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. Are female members more likely to cancel earlier than male members?

There is no evidence to date that retention rates vary according to gender.

Q2. I want to monitor my staff based on retention of their members. Is it fair to simply do this by assigning them members (randomly) to look after and measure how many cancel each month?

Assuming that they all work a variety of shifts then it is possible to do this fairly. However, quite often staff work fixed shift patterns meaning that some may work more lates / earlies etc. This may introduce some bias and make it less equitable.

The number quitting is probably the wrong measure as it is not entirely under the control of the fitness staff. It would be better to monitor the things that they can control and that are related to the risk of quitting. In other words, they should be monitored according to the proportion of their members that they speak to per visit. We know that the frequency with which they talk to members reduces the risk of quitting, yet a high proportion of members don't get spoken to when they are working out. It is possible to set this as a fitness team task rather than individual staff. You will need a systematic way of recording this activity and a means of reporting fitness staff-member interactions as a % of visits.

Q3. The business model of a health clubs seems to be broken! We know, to retain members they need support and service from my staff, but in order to compete on price I have to keep my running costs low in order to be profitabe. Inevitability that means less staff resulting in not enough staff time to support all members, poor retention and zero or negative growth in net membership. What is your view on a solution to this?

In part, you answer your own question. Zero or negative growth in membership cannot be profitable in the long run. If the membership yield is high per member, then fewer members are required to make the same amount of money.

In any club there is usually capacity within the existing staffing levels to increase staff-member interactions. However, if resources are low then your efforts should targeted at those most at risk from quitting, namely those making irregular visits to the club (less than once per week) and those in the first 12 weeks of membership.

Socialising new members into the club as soon as possible seems to be strongly related to their risk of quitting up to one year later. You should try to ensure that as many new members as possible make at least 4 visits to the club in the first month and are interacted with by staff on each visit.

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