Retention: a member-based approach
As new members get harder to capture, retaining the customers we already have is becoming even more important. Part of the problem when it comes to retaining members is that, as an industry, we still have a tendency to talk more than we listen. In an effort to reverse this trend Leisure Connection has conducted a series of focus groups that have revealed some interesting findings.
Authors: Victoria Branch and Kevin Yates
As an operator working in the public sector with open access being a priority, we don’t want to work with restrictive long term contracts, due to this and the usual factors that all operators have, we find we are fighting a constant battle against 4-6% attrition each month. Rather than trying to guess what will encourage and incentivise our members to stay… why not ask them?
When marketing, sales and fitness don’t work as a team, we lose the connection between what we promise and what we actually deliver. And that damages the brand. If we are going to tell a coherent story and meet the expectations of our customers, it is critical that there is a seamless communication loop between marketing, sales and fitness. Too often in our sector we over promise and under deliver; we need to make sure our customer expectations are realistic if we are going to try to meet them.
In order to really understand what was making a difference to how our members felt, how often they used us and how long they stayed with us, we wanted to take a fresh look at what we were doing in the gyms, and in the rest of the centres as well. The first part of the research was a national online survey carried out by Leisure-net Solutions on our behalf. We had over 500 members respond and many took the trouble not just to tick boxes, but also to give us comments and suggestions; this just goes to show that even if they are not totally happy with things they care enough to take the time to try help make things better. There is nothing worse than apathy. The findings from this survey then informed some more qualitative work, which entailed working with six member focus groups at different centres across the country.
We discovered a great deal about our members that we already knew, or thought we knew, and it confirmed some things that we had guessed. The really interesting points that came out of it were that there were two key factors above all others, that our members said would make a difference to them: Firstly they wanted demonstrable feedback about their progress towards their fitness and lifestyle goals. Secondly they really wanted to feel that they were valued as members. Now these might seem obvious in hindsight, but it made us think again about what we we’re offering.
The survey raised some really interesting questions about our approach towards the customer in general and retention in particular. We needed to use the focus groups to understand more fully the details around what our members were saying. We used Leisure-net to help organise and independently facilitate the six groups, which were held at centres across the country. We had up to sixteen members attend each of the one-hour sessions, and we made sure that the recruitment of the groups gave us a real cross section of all different types of members.
The focus groups were a reality check about what was happening on the ground. We received a lot of incredibly useful information to feedback to the individual centres. Sometimes 'Head Office' can get a bit remote from sites, and it was incredibly useful to get first hand feedback about what was being delivered and how. Secondly we started to understand what really motivates individuals and how they want to get feedback on their progress against their own individual goals and aims. Sometimes these are quite complex and involve several different interrelated factors – usually around health, fitness and sports – but other times they are really quite simple, such as maintaining mobility for everyday life or simply companionship. Finally we learnt a lot about how valued our members felt and how we could do some fairly simple things to make them feel more valued.
The biggest challenge will be putting systems and procedures in place. Whatever we come up with needs to be flexible enough to match individual needs and wants as much as possible. There is certainly no 'one size fits all' in terms of retaining members and making them feel really valued. We need to look at ways in which we can get staff to deliver a personalised service but within the limitations we have in terms of human and physical resources.
We are looking at a number of supportive retention systems that will be delivered through external suppliers. But we are also going to go back to the basics in terms of recognition of achievement and time milestones. Staff-customer communication is going to be key, setting basic standards in terms of mandatory contact from reception through to the gym. It’s great that the Leisure Connection directors acknowledge that it’s not all about feeding the sales machine and that we need to invest in retaining our members.