Customer Feedback Strategy: Utilizing Surveys to Enhance the Fitness Client Experience

Empowering a client to accomplish their fitness goals requires finding out more about them. The same goes for growing your studio and creating a positive customer experience.

When customers feel they’ve had a positive experience, 89% of them are more likely to patronize your business again. Not only will they come back, 72% of customers will tell an average of six other people about you. Just as you have a strategy for achieving client success, developing a strong customer feedback strategy can really drive growth.

The customer feedback process assesses how satisfied consumers are with a company’s offerings and their overall experience. Responses to questions like “How did you use…” and “How did you feel…” are types of customer feedback you can use to build ideas for improvement.

Developing a strong customer feedback strategy in the fitness industry gives you a fuller picture of your clients’ experiences. Ultimately, you can leverage that information to attract, convert, and retain more clients.

What is a customer feedback loop?

Customer feedback loop refers to the process of using client feedback to inform future decisions. When successful, this loop consistently feeds information you can use to strengthen your business. It also helps you identify your highest value clients.

Taking this approach involves interacting with and learning from clients so that you can adjust and enhance your offerings over time. You can learn more about your clients’ wants and needs, find out whether there is room for improvement, and make the appropriate adjustments to your services by setting up a feedback loop.

Your relationship with your clients will get stronger while you grow your company using real data.

Customer feedback strategy framework

There’s a proven framework studio owners can use to develop a strategy to obtain customer feedback: the A.C.A.F. Customer Feedback Loop.

With the A.C.A.F. Customer Feedback Loop, you can strategically collect and act on feedback from your clients to enhance the quality of service you provide. This is your framework for establishing an effective customer feedback strategy.

Ask for feedback

Develop ways of asking for feedback at every stage of your client’s journey. This includes both positive and negative feedback. When a client cancels their membership, ask them why and what you could have done better.

Categorize the feedback

In order to act on feedback, you need to categorize it. This will help you identify trends and gain deeper insight. For instance, questions in your surveys should be based on different areas of your business and different points in a client’s relationship with you. A targeted feedback strategy helps you deliver on expectations, understand what attracts members, enhance marketing efforts, and increase retention.

Act on feedback

After categorizing and analyzing feedback, it’s time to act. You should be able to identify trends that can improve services and operations. Share the feedback with your instructors, front desk staff, and sales team. Give them a clear directive and goals so you can implement necessary changes.

Follow up with clients

The final step in the loop is the follow-up. Follow up with members by letting them know you’re listening to their feedback by updating them on any changes. This shows that you care about their feedback, setting up even more opportunities to receive further feedback in the future.

Create the survey: Make it simple

Client surveys measure how happy or unhappy your clients are with a product or service, or with a specific interaction with staff or instructors.

The key to designing successful customer surveys is making sure it is both user-friendly and structured in a way that allows the collection of useful data.

The goal is to hear from your clients, so keep your surveys as simple as possible to get the most feedback. Here are some best practices for creating an effective survey.

• Keep it short: 75% of your clients prefer a maximum of five questions, so keep each survey at about five questions or less. You can always ask for more feedback later.
• Vary your questions: Think about the best format for your questions based on the feedback you’re looking for. If you’re looking for reactions to a new program, you can give clients a simple 5-point satisfaction scale. When you want more suggestive feedback, ask an open ended question.
• Be direct: Avoid leading questions which can skew the results or loaded questions which can inadvertently make assumptions about members. It’s recommended to keep 90% of your survey unbiased, and scale-based or multiple choice.
• Don’t overdo it: Sending out too many surveys makes clients less likely to respond. Start small and find the sweet spot for your business. Frequency will also depend on the types of surveys you’re sending out and how you’re administering them.
• There’s a time and place: Be conscious of how you’re sending surveys. Most importantly, meet your clients where they are to make it as easy as possible to reply. Make sure your surveys are mobile friendly so they can be completed from anywhere.

Break down your surveys into categories

Knowing what you’re asking for is a key part of strategizing customer feedback. Categorizing your surveys ensures that there’s a compelling reason behind them.

Here are seven types of client surveys and questions you can consider:

1. Welcome surveys

New member surveys help you understand why people chose your gym or studio, and what they can expect from you.

This can be given to new members as part of their onboarding experience. You want to hear about their goals and expectations, and they want to tell you. Responses will also offer insight into what marketing strategies work for you.

Example questions:

• How did you hear about us?
• Why did you join our studio?
• Have you been a studio member before? If so, why did you leave your previous studio?
• What amenities/services are important to you?

2. Member goal setting

Asking clients about their fitness goals and what they aim to achieve at your studio isn’t just for them. Member goal surveys tell you what their expectations are for their experience at your studio.

These surveys can be very valuable, as clients are invested in their self-success. Use this opportunity to get a better sense of what motivates your clients to see how you can better cater your customer service experience to that.

Potential goal-oriented questions:

• Why do you go to the gym?
• What are your favorite exercises?
• Do you enjoy fitness classes? If so, which ones?
• Do you prefer to work out alone or with a friend?
• What is the main challenge holding you back from your goals?

3. Client needs and preferences

Feedback related to client preferences can tell you how people feel about in-class experiences and other services. When clients’ needs are met at an exceptional level, they’re more likely to try additional services and products.

Responses to this can guide instructors on how to run classes. They can also help you evolve your programming to better suit ongoing demands and preferences. Here are a few types of questions to include in this type of survey:

• What challenges you during your workout?
• How knowledgeable are our fitness instructors?
• What amenities would you like added to our locker rooms?
• Is there a class or service you’d like added to the schedule?

4. Marketing & sales feedback

This feedback helps improve and better connect with your leads and prospects through your marketing strategy. The questions you ask in this survey will depend on where the client is in their journey with your business. Here are some examples of what to ask:

• Personal info: What is your age/gender/occupation?
• What time do you attend class?
• What workouts or services most interest you?
• Goal-setting: What are your long-term goals?
• How much sleep do you get per night?
• What is your daily nutrition like?

5. Client satisfaction

Client satisfaction surveys are easy for clients to answer. There are two main types of customer satisfaction survey:

• The happiness survey that measures the emotional experience clients have using different “smiley face” expressions.
• Satisfaction scale using numbers from 1-3, 1-5, or 1-10.

Even though it’s straightforward, these surveys can identify trends among clients. They’ll reveal how satisfied clients are overall when it comes to your classes, services, or products. After all, 86% of customers have the potential to turn into long term, loyal clients when they’re satisfied with good customer service.

Ways to ask about satisfaction:

• How happy/satisfied are you with the overall experience at our studio?
• Can you tell us more about your experience, so we can adjust for next time?

6. Customer loyalty

Customer retention and advocacy can be gauged with the help of customer loyalty measures. Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys are a good indicator of this. NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of customers who are not promoters from the percentage of customers who are promoters.

Companies with the greatest NPS in their industry have a 50% greater chance of outperforming their rivals, as reported by Bain & Company.

Questions to use for NPS:

• On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend?
• On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend a specific class, instructor, or service to a friend?
• What is the main reason for your score?

7. Identify cancelation trends

Surveys can be highly effective at reducing churn and retaining clients. When members cancel their membership, it’s the perfect time to pinpoint the causes and make adjustments.

Identify what pushed them to cancel. Was it one bad experience or more? The distinction matters, as 59% of clients will move on after several bad experiences, whereas 17% will leave after only one.

Maybe they just weren’t feeling it anymore, classes or membership grew too pricey, or they found another program they’re more interested in. In that case, here are some survey questions you can ask:

• Why did you join our gym in the first place?
• What challenges have you faced?
• Why have you decided to cancel?
• In what ways can we improve the overall experience?
• Would you recommend us to a friend?

When to ask: Map out the member journey

In order to grow as a company and strengthen connections with customers, it’s important to regularly ask their opinions. Asking for customer feedback is most effective after a customer has finished a service or class offered by your company, but there are other opportunities to do so during the customer’s journey.

Sending out links to surveys via email or text message can be automated for you and your clients’ convenience. Place QR codes strategically around your studio to provide open, ongoing opportunities for clients to submit feedback. Here are five other points along the client journey where you may ask for feedback:

• After onboarding: After welcoming a new client, it’s a good opportunity to solicit their opinion. You can gain insight into their onboarding experience and what they hope to gain from becoming a client.
• At the 30-day mark: Send out a survey after 30 days to see how your clients are doing with their fitness plans.
• After a challenging class or event: After putting on a challenge or event, it’s important to get people’s thoughts on how well it went and where it may be better in the future.
• Different points throughout the year: Send customer satisfaction surveys at various times of the year to help you gauge performance and make adjustments as needed.
• Once they’ve canceled their membership: Clients who decide to terminate their membership provide valuable feedback that may be used to enhance the service and reduce attrition rates in the future.

Incentivize the experience

If you want more people to fill out your survey, offering incentives for their time and feedback is a proven effective strategy. With everything going on in their lives, clients’ time is valuable, and it can be difficult to get them to take the time to provide feedback.

Give clients who take the time to fill out a survey a chance to earn rewards points in exchange for their participation. Clients can use their accumulated points to buy swag, activate discounts, and even redeem them for free classes.

Incentivizing surveys raises response rates up to 15% on average, though oftentimes it can be much more effective depending on the context, survey groups, and rewards offered.

Another fantastic benefit of incentives is that they show that you care about your clients’ opinions so much so that you’re investing in them. A DePaul University study on survey participation found that investing in better incentives and showing value for peoples’ time doubled the response rates.

Make sure to be clear about the specifics of the reward, how it will be distributed, and when clients may expect to get it. Clients will be more likely to take the time to submit feedback if they are aware that their input is valued and appreciated.

Ask, act, and ask again: Optimize your customer feedback strategy

With proven strategies like the A.C.A.F. feedback loop model, fitness studios and businesses like yours have a roadmap for implementing and optimizing effective client feedback techniques.

The key to success in your feedback strategies starts with asking the right questions at the right time, and creating surveys that are simple and purposeful. Break them down into categories and map out your client journey to ensure you’re taking advantage of opportune times to ask for feedback.

WellnessLiving’s customer feedback tools help fitness businesses implement and automate the customer feedback process. Our Client Groups and Forms are features that allow you to easily create, automate, and gain insight on client feedback, based on different points of the client relationship.

You’ll also be able to create seamless incentive programs for surveys, as well as have access to powerful marketing tools that enable you to follow up easily. Learn more about how WellnessLiving’s tools can drive your customer feedback strategy forward by booking a free, no-commitment demo today.