We track the feedback from our members through a monthly survey of a sample of members from every club every month. The questions we ask are strongly aligned with the Top Ten –i.e. are we living and breathing the Top Ten, and as a consequence are members getting the service they expect. Over the past 12 months our customer service score has improved from an average of 83% to 87%. Our net promoter score, a reference point that can be externally benchmarked has increased over the last 12 months from 18 to 23, a level which compares very favourably with a whole host of world class brands.
At the end of 2009 and into 2010 we have built on these foundations with the launch of our Strategy Map. The Strategy Map enables every single Fitness Firster worldwide to link their role to our operational focus areas, to our customer promise, to our business performance objectives through to our mission. This enables us to ground our mission statement in clearly laid out operational priorities, which ultimately link into our job descriptions, training programs and incentive arrangements.
Our Strategy Map has a number of perspectives, which build on one another.
The first is ‘Fitness Firsters', about our people which helps us be clear as to who we recruit, how we train and develop, how we reward and incentivise, how we promote, and how we lead and manage.
Next is ‘Operating with Excellence', our internal perspective which sets out the activities we must do well. This splits into four pillars: Sales, Fitness, Member Experience and Commercial Management and any initiative we implement at an operational level is linked back to our Strategy Map. That helps our people put our priorities into perspective which results in better implementation and better performance.
The third perspective is called ‘Inspiring our Members', our external perspective. This section contains our brand promise and our unique selling points (USPs) and helps us focus on what matters most to our members.
This will help us to achieve our Business Performance Objectives, which is to profitably, sustainably grow our business. Through this we can deliver our mission: "To be famous for making the world a fitter place; like minded staff and like minded members work together to make that difference".
During the course of the year we have conducted hundreds of workshops where our staff helped build our Strategy Map, and then assessed themselves either at national, regional or club level as to how they perform compared to the objectives set out in the Strategy Map. This exercise has created substantial buy into our strategy, and aided understanding and therefore execution of our operational priorities. I am confidently able to walk into any club worldwide and talk to the club manager about our strategy, where his or her club sits against that strategy, and what they are doing to better execute our strategy.
This natural evolution of the Mission and Values has caused much excitement in our business. In the 2010 survey we asked our people to rate 3 additional statements:
1. I have been made aware of our strategy through the Strategy Map
2. I understand the part I play in achieving our strategy
3. I believe in the strategy we have set out
These three statements recorded amongst the highest scoring responses, only behind ‘I support our company's mission statement' and ‘The 10 essentials are an important part of my day to day work.' In short this tells me that we have our people behind us in positioning Fitness First as the Health Club business that offers better service and better value for money than anyone else.
Never has achieving this position been more important. Across the world consumers are being more careful with their money; they have more choices as to where to go to help them achieve their health and fitness goals and the sector faces a level of commoditisation through the growth of the budget segment. The message is simple: provide great service and great value for money or under perform. This is the path we are on and we are making great progress.
CEO Report Colin Waggett
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