Merkle (www.merkle.com), the nation's largest and fastest growing customer relationship marketing agency, announced it is providing outsourced membership processing services for Bally Total Fitness, one of the most popular health club brands with nearly 300 fitness centers across the United States.

Merkle's Response Management Group is processing member dues payments and member correspondence using scanning technology to efficiently capture and upload member data into Bally's membership system on a daily basis. More complex customer service items are routed electronically to Bally's staff for prompt handling.

Bally Total Fitness' Vice President of Member Services Bill Midwig, said, 'Merkle is handling several mission-critical activities for us, and in a short timeframe has done a tremendous job in making our operations more efficient and allowing us to be more responsive to our members. Our relationship with Merkle is improving our costs, but at the same time making our interal processes scalable- so as volumes vary, so does the level of support."

Merkle's Response Management Group President Bill Sayre said, "Merkle's Response Management Group is extrememly pleased to be Bally's service partner in providing a comprehensive membership processing solution. Our operations and account support teams are working to provide a consistently high level of service, ensure that member requests are handled quickly, and produce the best possible service and financial results for Bally's."