Virgin Active uses SMTP2GO to Better Reach its Members

Learn how Virgin Active uses SMTP2GO for the sending of all member communications - from bespoke news bulletins, class bookings and the transmission of members’ contracts.

About Virgin Active

Part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, the gym company launched in 1999 and now has health club branches spreading across South Africa, Namibia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Australia, Singapore, Thailand and the United Kingdom. Offering the latest equipment and innovative classes, Virgin Active has grown to be a massive chain with membership numbers totalling more than 1.4 million. That’s a lot of people to keep in touch with! So, how do Virgin Active manage this considerable task? By using a highly reputable SMTP service provider such as ourselves :)

We spoke to

We spoke to Darren Simpson, who’s the Business Systems Manager for the Asia Pacific region. Darren’s responsible for looking after ‘all things technology’ -  from the day-to-day operations to the technical strategy, ensuring that the technology capacity and capability matches the business’ aspirations.

How Virgin Active uses SMTP2GO

One of our longest-standing accounts, Virgin Active joined SMTP2GO in 2011. But what made Darren and his team look for a SMTP service provider initially?

“Given the volumes of email messages our business sends to our members, we required a robust email gateway that’s able to cope with our volumes across multiple platforms throughout the region. Having local networks in Singapore, Thailand and Australia, our preference was to roll out the email gateway as a shared service amongst the three countries. SMTP2GO has been a set and forget solution for us that has enabled us to focus on delivering high quality fitness facilities and most importantly a quality experience for our members.”

Key benefits of SMTP2GO

Darren and his team use SMTP2GO for SMS routing and the sending of welcome/confirmation emails, gym notifications and class/personal trainer bookings. For the team, using SMTP2GO has simplified and unified the sending of member emails and SMS, leaving time to focus on ensuring customers get the best fitness club experience. Using SMTP2GO increases email deliverability and provides access to detailed reporting that gives a real-time snapshot of sent emails, spam complaints, bounced emails and unsubscribe requests. These reports are one of the key benefits for Darren:

“Most importantly we like the ability to be able to see an archived view of what was delivered to our members inbox. This has helped for us to audit individual accounts and ensure the quality of our communications is as we expect it. The benefit of being able to use a uniform gateway across all systems has meant we haven’t had to develop multiple interfaces and have been able to keep the platform uniform across the APAC region.”

Summary

When I asked Darren how he’d sum up his SMTP2GO experience, here’s what he said:

“Simple, powerful and reliable at an affordable price.”

We’re happy with that! :)