In early 2017, the UK’s first dedicated EMS (Electronic Muscle Stimulation) studio opened in the UK.
James Nutall is commercial manager. We talked to James about his role in driving revenue for a premium studio audience and the operational support needed for a business, which is the first of it’s kind.
“We partnered with Fisikal right at the beginning after a robust tender process in 2016. We had some fairly specific requirements about how our client contracts had to run to suit our model and how we wanted to operate the studio, so we selected a partner capable of the custom development work we needed. In particular, we had designed a billing system we needed building completely from scratch.
“We approached a lot of providers in the tender process. Some of the wider known brands weren’t able to accommodate the custom side of the things we needed. Those off-the-shelf products work for some sure, but it didn’t fit our business and we weren’t prepared to accept that. We wanted a new contracts model for our studio and we knew how we wanted it to work.
“Fisikal was the only provider who could do all of the custom development we needed and accommodate all of the particular requirements we had, and they were able to deliver. It was incredibly complicated what the guys did for us — it was very impressive.
“Today Fisikal’s system runs the entire back-office of the studio. Foremost billing, appointments and operational visibility. In the simplest sense it allows our customers to sign up and agree to our custom Ts and Cs, create accounts and book appointments, and for us to charge appropriately how we need to.
“In my role, my time is spent deep in its financial reporting and operation visibility. I use it hourly and certainly daily to manage information. The reports drive all of our daily decision-making — like occupancy, payments, sales and prospecting — and we have been able to build a lot of custom reports since to best support our business management needs.
“Whenever we have an issue of any kind with a client transaction — which is pretty rare to be honest — the team respond very quickly. The level of service is above and beyond and we’re very pleased, which is really important as we rely on the software to run our business; it’s nice to know if there’s ever a challenge they’re on it and it gets fixed. Fisikal is our mechanism for doing business, I am grateful to have partners we can trust and grow with.”
