranteed unchangeable (within reason) such as booking a movie or a train or a bus.  Book it, show up and the movie is playing.  Good luck trying to schedule two humans. 

Well that's my two cents worth. 

[Charles Maze]

Thank you, Rock, for your message,

I forwarded your comments to my friend, Russell, and encouraged him to sign up with FitSync.

You provided a great number of insights for me (and Russell) to consider.  There is no doubt it is difficult to find a silver bullet.  But your experience with scheduling systems is invaluable.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.  Much appreciated.

Charles