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UK FITNESS SCENE
Poor levels of cleanliness directly impact leisure operators’ bottom line, study finds ANALYSIS of Sport England’s National Benchmarking Survey has found that good levels of cleanliness in leisure facilities are absolutely critical to the customer experience, driving satisfaction and consequently revenue, be it through retention or acquisition. Data from the survey, conducted by customer insight and business intelligence firm Leisure-net Solutions, shows there is a direct correlation between cleanliness and customer satisfaction. Leisure facilities which received lower scores for cleanliness also received poorer scores for satisfaction. Centres with the highest scores for cleanliness – 4.5 out of 5 – received an overall satisfaction score of 4.6 out of 5. By contrast, venues which recorded the lowest scores for cleanliness 3.4 out of 5 – were also deemed less satisfactory by users, scoring 4 out of 5. “The data confirms what most operators instinctively know: that poor cleanliness negatively affects the customer experience,” said Mike Hill, director of Leisure-net Solutions, which carries out NBS on behalf of Sport England. “By analysing the data, we can now see to what extent there are correlations between cleanliness
and satisfaction, satisfaction and Net Promoter Score (NPS), and cleanliness and NPS.” Cleanliness scores positively correlate with NPS scores, with leisure centres in the bottom quartile for cleanliness – scoring 3.3 out of 5 – reporting an NPS of just zero per cent. This is in stark contrast to the venues with the highest scores for cleanliness – 4.5 out of 5 – which have
an NPS of 57 per cent. The current Leisure-net industry average for NPS is 42 per cent, while the best operators in the sector regularly get scores of between 50 and 60 per cent. Leading international companies using NPS like Apple and Amazon achieve scores of between 70 and 80 per cent. Research by leisure floor
maintenance specialists, Slip Safety Services, in 2018 highlighted the areas within a leisure centre where cleanliness has the greatest impact on members. These are: n Changing rooms – 83 per cent. n Showers – 82 per cent. n Toilets – 72 per cent. n Poolside – 68 per cent. n Gym – 55 per cent. n Café – 40 per cent. Christian Harris, founder of Slip Safety Services, added: “Changing rooms and showers are areas that nearly all members visit, where they are stationary long enough to notice issues and where my decade plus of experience tells me most operators struggle to achieve high brand standards. “Getting cleanliness right is a challenge for all sorts of reasons, but it definitely is possible to drive improvement and this will have a huge impact on a club’s performance. “We conducted a deep clean of the changing facilities at Spalding’s Castle Swimming Pool after Parkwood Leisure took the contract last year. In the first month, the site had experienced a 500 increase in new members vs the same period the prior year. Local councillor Gary Taylor credited this increase with the ‘clean and fit for purpose’ facilities on offer.”
Advertiser’s announcement
IndigoFitness creates new training focal point for Firehouse Fitness FIREHOUSE Fitness was founded in 2013 by former firefighter Rob McGuigan. Rob wanted to inspire a fitness community by delivering a group training experience that combined his firefighter training methods with his firefighter team values – a communal, supportive and inclusive way to train, the Firehouse way. The formula found success, and by 2019 there were gyms in Leeds and Sheffield and a growing team of personal trainers. Looking to expand their presence in Sheffield, Rob came to IndigoFitness with a vision of creating a new, larger, facility that built on the values and experiences they had established. They were very clear that as well as providing a facility for their members that catered for all their training requirements, they also wanted to retain the ethos of hard work and community feeling. With such a strong and clear vision, it made sense for IndigoFitness to invite the Firehouse team into the heart of the design process. This consisted of a series of meetings, where different ideas were discussed and layouts and equipment mixes were changed around, all supported with the
latest in 3D design software so the Firehouse team could visualise exactly what each idea would look like. This consultative design process eventually led to the creation of the ‘Drill Yard’ – a large functional group training area that serves as the main focal point of the facility and captures that special Firehouse community spirit. The Drill Yard measures 18m x 11m and is covered with artificial
turf – giving them a multi-functional surface that can be used for a wide range of activities such as their unique Drill, Accelerant and Firefight classes. The Drill Yard also houses a 16m long custom designed functional rig that features squat stations, punch bags stations, and ball targets, to really provide a full-service functional training solution. Whilst keen to ensure much of the facility was as multi-functional as possible, they still wanted to offer a
dedicated strength area. They were able to choose equipment from the wide range of IndigoFitness in-house manufactured selectorised and plate loaded stations, plus specialist items such as half racks with integrated lifting platforms, GHDs, a prone row bench and belt squat. As a designer and manufacturer, IndigoFitness were able to create all the custom elements, and finish the equipment in a custom colour scheme that tied in with the Firehouse Fitness brand image. 30mm thick rubber tiles were the flooring choice for the strength areas, and the gym was finished with a selection of RAZE training equipment such as Olympic plates and bars, kettlebells, PU dumbells, plyo boxes and five Renegade Runners. Indigo is very proud to have worked with the Firehouse Fitness team on this project and provided a full 360° solution – covering initial consultation and design, flooring solutions, custom designed equipment, and complete install. The result is a fantastic training space that delivers on the original goal of creating a communal, supportive and inclusive way to train – the Firehouse Way!