Dr Melvyn Hillsdon - Author of FIA's Winning The Retention Battle series of reports. Melvyn is at the forefront of research in this field, he is a highly respected academic and sought after advisor in public health.

Q1. I have recently held my first members evening. It included guest speakers from all aspects of health and fitness, e.g Dentist(teeth whitening), Personal Health and Stress management consultant, Physiotherepist, Diet Consultant. The evening was a massive success with lots of compliments made during and way after the event. Now I do understand in some respects why this would help with retention but I would like you to explain fully the reasons. By understanding these I will be able to hold our next members event with even further success.

Health/fitness club members might be expected to be more health conscious than non health/fitness club members and consequently enjoy hearing about a range of health related issues. Whether or not attendance at such events leads to an increase in retention is unknown. In those that do attend satisfaction is usually high but it does not necessarily follow that this translates into longer memberships. It remains possible that the people most likely to attend such events are those who have a propensity to stay longer anyway, and the people most likely to quit prematurely don't attend. It is certainly a question that deserves examination.

Q2. Is there a simple method of calculating retention correctly which the whole industry can adopt and doesn't involve paying an external consultant?

The straightforward answer is no. Because people join and leave on a daily basis, accurately measuring a rate of quitting is complicated and does require specialist statistical software. However, retention is not subject to weekly change and probably only needs to be measured once or twice a year in the same way that end of year accounts are dealt with. More importantly, the determinants of retention such as visit frequency, staff interactions, customer service, fitness appointments, should be measured more frequently, say monthly. This form of 'auditing' will be a better short term reflection of whether the business is achieving high performance in the factors that determine retention. Then, when retention is reported it can be linked to these process measures. Having a means of systematically monitoring club performance on the determinants of retention is the equivalent of the customer intelligence that Tesco's gets from its club card.

Q3. We are a smallish club with a very friendly and personal atmosphere /service. However our retention is not good (we lose almost all our members over a two year period - firstly is this normal?). Secondly why do you think this is? I have thought it could be to do with our sales process. We use a external marketing company to do impact sales for us every two years. They bring in a lot of new customers but they only sell two year contracts. I feel that our existing members get disgruntled about the offers, and how busy the gym gets, and almost all the new members stop coming after the first three months anyway and then complain they are locked in for two years. Do you think this could be part or all of the problem?

From the limited data available it is common for around 15%-25% of members to retain their membership for at least 2 years. Unmet expectations certainly lead to disappointment and reduced visit frequency, itself likely to increase the probability of quitting. If it is the case that the impact sales teams raise expectations about the 'product' that can't be met then inevitably quit rates will increase. If those members are then tied in to a membership for 2 years then it is unsurprising that when they get the first opportunity to quit most do. It would certainly seem worthwhile to discuss with the sales team what exactly it is they are selling and see how that matches with what you can deliver. It would also be worth considering a more systematic survey of members who were sold 2 year contracts, that are still in the first 6 months of membership, to see how they feel. It may reveal things that you can alter that would reduce the risk of quitting.

Click the box on the left to put your retention questions to Dr Melvyn Hillsdon. The most popular questions will be answered next month.