CWA Blog Archive-Beta Testing New Routes Without Pissing Off Your Members

Beta Testing New Routes Without Pissing Off Your Members

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Andrew Carter Smith tackles a routesetting challenge with a memorable title: how to beta-test new ideas without angering your membership. Written during the January New Year's Resolution Boom, when gym usage surges before people sort out which habits stick, the article uses that seasonal moment as a jumping-off point. Smith notes that roughly one-third of New Year's resolutions relate to physical health, and as climbing grows more popular, gyms increasingly capture that early-year wave of behavior change, giving industry professionals both an opportunity and, he argues, an obligation to serve those newcomers well. The article organizes around three tools routesetting teams can use to test new things without alienating members: temporal landmarks, member insight, and athlete needs such as the youth team. Temporal landmarks, like the new year or the start of a season, are moments when people are psychologically primed for change, making them natural windows to introduce something new with less resistance. Member insight means gathering and applying what your members actually want before rolling out changes, and attending to athlete needs means letting the requirements of groups like the competitive youth team inform experimental setting. The piece ranges into psychology and the benefits of planning, all in service of the practical goal of setting freely without frustrating the people who climb your routes. It includes a downloadable asset for building a seasonal, theme-based setting schedule. The throughline is that innovation in routesetting doesn't have to come at the cost of member satisfaction. By timing changes to moments when people welcome novelty, grounding experiments in real member and athlete input, and planning setting seasonally, teams can keep pushing creative boundaries while keeping their membership happy rather than blindsided.

Asset Caption

Andrew Carter Smith on introducing new routesetting ideas without angering members. Using the New Year's Resolution boom as a hook, he offers three tools, temporal landmarks, member insight, and athlete needs, to time and ground experiments. Innovation needn't cost member satisfaction if changes are well-timed, informed by input, and planned seasonally.