RETENTION Improved retention rates
will have major impact on a club’s bottom line
Homogenous offering In their book Funky Business, Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle offer their thoughts on what they refer to as the ‘surplus society’: “The surplus society has a surplus of similar companies, employing similar people, with similar educational backgrounds, working in similar jobs, coming up with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices and similar quality.” This could also be said of the fi tness
industry: we’re seeing similar marketing strategies targeting the same types of members, who are being sold similar types of contracts with similar time periods, which provide access to similar facilities and similar classes and equipment. It’s becoming increasingly diffi cult to separate public and private by facility design, content or contract type. However, where facilities do have a
clear USP, the fi nancial rewards are huge, as can be seen in the best and worst performing clubs example above. Of course, not all factors relating to
retention are entirely under operators’ control: the regulation of length of membership contracts has had an impact, for example, as have the challenges in the wider economy over the last four years. However, in general, we really haven’t
been very imaginative in our offering, nor in the way we provide support to members, with a focus on PT over service. Larger health clubs – those offering gym, studios, tennis, swimming pools – will routinely generate membership
METHODOLOGY P
ublished in 2013, The National Retention Report (The White Report) – produced by Dr Paul
Bedford – offers a valuable insight into the retention and attrition rates of the UK health and fitness market over a four-year period. Not only is it the longest study of its type to date, it’s also the most representative sample. Data was sourced from 100 sites,
with a breakdown – the proportion of chains, independents, trusts, local authority sites and privately managed public facilities – that mirrors the wider UK market. Within these 100 sites, 38 different club operators were represented,
66
with a total of 729,389 individual member records supplied. After the data was cleaned for irregularities, 342,759 member records remained for analysis. The measurement methodology
from the previous reports (2002 and 2008) was once again used to provide continuity and allow some comparison, offering a defi nitive way of measuring retention and attrition, as well as enabling participating clubs to compare their own performance against industry benchmarks. Membership data was extracted to
include the period 1 January 2009 to 31 December 2012, thus providing a maximum of 48 months’ follow-up.
Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital
revenues of £260k a month. F&B adds another £45–50k and PT just £18–20k. Yet while large amounts of time and effort are devoted to driving up secondary spend, many operators place little effort on improving retention, which is where the big money remains. ●
Paul Bedford PhD has worked in the fi tness industry for more than 20 years. His business, Retention Guru, helps health club operators increase retention, reduce attrition and improve member loyalty. Paul will be presenting on the fi ndings of The
National Retention Report at Leisure Industry Week this month – Tuesday 24 September, 1.30pm, in the LIW Keynote Theatre. Email
paul-retentionguru.co.uk Twitter @guru_paul Linkedin Paul Bedford
September 2013 © Cybertrek 2013
PHOTO:
SHUTTERSTOCK.COM/ ANDRESR
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