Author
Brian McBain is president of Club Market Vision Inc., a
market research company over the last 15 years focused on
the club industry that conducts customized member surveys,
focus groups and former member surveys in addition to
marketing plans and consulting.
Who would benefit from this
article? Fitness club and Martial Arts school owners,
program directors, and instructors.
The quick and easy answer to the question of when should a
club conduct a member survey, of course, is whenever you
want to know what members are really thinking.
In reality, there are many answers to this question. Here
are a couple of the more important ones.
1. When it’s important to know whether or not the club is
getting better at creating satisfied members.
A satisfied member is a member who is more likely to stay a
member. Nothing is more disconcerting to the sales staff
than to see members quitting or not renewing faster than
they can sign up new ones. “We work like dogs,” they say,
“to get new members and you can’t keep them.
We’re doing our part. How about you doing yours?” In the
worst of all possible worlds, the word begins to spread that
the club promises everything but delivers nothing. So unless
clubs know that members are not satisfied, they will assume
everything is alright and do nothing about it, or worse,
they’ll lower prices assuming that that will stem the tide
of defections...
A satisfied member will recommend the club to friends. A
very satisfied member will actively recommend the club to
friends. A deliriously happy member will proselytize for the
club. It sounds like an ad we’ve all heard, “A satisfied
customer is our best salesman.” In fact, it’s true and it
costs you nothing.
If just 25 percent your members actively recommended your
club to friends and associates, you could slash your
marketing budget to almost zero. In many of our member
surveys we find that, on average, members say they know
three to four friends who could be members of their club;
yet an average of more than 70 percent, on average have not
contacted the club to bring in a friend as a guest. The math
is truly frightening — or heartening— depending on your
point of view.
A satisfied member will purchase more non-dues-covered goods
and services. This is almost a no-brainer. If more members
buy more merchandise in the pro shop, smoothie drinks or
additional fee-based special classes and personal training,
it’s a win for the club and a win for the member.
Increasing member satisfaction is an effective basis for
judging and rewarding employee performance. Many of our
client clubs do exactly this. They base any increased
compensation on changes in performance noted in their annual
member surveys.
Department heads and employees anxiously await the results
of the annual member survey to see not only how their
departments have improved but, equally importantly, to get
ideas for improving their departments for the next year. In
fact, some clubs hold informal contests among departments to
see how many of the members’ written suggestions they can
implement — many such suggestions require little or no cost.
2.When a club is considering a major renovation or
expansion.
To inject new life into a club, to attract and accommodate
new members or simply to retain old ones, some clubs believe
that spending a lot of money on an expansion or a major
renovation will be needed.
In many cases that will be effective. But what to do? Do we
really have to spend that kind of money? Are we sure that it
will do the trick? To answer these questions, we have
suggested that clubs “float trial balloons” in their member
surveys.
For example, a large multi-sport club was considering
creating an outdoor water park addition. The addition would
feature a beach-entry pool, a large slide, other
water-powered amusements and so on.
When we asked members about it, they rejected the idea out
of hand. The most commonly written comment was that they
wanted fewer kids — not more — around the club and didn’t
want the club to take on an “amusement park” personality.
Moreover, what members were really concerned about was the
cleanliness and condition of the locker rooms, and they
wanted more help on the fitness floor. They wanted the club
to designate a member of the fitness staff (or a personal
trainer) to walk the fitness floor and offer encouragement
and help with the proper use of equipment.
For far less capital investment than creating an outdoor
water park, the club had answers to their slipping
retention.
3.When competition is entering the marketplace.
To be sure, when a new club makes it known that they are
going to enter the market, you will lose members. However,
the question becomes, how to minimize the loss? Better
still, how do we limit the loss to those members most able
to be lured by cheaper prices? And while we are at it, how
do we make our club more attractive to new members in the
community whose interest may be peaked by the flurry of
publicity surrounding a new entrant?
One of our client clubs was faced with a competitive
incursion and conducted a member survey. The most striking
finding was that members had a very low opinion of the
club’s price/value equation. The survey highlighted a number
of things the club could do to change member’s perceptions
of the club’s price relative to its perceived value.
We recommended that the club tell members what changes the
club had made in the past year in its physical plant and its
programs and services and that the club regularly tell
members what changes the club would be making in the future.
We recommended that they made sure members knew about staff
changes and staff qualifications in the newsletter and on
the Web site.
We also suggested that the club build value into the
membership by occasionally providing fruit with a “Take One”
sign at the front desk or that they do a deal with a local
bottled water company to provide free bottles of water on
occasion.
As a result of implementing these and other recommendations
aimed at building membership value, the club minimized the
impact of the new competitive club and, better still,
members’ ratings of the club on price/value rose
considerably — to acceptable levels achieved by other
similar clubs in our database — on the next year’s member
survey.
Many clubs find themselves in a kind of malaise where
retention is slipping steadily, new member sales are lagging
and the club just seems to be in a rut. On the surface there
is nothing really wrong, but if things were to continue,
there would be problems. In these circumstances the clubs
need a “tune-up” and mid-course corrections before minor
irritations become bona fide challenges.
Member surveys give clubs an excellent diagnostic evaluation
of most of the important aspects of a club’s health and
well-being. These surveys provide members’ evaluations of
the physical plant such as the amount and quality of fitness
equipment, the club’s upkeep and cleanliness and overall
appearance and appeal.
Member surveys provide penetrating insights into staff
effectiveness including management, fitness staff, reception
staff, program and service staff, personal trainers and
maintenance staff. They give an incisive read on the club’s
important services and programs from pool-related programs
to group fitness programs to Pilates and Yoga programs.
With survey findings in hand, clubs are equipped to make
major changes and minor course corrections to get the club
back on track to success and profitability.
Much of what a club needs to do to fix problems and improve
on their strengths is to communicate more effectively with
their members. Members need to know that they are not being
taken for granted and that what they think and feel is
important to the club. And there is no better two-way
communication tool than a member survey.
Clubs that get the most value from their member surveys take
the time and trouble to merchandise the findings back to
their members and to implement as many member suggestions as
possible. They do it on a “We asked, you told us, here’s
what we are doing about it” basis.
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1-877-774-5425 (North America) +800-CHAMPWAY (Australia and UK)
By: Brian McBain
President of Club MarketVision Inc.
