When a prospect signs a membership agreement and becomes an official member, many club owners breathe a sigh of relief — you’ve added one more person to your club. However, signing up a member is only half the battle — then you have to work to “retain” them.
“Retention is one of those elusive words in our industry that represents how many of our members who joined in a given year are still with us at the end of that year,” explained Linda Mitchell, the director of marketing, PR and charitable giving at Newtown Athletic Club (NAC) in Newtown, Pa. “The reason I think it is elusive is that we generally look at this on an annual basis and it is really something that has to be addressed on a daily basis, by consistently doing things for your members that make them happy and satisfied.”
What consistent things should you be doing to improve retention? To find out, we discovered the micro and macro initiatives that clubs have implemented to keep members, after they’ve signed on.
Working With Members
According to Mark Miller, the vice president of Merritt Athletic Clubs in Baltimore, Md., Merritt’s biggest initiative to boost retention has involved working with members one-on-one through its RESULTS Program. A new-member initiation program, the RESULTS Program sets up each new member with a club advisor who gives them an initial assessment and helps them determine their goals, needs and interests. The member is taken through a tour of the facility, and meets with a department head, such as a personal trainer, group fitness instructor or programming manager to further analyze their needs. “It has become a joint partnership with the member,” explained Miller. “We work together, and we will hold their hand as long as they need us to.”
According to Miller, the RESULTS Program has helped with retention by working to discover exactly what a member would search for in a club membership. As a result, Merritt has been better able to meet its members’ needs, which has increased the chance of members being satisfied with their membership. About 80 percent of Merritt’s new members take the RESULTS Program, and during the two years the program has been implemented, only two people have quit. “The RESULTS Program helps us discover what the member is looking to achieve, and how they gauge success,” explained Miller.
If a member decides to terminate their membership, Merritt also works with members to understand why it’s losing their patronage. As soon as a member expresses their desire to leave, Merritt’s staff conducts a “Reverse-Needs Assessment,” that covers services the member used at Merritt, why they’re leaving, what their experience was like, etc. The Reverse-Needs Assessment works as a pre-emptive approach to attacking attrition, as it allows Merritt to discover what went wrong, so that they can make adjustments as needed.
Compared to last year, The Sports Center at Chelsea Piers in New York, N.Y. has increased its net membership base by 6 percent, and decreased attrition. Stacey Demar, the membership director at Chelsea Piers, has attributed the club’s increased retention in part to flexibility — Chelsea Piers has worked with members by offering varied memberships that range from annual, non-commitment and weekend only, and offering flexible dues to those who qualify. “This has opened the door for new members and decreased the amount of cancellations and freezes,” said Demar.
After companies no longer subsidized employee memberships to Chelsea Piers, the club started offering discounted corporate wellness programs. “We lowered the rates as well and allowed employees to pay on their own as long as we had marketing support from their firm,” explained Demar.
By working with members to lower barriers that may be keeping them from joining, and staying a member — such as income challenges — Chelsea Piers increased the chances of its members staying. Working with members to meet their needs fitness-wise as well (for example, with Merritt’s RESULTS Program), will increase membership satisfaction and retention in the process.
Technology
At Merritt Athletic Clubs, technology has operated to keep members — specifically, Merritt’s Visual Fitness Planner. A software program, Visual Fitness Planner has provided members with a number of features, including a health risk assessment, health age calculator, complete fitness assessment platform, habit tracker calculator and an avatar that tracks their progress, with before-and-after imaging. “Visual Fitness planner helps with retention as a visual tool to help with integration — it allows the new member to get a visual avatar of themselves and their risk factors,” explained Miller. “This visual reference brings more truth to the person in a graphic representation.”
In combination with the RESULTS program, Visual Fitness Planner has helped to deduce Merritt’s members’ needs, leading to better member satisfaction. “It allows our club advisors to create a strict plan to hit goals and results,” Miller explained. “It creates an initial plan of success. Visual Fitness Planner is just one of many tools, but in our RESULTS Program, it’s a critical first step.”
Newtown Athletic Club has had great success using technology for retention via an area created specifically for Technogym equipment — the TechnoFit program has used the Technogym SmartKey, a USB device, to track everything from members’ calories burned and miles logged, to exact workouts completed.
Popular among NAC’s members — the club has averaged around 4,000 visits to the Technogym area per month — Mitchell explained how the Technogym area’s “club-within-a-club” feel has been what attributed to NAC’s increased retention. “TechnoFit is one of two fitness centers in our club and has become a ‘club within a club’ for us,” said Mitchell. “This is a huge retention tool because as we all know, when people are connected to one another through a mutual interest, they become friends and no one ever wants to leave their friends.”
However, advanced technological tools aren’t absolutely necessary to increase retention — clubs can use basic methods as well. For example, at Chelsea Piers, the sports complex uses monthly e-mail newsletters and social media to connect with members, in hopes of retaining them by continued interaction. “Not only can we gain new members via Twitter and Facebook, but we can retain members,” said Demar. “Existing members can remain happy with up-to-date news. For example, if a favorite Group X teacher called in sick, members could see this on our news feed and adjust their workout for the day, and not be unsatisfied if they showed up without having this information.”
Community Involvement
Lastly, according to Mitchell, community involvement has been a great way to get members in the door, and keep them. “When you position yourself as a ‘pillar’ in the community, people want to be and stay involved with you,” explained Mitchell.
NAC became a pillar in its community by participating in leadership roles with local business organizations, serving on local boards and committees, hosting charity events and fundraisers, and supporting local schools and booster organizations. “We have found that our members are proud of what we do for the community and in many cases have brought opportunities to us or asked us to help them get involved in the community,” explained Mitchell.
Merritt Athletic Clubs recognized the retention benefits of being involved in the local community as well — it has supported local little leagues, charities, offered corporate wellness programs and worked with schools for field trips and events. “We try to make our club a lifestyle center,” said Miller. “We want to be a place everyone can go. Being involved in the community is part of that. People in the community choose us.”
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Sometimes it’s also the little things clubs do that work to retain members. “I love the term micro-initiatives,” said Mitchell. “I am thinking of the little things we do every day to keep members happy. These little things are as simple as saying hello to everyone who comes within 10 feet of you, calling new members every two weeks for the first 90 days, sending referral passes and discounts to the salon and spa every two months to all members, or posting members’ pictures on Facebook when they reach fitness milestones. This list could go on.”
Retention has to be a proactive effort. “I really think if companies looked at retention from the inside and out, and make it a proactive initiative, that would help,” said Miller. “You have to start from the get-go, when the member first signs up. You can’t wait until they quit. You have to hit them when they join.”
By Rachel Zabonick
