Lesson 12: Running the Business
A platform is not a project you finish -- it is a business you run. This lesson covers the day-to-day operations of managing FitSite: support, billing, maintenance, and keeping customers happy.
Where We Left Off
FitSite is live and customers are signing up. Now you need to run the operation sustainably.
Daily Operations
Monitoring
Check these daily (or set up alerts):
- Uptime: Is the platform accessible? Use an uptime monitoring service.
- New signups: How many new customers signed up today?
- Failed payments: Are there payment failures that need attention?
- Support requests: Are there unanswered customer questions?
Customer Support
Your niche focus is an advantage here. Because all your customers are fitness studios, you will see the same questions repeatedly:
Common questions you will get:
- "How do I update my class schedule?"
- "Can I change my site's colors?"
- "How do I add a new trainer to my site?"
- "My domain is not working"
- "How do I cancel/upgrade my plan?"
Build your knowledge base (started in Lesson 8) around these recurring questions. Every support ticket that could have been a knowledge base article is a signal to write that article.
Support Tiers
As you grow, structure support by plan:
| Plan | Support Level | Response Time |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | Knowledge base + email | 48 hours |
| Growth | Email support | 24 hours |
| Pro | Priority email + onboarding call | 4 hours |
The Support Tickets addon can help manage support requests within the platform.
Billing Operations
Recurring Payments
Ultimate Multisite handles recurring billing automatically through your payment gateway. Your job is to monitor for:
- Failed payments: Follow up promptly. Most failures are expired cards, not intentional cancellations.
- Dunning: Set up automated retry logic through your payment gateway (Stripe handles this well)
- Cancellation requests: Understand why customers leave. Every cancellation is feedback.
Managing Memberships
Navigate to Ultimate Multisite > Memberships to:
- View all active subscriptions
- Handle upgrade and downgrade requests
- Process refunds when necessary
- Manage trial expirations
See Managing Memberships for the full reference.
Invoicing
Ensure invoices are generated correctly for every payment. Customers may need invoices for business expense reporting. See Managing Payments and Invoices.
Platform Maintenance
WordPress and Plugin Updates
As the network administrator, you are responsible for:
- WordPress core updates: Test on a staging site before applying to production
- Plugin updates: Same -- test first, then apply network-wide
- Theme updates: Verify templates still look correct after theme updates
- Ultimate Multisite updates: Follow the changelog and test before updating
A broken update affects every customer site on your network. Always test updates on a staging copy of your network first.
Security
- Keep all software up to date
- Use strong passwords and two-factor authentication for admin accounts
- Monitor for suspicious activity
- Have a plan for security incidents
Performance
As your network grows, monitor:
- Page load times: Are customer sites fast?
- Server resource usage: CPU, memory, disk space
- Database performance: Large networks need database optimization over time
Consider implementing caching (page cache, object cache) and a CDN if you have not already. The Cloudflare integration handles much of this.
Customer Lifecycle Management
Reducing Churn
Churn is the percentage of customers who cancel each month. For a subscription business, reducing churn is as important as acquiring new customers.
Common reasons fitness studio customers churn:
- They could not figure out how to use the platform → improve onboarding
- The site did not look good enough → improve templates
- They did not see value → improve features or communication
- They found a cheaper alternative → reinforce your niche value
- Their business closed → unavoidable, but track this separately
Encouraging Upgrades
Customers on Starter who are succeeding should be encouraged to upgrade:
- When they hit plan limits (sites, storage), show upgrade prompts
- Send targeted emails highlighting Growth plan features they would benefit from
- Showcase what Growth/Pro customers have built
Win-Back Campaigns
When a customer cancels:
- Ask why (exit survey or email)
- Address their concern if possible
- Offer a discount to return (30-60 days after cancellation)
Weekly and Monthly Routines
Weekly
- Review new signups and cancellations
- Respond to all open support tickets
- Check platform performance and uptime
- Review any failed payments
Monthly
- Analyze key metrics (MRR, churn, new customers, upgrades)
- Apply WordPress and plugin updates (after staging test)
- Review and update knowledge base based on support patterns
- Send a newsletter or update to customers (new features, tips, fitness industry news)
Quarterly
- Review pricing against competitors and customer feedback
- Evaluate template designs -- do they need refreshing?
- Assess hosting capacity -- do you need to scale?
- Review and improve onboarding based on activation data
What We Built This Lesson
- Daily monitoring routines for uptime, signups, payments, and support
- A tiered support structure matched to plan levels
- Billing operations including dunning and cancellation handling
- Maintenance procedures for updates, security, and performance
- Churn reduction strategies specific to the fitness niche
- Weekly, monthly, and quarterly operational routines
Next: Lesson 13: Scaling Up -- growing FitSite from a small operation to a real business.