A 2010 survey which revealed shockingly low consumer perception of the fitness industry is to be repeated this year.
Leisure-net and The Retention People (TRP) are to carry out the health, fitness and leisure sector’s biggest customer service survey for the second time, with improved software making it even quicker and easier to participate this year.
The research, which will take place in November and December, will use the powerful Net Promoter Score® (NPS), a tool used to measure and improve loyalty by several leading brands including Apple and Amazon.
A Net Promoter Score is obtained by asking customers a single question on a 0 to 10 rating scale: "How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?" Based on their responses, customers can be categorised into one of three groups: Promoters (9-10 rating), Passives (7-8 rating), and Detractors (0-6 rating). The percentage of Detractors is subtracted from the percentage of Promoters to obtain a Net Promoter score. A score of 75% or above is considered quite high.
Last year’s inaugural NPS survey revealed that just 38% of the 19,000 fitness industry customers questioned would proactively recommend their current gym or leisure centre, and 17% were so unhappy that they were classified as detractors – in other words willing to actively be negative about the service they received. These figures give a Net Promoter Score of 21%.
Commenting on what this year’s survey might reveal, Mike said: “It will be interesting to see if the renewed focus on customer service in the face of increasing challenges in attracting new members and customers shows itself in any increase in industry NPS scores. The advent of budget gyms will also have an interesting effect on customer service levels; will mainstream offerings cut back on service and staffing levels in response, or try to make service even better in order to further differentiate themselves?”
Branded ‘The Ultimate Question for your Customers’, NPS is a way of revealing the satisfaction and loyalty of members in just one question. The metric has been proven across more than 12 different industries, and has been directly linked to business growth, profitability and increased use of product. TRP and Leisure-net Solutions, are two of only four research companies certified to deliver NPS to its clients in the UK.
Mike Hill, Managing Director of Leisure-net Solutions, said: “In the current economic climate, customer insight is particularly invaluable. With the cost of obtaining new customers cited as being at least three times the cost of keeping new ones, understanding what keeps customers loyal can impact on an organisation’s bottom line.”
Alister Rollins, Founder of The Retention People, said: “ We are delighted to be able to offer the national NPS survey once again free of charge to the industry. Although it is a significant amount of work and cost to deliver, we believe operators and the industry need to have one clear and proven benchmark for measuring satisfaction and loyalty. Additionally, NPS is proven to be linked to retention and profitability. It is a very powerful metric and every operator should be aware of their score. Taking part in this free survey will give operators a true insight into how loyal their members are, the key issues that cause dissatisfaction within their facility and how this compares to other operators.”
Leisure-net Solutions, alongside retention solutions provider TRP, which will host the research and deliver the NPS survey to all members of participating operators free of charge. The results are then collated online and each operator provided with a unique login to an online portal, so that they can see the feedback from their members and benchmark themselves against other operators based on sector and region of the country.
Operators can sign up to take part in the survey via The Retention People website at www.theretentionpeople.com/nps