Having a friendly array of staff and PTs to make members feel welcome is the single most important factor for loyal gym users, according to a survey of more than one million customers.

The survey, which comprised feedback from members across 2,000 health clubs, showed that for loyal gym members (those who rate their gym’s service as 9 or 10 out of 10) cost is not, in fact, a prime concern. After friendly staff, loyal members ranked an abundance of good quality equipment; a varied schedule of fitness classes; a clean facility; and good customer service as their five most important factors.

The findings were presented today (11 March) at the IHRSA 2015 conference in Los Angeles by Listen360 executive vice-president Richard Thomas. Listen360 is a customer feedback system based around a companies’ Net Promoter Score (NPS), which invites customers to offer feedback on their experience and gives businesses a real-time overview of their strengths and weaknesses.

With NPS an established and reliable predictor of a firm’s future growth, it is unsurprising that there is a growing interest among gym’s in strengthening their score.

Retention Solutions director Jon Nasta, who is the Europe distributor for Listen360, told Health Club Management that the supply of integrated data not only helps to drive business decisions, but also provides a ‘prevention rather than cure’ approach to retention.

“Today Listen360 is sharing analyses of more than one million member feedback comments and this data allows health clubs to respond to operational demands of members before they decide to leave the clubs,” he said. “It's the first time such a large amount of data is available to show what makes members happy.”

As well as aiding member retention, the system has the potential help strengthen a brand’s standing and bring greater referral opportunities. The COO of low cost UK gym chain Xercise4Less is certainly among its fans – noting how the company’s NPS has increased from 31 per cent to 54 per cent in the last year. Speaking midway through the presentation, Stuart Perrin said: “We took Listen360 in-house 12 months ago and it has given every member a voice. As we embark on our aggressive expansion, we’re able to improve our concept with every new club by acting on our members’ concerns.”

Citing research that has found it costs 9X more to acquire a new member than to retain one, Thomas said Listen360 can serve as an early warning system to help deal with members’ complaints before they reach the stage of wanting to cancel their gym membership. Based on the survey results, he concluded that a loyal client spends more money, visits the gym more often, is less price sensitive and is less costly to market to.

Health Club Management will be on hand throughout IHRSA 2015, live reporting on the latest developments throughout the conference and posting them straight to the Health Club Management website. Head of news Jak Phillips will also be live-tweeting from the event, follow him on Twitter by clicking here.