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Is It Satisfied Clients You're After? NO! Posted on Aug 4, 2008 - 11:30AM Is it satisfied clients you’re after? NO! Contributing writers: Brett Johnston, Mark Leeling & Randy Humola I’m sick of client satisfaction. The worst companies in the world tout the fact that they won some satisfaction award. It’s not just a bad joke. It’s a pathetic statement. Every club in the fitness industry, is hoping that their members will renew their membership, renew their personal training package or just buy more of whatever. They’re hoping that their members will spread the word about how great their products are, and about how great their people are. And they’re hoping to proactively encourage others to buy a membership, personal training, supplements or do any other kind business with them. That is NOT client satisfaction. That is client LOYALTY. Every health club must have loyalty as its mission, not satisfaction. Every health club must have loyalty as its imperative, not satisfaction. Health Club Corporate drivel mission statements talk about exceeding member’s expectations, talk about being number one in the industry, talk about shareholder value, and say NOTHING about the one word that makes all of these things happen: LOYALTY. The reason that health clubs, especially big health clubs, don’t stress loyalty is because it’s much more difficult to achieve, and requires both an investment, and a commitment on the part of senior management to instill. Client loyalty is a hollow statement unless it is preceded by a mission. REALITY: Every health club and its executives must be loyal to its employees, loyal to its product quality, and loyal to its service excellence. This means they must both invest in and support a loyalty imperative. HERE’S THE SECRET: Loyalty must be given before it is received. No health club or even studio can ensure client loyalty until they have secured employee loyalty. It amazes me that big clubs will layoff hundreds of people in the name of profit or shareholder value, and think nothing of what it does to internal morale, or the impact that it has on the reduction of service to its personal training clients -- even a reduction in the quality of its product. Loyalty is both an action and a process. Look at the best companies in the world. They have great employees. They have great products. They give great service. And they’re easy to do business with. This makes them attractive. And these are the elements that create loyalty. The one element that is most important is great service. Memorable service. Loyalty-based service. And that flies in the face of satisfaction (the lowest level of acceptable service). In our tele-seminars, we teach the 5,000-year-old ancient Chinese proverb, “To serve is to rule.” Giving great service is an integral part of the loyalty process and it’s a fundamental part of “giving loyalty before loyalty is received.” Going above and beyond the clients expectations is how to gain their confidence to buy again and again. Here are a few ideas to incorporate into your club’s loyalty imperative: 1. List all reasons that clients buy personal training from you. There are probably less than 15 (many underlying buyer motives, but usually fall under some health fact - lose weight, etc). 2. List all barriers that you place in front of a member connecting with you or you connecting with them. There are probably less than 10. (no trial of a personal training session - no reference point of your service, lack of prospecting, members that go straight to a class and immediately leave, your schedule, etc.) 3. Once you have all the opportunities and all the barriers listed, have a weekend retreat with general manager or personal training supervisor (if applicable), personal training manager and personal trainers to determine best practices, generate new ideas for serving and making their "experience" one that is memorable and cannot be duplicated on their own or with a competitor, and making it easier to do business with your club. Document (record) everything. 4. Put the ideas and the best practices into action. Create a training program for best practices, and invest whatever is necessary for making your club “barrier-to-buy” free. 5. Rather than announce all of these changes in the form of a bragging advertisement, or internal hoopla, let your members have an opportunity to react and respond to your new and better way of doing business. Let the referral part of your business begin organically. Let it be earned, not asked for. Let every session be one that goes above and beyond their expectations. Learn what those expectations are and not just satisfy them, but go above them to create LOYALTY. Loyalty that says, "I would rather buy from you, than from anyone else. I would like to buy it again from you." 6. All members of club management must support this process both verbally and visually. If you’re going to evolve from satisfaction to loyalty, it has to be “hands on,” not just “words on.” I wish more clubs would add to their mission statement that they’ll be loyal to their employees -- so that their employees would be loyal to their customers -- so that their customers would be loyal to the company. That is a loyalty chain. And it doesn’t start with satisfied customers. It starts with ownership and management understanding that loyalty is a way of life, not just a word. That loyalty starts at home, not at a customer’s place of business. That loyalty is earned by a process, not by a wave of a wand, or even by product excellence. And loyalty is easily measured. Just look at your repeat business. You should have an average of 50% of all personal training sales as repeat clients, and obviously 50% on average should be new clients. Satisfaction is also easily measured. Just look at the customers you lost. They are in the form of clients who just don't buy personal training again. Whether it is after one month, three months, nine months or even a year later, a loyal client will be a client for life. Try to introduce personal training into their lifestyle rather than changing their lifestyle to accommodate personal training. |
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