Surveying Your Clients

[et_pb_section admin_label=”section”]
[et_pb_row admin_label=”row”]
[et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text”][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”10368″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]As the end of the year approaches, it’s a great time to take the temperature of your gym community.
As with anything else, there’s a “right way” to do a client survey, and definitely a “wrong way”.
When done well, a client survey can
First, here are some of the most common mistakes gym owners make when surveying their clients:

1. Their questions are too vague. “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said, ‘a faster horse.'” – Henry Ford.
   Keep your questions very specific, with yes/no or rating-scale answers.
2. The data isn’t actionable. “Overall, how do you like our gym?” is nice…if your goal is to stroke your ego. But this question tells you nothing about the client’s plans to remain with the gym, refer a friend, or quit in 2017.
   If you ask, “How clean are our bathrooms?” you should be prepared to make your bathrooms cleaner if you get a low score.
3. The answers are irrelevant to growing the business. “How do you like our programming?” is a bad one. Clients weren’t thinking about alternatives to your programming before…and now they are.
4. They do nothing with the data. Imagine the mayor comes to your house and says, “How can I make this town better for you?” You say, “I’d like my garbage picked up on Thursdays.” On Thursday, there’s no garbage truck in sight. Has your opinion of the mayor increased or decreased?
5. The ask the clients to compare or rank the coaches. This is usually an ego trip for the owner–but erodes confidence in the brand. I’ve also seen it destroy the confidence of some coaches. As the owner, it’s YOUR job to write down what makes a good coach in your gym, clearly make those expectations known, and evaluate regularly.

Next, here are some ways you can use surveys most effectively:

1. Include a Net Promoter Score question: “How likely are you to refer a friend in 2017?” If they love you, they’ll answer with a high number, like 8-10. If they answer lower, you have a problem.
2. Anchor the idea of new services. “Where do you need the most help with your nutrition? A: knowledge. B: Accountability. C: A kick-start.”
3. Let clients tell YOU which other services they’d use. “What’s your biggest daily hurdle to exercise?” might give you the idea that a 30-minute lunch class could work where a 60-minute noon group hasn’t.
4. Review the data with your team. “Our clients said we create a welcoming environment 70% of the time. That’s not good enough. How can we improve?”

TwoBrain mentoring clients are given the full survey to use and one-on-one guidance to translate the results of their survey. They’re also given a full walkthrough of delivery through SurveyMonkey.
Here are a few sample questions to use:
What’s your biggest daily hurdle to exercise?
Are you happier when you leave the gym than when you arrive?
If you could add one thing to your experience at our gym, what would you like to try?
On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend us to a friend in 2017? (NPS)
Upload them to SurveyMonkey using these instructions.
Client experience is one of our 7 Areas of Gym Excellence. My suggestion is to find your weakest link, and take ACTION to fix it.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column]
[/et_pb_row]
[/et_pb_section]