Queremos compartir con todos vosotros un post publicado por Jon Nasta en su blog el pasado Diciembre.
Este artículo muestra un anticipo de los resultados obtenidos a través del feedback recopilado durante los últimos 11 meses de 2014 de los socios de 100 clubes localizados en 10 países diferentes.
There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.
Sam Walton – Founder of Walmart
Our DNA is as a consumer company – for that individual customer who’s voting thumbs up or thumbs down. That’s who we think about. And we think that our job is to take responsibility for the complete user experience. And if it’s not up to par, it’s our fault, plain and simply.
Steve Jobs.
You can’t drag people from understanding to action. A customer isn’t actually at the last mile if you’re the one dragging her to the finish line.
Thomas Barnett – Chief Analyst at Wikistrat
How often do we say it to each other ??? «Why don’t we look outside of our industry more often and follow best practices that have been proven to work?»
When health club operators ask me about member feedback and why it matters it’s the quotes above that have made the biggest impression. We’ve heard it all before haven’t we?, as an old friend of mine used to tell me – «nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care!!»
During the last 15 years of working in the health club industry savvy operators have shown that steady flows of feedback will;
- Let you engage with customers, and listen to them in a structured, methodical way
- Track and measures customer satisfaction
- Help you quickly respond to customer issues
- Inform your whole team, so staff can take ownership for customer retention
- Leverage social media to help happy customers spread the word about your brand
We all love our health clubs and believe in the power of exercise and the gifts regular exercise can give to our bodies right? So why do we continue to hover around the 15% penetration rate and why are our attrition levels so poor compared to other industries that apparently have a far worse love affair with the general public.
Take a look at the table below and you will see the figures are genuinely shocking.
Table to Compare Customer Penetration Levels and Attrition.

AS the table above shows we are clearly failing both our customers and ourselves as an industry. Just remind yourself of these well held facts.
- 80% of new business comes from customer referrals in the health and wellness industry
- The ROI of one customer saved can be £600-3600 per year
- 92% of consumers value recommendations from family and friends above all other forms of advertising
- 70% of consumers value online reviews as the second most trusted source of brand information
Customer Loyalty is a Sign of the HEALTH of Your Clubs
- Customer loyalty is the measure of a customer’s sentiment over time.
- Loyal customers are the key driver for top line growth.
- Customer retention, as measured by repeat business, is a key driver for profitability.
Our industry is at a critical junction. Here in the EU we are lucky to have an industry body that has recognized the evidence and is setting about change in a manner to help us all. Earlier in the year euactive made the statement below and also set out their plans to turn the tide of stagnant gym membership rates
48000 Health Clubs of Europe can take their membership from the 44 million we have today to over 80 million in the year 2025.
euactive April 2014
To do so we need Government support. As an industry we are terrible at collecting evidence about the effectiveness of exercise as medicine. The Pharmaceutical industry puts over 40% of their revenue into R&D Alpha and Beta testing
In less than two generations, physical activity has dropped by 20% in the U.K. and 32% in the U.S. In China, the drop is 45% in less than one generation. Vehicles, machines and technology now do our moving for us. What we do in our leisure time doesn’t come close to making up for what we’ve lost. This year, 5.3 million deaths will be attributed to physical inactivity. Smoking is responsible for 5 million deaths per year.
Today’s kids are dropping out of sport and play early. Between ages 9 and 15, American and European kids’ activity levels drop by 50-75 percent. These inactive kids score up to 40 percent lower on achievement tests than their active friends. Today’s 10 year olds are the first generation expected to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents.
At Retention Solutions we are lucky to work with both great club operators and vendors of some of the best member communication, feedback software available. In an attempt to both help the industry and say thank you to all those who we work with (and socialise with ;-)) every year at various industry events we are publishing some analyses of our work over the last twelve months on member feedback.
- The data you will see comes from over 100 different Health Clubs
- In 10 Different Countries
- Collected over the last 11 months
- And is an ongoing study …………
So far 213 000 members have been asked to answer the question. «How likely are you to recommend your health club to a friend or business associate».
The answers can vary from «0» to «10» (unlikely to likely)
One follow up question is asked depending on the score;
- between 0-6 – «How did we disappoint you and what can we do to make it right?»
- 7-8 – «What could we do to improve?»
- 9-10 – «What do you like about our services?»
members have responded with feedback text to these questions this year.
6235 – Passives, giving scores of 7-8.
4020 – Detractors, giving scores of 0-6.
Chart to show key words repeated with feedback text.

The Words that members mentioned the most in feedback comments are:
1. Equipment
2. Classes
3. Facilities
4. Staff
5. Price
Graph to show wether the key words were mentioned in a positive or negative manner.

The great news above is that there are so many more positives than negatives but there are also a significant number of negatives that we need to take notice of.
Using the responses to the question we asked we have also been able to work out the Net Promoter Scores (NPS) for the sectors of the fitness industry that we have data on.
- Sliding 200 point scale
- Showing how likely your business is to grow or decline
- Positive scores show business set to grow
- Negative scores show business set to decline
- % of feedback from advocates
- Minus % of feedback from detractors
= Net Promoter Score
To put a perspective on what the NPS means Apple’s is 74, our own here at Retention Solutions is 64.
Table to show NPS by industry Sector in 2014

Graph to show top five key words mentioned by sector

What we saw happening to NPS by Sector through 2014

Trust Clubs – most mentioned words;
1. Facilities
2. Staff
3. Equipment
4. Price
Budget Clubs – most mentioned words;
1. Equipment
2. Classes
3. Facilities
4. Price
Private Clubs – most mentioned words;
1. Facilities
2. Classes
3. Equipment
4. Price
These are the key words mentioned by members from the data we have collected in 2014. We all sincerely hope you find it useful interesting and thought provoking enough to leave comment or get in touch with me – jon@retentionsolutions.co.uk
Special thanks go to Listen360, Perkville, Gymetrix, Retention Management ukactive and euactive for motivating, helping and sharing.
Speaker Writer & Blogger on Health Club Retention Communication Feedback Loyalty & Reward.
Provider of «Best in Class» software solutions for Health Clubs to improve Retention Communication Feedback Loyalty and Rewards for their members.
Twitter: @JonNasta
Source: Member feedback – What does it Mean to the Health Club Industry