Mindbody CEO: Important Updates & What’s Next for Wellness

Hello Mindbody customers. 

Well, here we are more than two months into the COVID crisis and the impact on our industry has indeed been massive around the globe. And all eyes today are on the phased reopening in various states and provinces and countries around the world. And we all know that there's a vast spectrum to these reopening plans. So when in effect what the world is doing right now is, is an experiment to find out which methodologies work better than others. 

And throughout all of this. I think the thing that's inspiring us the most at Mindbody has been all of you- your durability, your innovation, your commitment. We see the businesses that have been allowed to reopen and see how careful you're being by providing the social distancing by employing the PPE, by carefully cleaning and sanitizing your spaces. The level of innovation is indicative of the wellness industry's care for the people of the world, and our purpose of helping these people live healthier, happier lives. 

So, what does this crisis mean for our industry longterm? You know, this is, of course, still largely unknown. But there are some things that we do know. We do know that crises in general will cause an acceleration of certain trends and a deceleration of other trends. So of course, we've seen an acceleration of virtual delivery models. We've seen a deceleration in the near term of industry growth, a lot of people who were planning to open additional locations have slowed down those plans now. But what we don't see are indications that the wellness industry's future is in any way diminished by what's happening with COVID-19. In fact, what we see now is that this is going to kick off an entire new wave of wellness industry growth.

Because one of the truths that has come out of the COVID pandemic, is that the pre-existing conditions, (obesity, cardiovascular disease, type two diabetes). These pre existing conditions are actually the things most likely to cause COVID to create severe complications, and even death, in people. We've also seen during this period of social distancing and sheltering from home, pretty significant mental and social well-being impacts. And so it's not a free thing to have people isolating in this manner. It causes these knock-on effects. And these knock-on effects as well as the pre-existing conditions that make the the body's response to COVID worse, are what you folks, the wellness industry, address. 

So we think coming out of this, we're going to see people coming back into the studios, back into the integrative health centers, back into the spas and salons, in even greater numbers. And we know that many of you are going to be dealing with the complexities of how to manage this. And of course, online booking, managing waitlist, these things are going to be even more important than others. So this is a really good time. If you haven't done so already to be availing yourself of the options in our software, both things that you are already paying for that you might not have been using, as well as the opportunity to do free trials of add ons of Accelerate and Ultimate versions of the software. 

And we are investing in improving all of these things for you. First and foremost, the virtual wellness platform has been accelerating rapidly every single week, new features and functionality coming out of the  Mindbody app and the mindbody.io system designed to bring more people into your businesses. We've been investing heavily in this in the last couple of months and we're going to continue to for the months to come. 

Because we believe people are going to come out of this crisis with an even greater desire to find wellness and improve the health and happiness of their lives. As far as fee relief, if you did not receive April or May as fee relief, you can go ahead and ask us for that. We also have options for people who are just in very dire circumstances, and your business is not able to reopen right now but you might be able to reopen down the road. So give us a call and our customer success team can talk to you about that. 

So anyway, folks, these are indeed trying and difficult times, but they're also inspiring times on multiple levels. I want to applaud all of you for the work that you've done to hunker down during this period, now is the time to be actively planning the reopening of your business and planning the future of your engagement in the wellness industry. Thank you for everything you're doing.