OPERATOR NAME: Avalon Leisure
SECTOR: Public, Multi Site
MEMBERSHIP SIZE: <3,000
Proof not Promises
“Proof, not Promises” is not a marketing slogan it is The Retention People’s whole philosophy. Membership retention is a complex issue and we believe good operators will only make decisions based on facts.
As part of our commitment to ‘Proof not Promises’, we believe in providing statistical evidence to back up our claims of clients achieving a return on investment in our solutions. Avalon Leisure is a private management contractor operating in the public sector and manages facilities on behalf of Mendip District Council and Somerset County Council. We’re very pleased to have demonstrated that their retention system has paid for itself twice over in year one; with projections showing a return of twelve times the ongoing management costs for year two and beyond. Clearly, for Avalon and ourselves this has been a huge success story.
Identifying The Problem
Despite reasonably successful sales year on year, Avalon Leisure were struggling to increase the membership base across their facilities. The Retention People were brought in to address the growing concerns over cancellation rates. After reviewing operational procedures and performance of the facilities The Retention People put together a proposal for a package based on achieving a 12 month return on investment. Avalon Leisure could see the necessity of addressing the problem and the lucrative rewards however didn’t have an official retention budget. This was secured by presenting a strong investment case put together by The Retention People to their Local Authority clients to gain funding for their retention programme.
The Recommended Solution
One of the main aims was to be able to provide an easy to implement and centralised solution that would provide staff across all sites with the tools to help them motivate their members. Providing them with clear management information against staff performance criteria was also a priority. A package consisting of The Retention People’s powerful and centralised Retention Manager software was put in place to help staff proactively identify and interact with members which were at high risk of cancellation. As the system is centralised, management can pull off information of staff performance on any one member of staff from any one site at any one time. This system together with a comprehensive staff interaction training package and ongoing target monitoring and coaching ensured Avalon Leisure gained a rapid return on investment.
Return On Investment
The Somerset based leisure management company installed The Retention People’s software solution in July 2006 and over the following year, conducted a review of members ‘stay’ rates (comparing the average length of membership pre-installation with that of post- installation). The study demonstrated that members were staying on average up to 2.6 months longer than the previous year.
- Length of stay at Wells increased by 0.5 of a month.
- Length of stay at Strode increased by 0.8 of a month.
- Length of stay at Frome increased by 2.6 months.
It is possible to place a financial value on the impact of The Retention People’s solution by calculating the value of the additional membership length. For Avalon Leisure, this equated to £49,000 in the first 12 months across the 3 sites and is projected to return a similar amount year on year.
Customer Comments
“However, the biggest benefit at the three sites in Frome, Wells and Strode”, says Peter Gilpin, MD of Avalon Leisure, “is the shift in culture toward a more customer centric approach from staff. The systematic approach we now use toward membership retention by using The Retention People’s system means we can target our efforts to the customers we know need our help the most. Clearly this has a benefit to the customer in improved levels of service but also has a very positive affect on our bottom-line”.
