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How to Increase Customer Retention by Elevating your Staff Training Programmes

Retaining customers is key to building consumer loyalty and increasing your organisation’s profitability.  You must first invest in and elevate your staff training programmes to boost customer retention. 

Below, we’ll highlight the importance of customer retention and how training affects customer retention. We will also identify training resolutions, including some true-to-life examples.  

What is Customer Retention, and why is it important

Customer retention refers to the number of customers that stay with a business over a measurable period. A sign of a successful business is the retention of its members, as it helps to ensure that customers remain satisfied with the products and services they receive and will be more likely to recommend your products and services to others, which leads to more leads for your business. A loyal customer base trusting of your business means you’re meeting their needs and delivering value.

How Can Customer Retention Be Improved Through Staff Training? 

A fundamental way to improve customer retention is through staff training. By providing employees with the knowledge and skills needed to understand customer needs better and provide the best possible service, businesses can create an environment where customers feel valued and appreciated. In the long run, this will lead to greater customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. 

It’s no secret that the health and fitness industry is a competitive market where customers have many choices with whom or where to train and seek advice about their health and fitness. To make your organisation stand out, you must ensure your team is adequately trained to provide your members with a positive experience that will make them choose your facility instead of the one down the road. This could be with advanced personal training sessions, correctly leading and offering a variety of classes, or providing health and nutrition advice. However, if your team does not have training in these areas, you won’t be able to offer your customers these services, and you will undoubtedly lose them to another facility that will. 

 

By prioritising workforce training, your employees will gain better skills in many crucial areas that will ultimately help retain your members, including:

  • Knowledge retention – By upskilling your employees, you will ensure that you have knowledgeable staff members who can provide quality service to your members. With increased customer expectations, it’s more important than ever for your staff to be well-informed and supply accurate information. Regular training also helps them to keep up to date with the latest trends and developments in the industry. This will go a long way in helping your team build trust with customers and encourage loyalty, leading to higher satisfaction and member retention.  
  • Confidence – The more your team know, the more confident they will be handling any customer concern or query that may come their way. A confident employee who genuinely knows what they’re talking about builds an excellent level of trust with your members, primarily when the information given will be used to help them with their fitness, health and wellbeing.
  • Employee engagement – When your team are friendly and approachable towards your members, this makes them feel special and appreciated within your facility and is a significant reason customers will keep coming back

Ways to elevate your staff training programmes and retain your members 

Level up your staff skillsets

Increase your staff’s training to support members with various health, fitness and wellbeing enquiries and improve their experience in your club.
Our health seekers coaching course will allow your staff to become health coaches and support members in understanding and improving their health through our exercise for fat loss course, enabling your team to expertly help target a specific area your members want to work on. Your staff will become experts in various remits, gaining your member’s confidence and trust to help them on their health journey.

 

Make sure training is current and up to date

In the health and physical activity sector, there are constant developments and often new changes in guidance by industry associations, so your staff’s training must also adapt to keep up to date.  

As a trusted leader in education, we ensure our courses are kept entirely up to date with any new guidance once published. For example, we updated our Children’s Physical Activity Instructor course with ukactive’s published and revised Children and Young People in Leisure Facilities Guidance. 

Enhance your Offering

Including various additional and innovative offerings within your club will enhance membership satisfaction, engagement and overall experience. All your team needs is the correct training. Some popular products that our clients have implemented in their clubs are:

  • GP Referral – By launching a GP referral scheme, your staff can work with GPs on client referrals, launch a GP referral service in your facilities, expand your offering, and grow your client base and income revenue potential. 
  • Include Training for Disabled People – By including training for disabled people; your staff will gain an increased knowledge of the exercise considerations for disabled people, various impairments, and inclusivity, meeting CIMSPA standards.
  • Implement Children’s Fitness Classes – By delivering physical activity sessions for children, you are expanding your offering and building trust with members to cater for the whole family. 

To summarise, improving your customer retention starts with enhancing your staff training. By making employee training a company priority and an ongoing process, you will see your member retention increase.