Factors affecting customer retention in Anytime Fitness, Sunshine Coast

This research aims to identify the factors affecting customer retention in Anytime Fitness, Sunshine Coast. The study focuses on the impact of price, equipment variety, service quality, customer satisfaction, communication strategies, and brand image on customer retention. The research problem is the attrition of customers in Anytime Fitness, Sunshine Coast. The research aim is to determine the reasons for declining sales revenues and customer shift to other facilities. The research questions are focused on the main factors causing the decline in customers and what the management can do to retain existing customers. The study uses a mixed research design and a sample size of 62 customers. The research tool used is an internet-mediated questionnaire. The report includes a literature review and a conceptual map.

Research Tool
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Table of Contents
REPORT TITLE....................................................................................................................................................4
INDUSTRY PARTNER........................................................................................................................................4
RESEARCH PROBLEM......................................................................................................................................4
RESEARCH AIM..................................................................................................................................................4
RESEARCH QUESTIONS(S)..............................................................................................................................5
LITERATURE REVIEW......................................................................................................................................6
PRICE...................................................................................................................................................................6
EQUIPMENT VARIETY..........................................................................................................................................6
SERVICE QUALITY...............................................................................................................................................7
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION...................................................................................................................................7
COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES............................................................................................................................7
BRAND IMAGE.....................................................................................................................................................8
CONCEPTUAL MAP............................................................................................................................................9
RESEARCH DESIGN...........................................................................................................................................9
SAMPLE...............................................................................................................................................................10
RESEARCH TOOL.............................................................................................................................................10
SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE..................................................................................................................................11
REFERENCE.......................................................................................................................................................18
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Report title Factors affecting customer retention in Anytime Fitness ,Sunshine Coast
Industry
partner
Anytime Fitness Australia is based in the Sunshine Coast, Caloundra and is an Australian
gym and fitness centre providing training and fitness services to the customer using 24-hour
model. The company has 7866 staff including coaches, instructors and nutritionists. It has
many branches across Australia with more than 500 branches of well-equipped gyms and
fitness locations around the country. It provides a range of services in body fitness ranging
from personal training, group training and corporate exercise programs.
Research
problem
One of the major problem faced by the selected Anytime fitness is attrition of customers.
According to the management team a whopping 20 people out of 653 members have chosen
other competitors over the past month of July. This shift over the past year has affected the
overall profit margin of the business and reduced from 2, 25600$ to 186289$ over the past
two financial years.
The falling market share and lack of returning customers is a sign of falling scope for sales
and market dominance, the company needs to determine sources through which it can retain
its customers and increase its market share.
Research aim
The research aim is to know the reason why the sale revenues are declining and why the
customers are choosing other facilities and how the management tackles this issue.
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Research
questions(s)
 What are the main factors that are causing the decline in customers Sunshine Coast
Anytime Fitness?
 What the management in Sunshine Coast Anytime fitness could do to retain its
Existing Customers?
Literature
Review Through this study, the focus has been places on examining the impact of price, equipment
variety, service quality, customer satisfaction, and communication strategy and brand image
on the customer retention.
The growing awareness and benefits of the need for physical activity has drawn involvement
of larger number of people with the fitness and wellness centres. While there has been
increase in the number of fitness centres and clubs, the customer primarily seeks clubs that
fit their specific needs in terms of quality and quantity. Despite the rise in the number of
customers, not all the centres have been able to retain the customers and sustain the business.
From the business perspective, it critical for the companies to understand the factors that
might be affecting the customer retention. Some of the most prominent cause of failure to
retain customers are lack of satisfaction, service quality, pricing, and the availability of
equipment, the pricing of the services and the brand image of the centre. These are discussed
by various studies
Price
Trasorras et al. (2009) says –”Price can be a sensitive topic among professional service
providers. The fear of attrition or mass exodus of clients if prices are increased is constant
concern. This research indicates a strong linkage between price and customer
retention(p625)”
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Equipment Variety
Due to increased competition, customers have had great variety in fitness centers. Many
businesses come up with great strategies aimed at luring customers towards them and update
their equipment’s consistently. Hurley(2008) clearly clarifies that –”without proper
marketing and having variety, it is extremely hard to attract the massive market that health
and fitness have(p34)”
Service Quality
Service quality is an important factor in any business and findings suggests that there is a
clear relationship between customer retention and Service quality. Studies by Kim & Ling
(2018) in fitness and health centres around Malaysia, reinstates the relationship between
these factors. According to them –“ what the members wish to attain from the process
service itself, and ultimately the feeling of achievement from the outcome quality would
affect their satisfaction and ongoing loyalty towards the centre”
Customer Satisfaction
Han et al. (2018) studied and suggests that customer retention is directly related customer
satisfaction while doing business. Having satisfied customers in businesses encourages
patrons to remain with the business for a longer term. According to Han et al –”to maximize
patrons’ level of satisfaction and to encourage their positive post purchase intentions, it
would be useful for the proprietor or operators to have well-trained and experienced
employees who can make extra effort when handling patron requests, who provide prompt
service to patrons, and who help patrons feel special and comfortable (p901).These
measures have positively affected customers satisfactions and pushes to stay longer with
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businesses” (p901).
Communication Strategies
Communication between clients and business are important to make customers
Efi and Anastasia (2015) studied eight Greek fitness club franchises and concluded that
people who struggle to stay motivated and if not been addressed by the management
properly to support them, can affect their physiological commitment towards the business.
The study also concluded that effective communications strategies put in place by fitness
organizations have retained their customers efficiently over the years.
Brand Image
In the modern era due to improved social awareness and to improve social status people tend
to follow brands portrait their better social status. Studies conducted by Williams (2010)
In mid-western United States on a branded fitness centre and their 148 customers conclude
that brand image was one of the most important factor that affected the patrons to remain
with their business. They also hypnotised that business need to improve their brand image to
gain more loyal customers for long-term.
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Conceptual
Map
Research
design
The study will be conducted using the mixed research design. The mixed research design
would lead better analysis and findings based on the objectives of the research. It is the
systematic empirical investigation based on observable statistical techniques. This techniques
will help in combining the elements of both qualitative and quantitative research method.
This will help in understanding the depth of relationship between the depended variable and
the independent variables. Using such a method will triangulate why or how the prices,
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Customer
Retention
Price
Equipment Variety
Service Quality
Customer Satisfaction
Communication strategies
Brand Image

equipment variety, service quality, customer satisfactions, communications strategy and
brand image help in retaining mores customers in the business. This will also in better
understating of the research problem and identify the right solution for Anytime Fitness by
statistical data and subjective data to assess the user needs and behavioural patterns
concerning the use of the gym
Sample
A sample size of 62 which includes customers from the organizational partner who are
existing members using the membership were randomly selected for the survey. The
participants were identified by their arrival registers available at the facility and also through
the data report in the company’s computer software management program for contacts of
current members within the past one year. Participants were asked to complete the survey
with and incentive of a free ‘Anytime Fitness Bumper sticker’ as an incentive. Probability
sampling method will be used as it gives opportunity to accesses more customers. I will use
the simple random sampling method (SRM) and It will be used because it is easy to sample
and more effective than others. It will also provide all the sample the equal probability of
beings chosen for the study. The contact details will accessed from the business database and
each participant will be contacted through their email. In this research, I would apply
internet-mediated questionnaires where both the administration and collection of the
questionnaires would be electronically by use of internet.
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Findings and
Analysis
This chapter represents the findings of the research collected from 62 respondents which were
used to gather data for the analysis. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS Software. To
begin with, the first section evaluates the descriptive analysis which describes and compares
the general and the demographic information of the respondents who answered the research
questionnaire presented to them. Second, I conducted both qualitative and quantitative analysis
based on the variables from the data collected from the participants.
a. Descriptive Analysis
i. Gender
Based on the descriptive statistics, gender, age and marital status as demographic information
were considered for the analysis. According to the table below (See table 1), it illustrates the
gender of the valid respondents. As a result, it can be seen that the majority of the participants
were female.
Gender
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid Male
Female
Total
38
24
62
61.29
38.71
100.0
61.29
38.71
100.0
61.29
100.0
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Table 1: Frequencies - Gender
61%
39%
Pie Chart
Males
Female
Figure 2: Pie chart –Gender
ii. Age group
Regarding to the data presented in table 3 below, it shows the summary statistics for the age
groups of the valid respondents. However, I classified the age groups into five separate groups
which are: 1) Under 20 years old, 21-30 years old, 31-40 years old, 41-50 years old and over
50 years old.
Age group (Years old)
Frequency Percent Valid Percent Cumulative
Percent
Valid ( Under 20)
(21-30)
(31-40)
( 41-50)
(Over 50)
Total
4
11
13
26
8
62
6.7
17.7
21
41.9
12.9
100.0
6.7
17.7
21
41.9
12.9
100.0
6.7
24.4
45.4
87.3
100.0
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Under 20 21-30 31-40 41-50 Over 50
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
4
11 13
26
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Histogram
Class/Groups
lFrequenciese
iii. Marital Status
The summary statistics for the marital status of the participants is as shown in table 4 below.
Marital Status
Marital Status Frequency
Married
Single
Defacto
Divorced
Widowed
Total
41
13
3
0
5
62
b. Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis
Both qualitative and quantitative analysis was conducted on each and every dependent
variables i.e. price, service quality, equipment variety, communication strategies, brand image
and customer satisfaction to determine how each impacted on customers at Anytime Fitness
Coast. The qualitative analysis was conducted as follows.
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i. Price
Based on the price as a factor, a number of questions were presented to the respondents such
membership fees of Sunshine Coast Anytime Fitness. The price was also evaluated on the basis
of value, amount of subscription and responses collected recorded.
ii. Service Quality
The quality of services was researched to determine if there exists any positive association
between the quality of the services offered to the customers and the customer retention. The
respondents were asked about quality related issues at Sunshine Coast Anytime Fitness such as
cleanliness, design of the facilities and the available fitness programs at Sunshine Coast
Anytime Fitness.
iii. Equipment Variety
The equipment variety formed another research variable to determine if there is a significant
relationship between the equipment available and customer retention. The participants were
asked variety of questions revolving the variety of equipment. They were asked to rate the
equipment available and their usage.
iv. Communication Strategies
Based on the communication strategies, the respondents’ views were collected on how the
management of Anytime Fitness maintained and channeled up with them about services
offered and other programs. They were asked to give their views on how they communicate on
share information with the available patrons at Sunshine Coast Anytime Fitness.
v. Brand Image
The question on brand was also posted to enable the understanding of the image of the patrons
at Sunshine Anytime Fitness. The participants were asked to express their views on how they
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knew Sunshine Anytime Fitness Coast.
vi. Customer Satisfaction
Finally, questions related to customer satisfactions were presented to the respondents to
examine how the customers were in the business and the kind of services provided at Sunshine
Anytime Fitness Coat. Customer’s satisfaction formed the independent aspect in this research
as each and every variable was linked to it. Various views were obtained on how the
participants got satisfied at Sunshine Anytime Fitness Cost.
The table below 4 represents the numerical summary of the number of responses on each and
every question posted to the participants during the study.
Table 4: Numerical summary table of the responses
Disagree Slightly
disagree
Slightly
agree
Agree Strongly
agree
Price
1.1
1.2
1.3
12
2
12
5
38
55
62
Service Quality
Q 2.1
Q2.2
Q2.3
1
11
18
0
15
31
0
36
12
62
Equipment variety
Q3.1
Q3.2
22
1
32
10
8
51
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Q3.3 57 5
Communication
Q4.1
Q4.2
Q4.3
19
21
7
31
40
41
12
61
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Brand image
Q5.1
Q5.2
Q5.3(RESPONSE-
often)
Q5.4
2
0
21
57
44(often)
44
39
5
18 (very
often)
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Customer
satisfaction
Q6.1
Q6.2
Q6.3
2
4
29
38
31
12
7
12
21
5
15
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Discussion In this section, the statistical findings will be discussed and supported by the provision of
arguments for the possible reasons as to why some variables impacted on customer’s retention
at Sunshine Anytime Fitness Coast in relation to the theoretical contribution and findings
related to this study. An unexpected finding concerned the antecedents of service value. The
literature is clear in depicting value as a tradeoff between quality and sacrifice (Kim and Ling,
2012). However, the empirical results presented in this paper indicates that the value of a
service product is largely defined by the perceptions of the quality. Hence, service consumers
seem to place greater importance on the quality of the services offered. The only exception to
this finding.
This study was able to achieve its overall objectives and aims through the use of valid and
reliable instrument which was administered a random sample of 62 customers as the
participants, with different opinions, views and backgrounds. Since this research aimed to
investigate the reason why the sale revenues at Sunshine Anytime Fitness Coast are declining
and why the customers are choosing other facilities and how the management tackles this
issue, a wider representation is thus important in order to generate an overall conclusion and
recommendations to the management and the shareholders of Sunshine Anytime Fitness. The
details of the results are explained below as follows.
i. Price
Price is can be considered as a sensitive factor to the customers. The fear of attrition or mass
exodus of customers from Sunshine Anytime Fitness if the prices are increased is a great
concern. The qualitative analysis was conducted on findings based on pricing at Anytime
Sunshine Fitness and reasonable results were obtained that were inferred. There were a total of
three questions on pricing and according to the responses from each, most of the customers
strongly agreed that pricing at Sunshine Anytime Coat was reasonable and competitive to other
health and fitness centres. For instance, a total of 55 participants responded that the
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membership fees of Anytime Fitness Sunshine coast is competitive to other health and fitness
centres. With this, it can be concluded and recommended that price do not impact or affect
retention of customers are Sunshine Anytime Fitness coast. The management should therefore
consider lowering or increasing the pricing at Sunshine Anytime Fitness coast.
ii. Equipment Variety
The qualitative and quantitative analysis based regarding the variety of equipment available at
Sunshine Anytime Fitness was conducted since competition increased and the customers have
a variety in different fitness centres. This was important as many related business to Sunshine
Anytime Fitness came up with different varieties of equipment which aimed at luring more
customers hence making customer retention at Sunshine Anytime to be much difficult.
According to the results, it was found that Sunshine Anytime Fitness did not have a variety of
good equipment. For example, from the research questions as to whether the all the
equipment’s at Sunshine have instructions on them that helps the customer, most of the
participant admitted that there were no better equipment to keep them well. Consequently,
many of the participants gave some of their preferred equipment which were not available at
Sunshine Anytime Fitness coast.
In relation to this, it is crystal evident that equipment impacted on the customer retention at
Sunshine Anytime Fitness coast. The management should consider purchasing or acquiring
modern equipment to lure and retain customers at Sunshine. By doing this the Sunshine
business enterprise would raise much revenue.
iii. Service Quality
The quality of services offered at Sunshine was also a considerable variable for the analysis
and in relation to this, service quality is considered important since it dictates the wish of a
customer from the process service itself and the ultimate feeling of the achievement from the
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outcome of the quality which affects their satisfaction. According to the results, it is clear that
most of customers were not satisfied with the kind of services that were available at Sunshine
Anytime Fitness coast. Negative responses were obtained from the respondents based on the
quality of services offered. For instance, 31 of the participants (customers) claimed that the
centre had no modern facilities and cleanliness and design of those facilities do not meet the
required standards as observed from other competitors. This is a clear indication that service
quality has a direct impact on customer retention. It is therefore important that the management
should take into consideration purchasing modern facilities in order to retain customers and
through this, much revenue would be generated in future.
iv. Customer Satisfaction
The findings suggest that customer retention is directly correlated with customer satisfaction at
Sunshine Anytime Fitness coast. This is evident from the fact that most of the participants
slightly agreed that Anytime Fitness constantly meets all their needs as they wish. Also, about
38 of the participants replied that the available facilities at Sunshine Anytime Fitness coast did
not enable them to attain their personal physical goals since they joint and continued to do so.
Moreover, most of the participants showed interest of not extending their membership with the
facility in the near future. With all these evidences, it is crystal clear that most of customers
were not satisfied. Hence, the management should try improving some of the available
facilities to lure more customers.
v. Communication Strategies
Based on the communication strategies at Sunshine Anytime Fitness, communication between
the customers and patrons is an important factor in retaining customers. It is a known
knowledge that any person if not properly addressed by the management can affect their
psychological relations with the business. By comparing the results, Sunshine Anytime Fitness
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coast has effective communication strategies put in place by the management. However, the
management should invent more communication strategies to enhance good rapport between
the patrons and the customers.
vi. Brand Image
Customers tend to follow brands portrait of the social status of Sunshine Anytime Fitness coast
and other competitive centres. According to the findings, Sunshine Anytime Fitness coast is a
reputed brand and most of the customers are familiar with the “Sunshine Anytime Fitness”
brand before. However, the management need to improve their image brand to lure more
customers that would in turn contribute to more revenue at Sunshine Anytime Fitness coast.
Research
tool/
Questionnair
e
The research tool is attached below
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Survey Questionnaire
Dear club members,
This is a survey designed to understand Anytime Fitness members' viewpoints about the fitness
centre/health club in Sunshine Coast. Your valuable feedback is important for the club to improve
your experience. The survey is anonymous and all data collected will remain confidential i.e. data will
be used for study purposes only and no one other than the researcher will know your individual
answers for the questionnaire. Also your participation in this study is voluntary and can withdraw
anytime if you wish to do so.
If you agree to participate in this project, please answer the questions on the questionnaire as best as
you can .It should approximately take 10 minutes to complete. Please return the questionnaire as soon
as possible in a hard copy or through email.
If you have any questions regarding this project please feel free to contact ---at [e-mail]
Thank you for your assistance in this important endeavour
Sincerely,
Researcher
Demographic Information
Please Circle the answers
 Gender:
Male
Female
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Others
 What is your Age:
under 20
21-30
31-40
41-50
over51
 Marital status:
Married
Single
Defacto
Divorced
Widowed
 How long have you been member of this fitness health club as its member:
less than 1 year
1-less than 2 years
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2- less 3than years
3-less than 4 years
4-less than 5 years
more than 5 years
 How often Do you use the club:
less than once per month
once per month
once per two weeks
once per week
more than once per week
 Why do you attend the gym?
Lifestyle
Rehabilitation
Strength Training
Weight Loss
Health Improvement
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Social Environment
This section addresses how the member perceives the pricing.
Please respond to each question based on your personal experience and circle the appropriate answer.
Please provide feedbacks if applicable
 Membership fees of Anytime Fitness Sunshine coast is reasonable.
 Membership fees of Anytime Fitness Sunshine Coast is competitive to other health and
fitness centres.
 Membership fees of Anytime Fitness Sunshine Coast is good value for money.
 How would you justify the member ship fees
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Reference
Efi, T. & Anastasia, T. 2013, "Does satisfaction affect a member's psychological commitment
to a fitness center?", Journal of Physical Education and Sport, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 522-527.
Garcīa -Fernadez, J., Elasri-Eijaberi, A., Pèrez-Tur, F., Triadô-Ivern, X., M., Herrera-Torres,
L. and Aparicio-Chueca, P., 2017. Social networks in fitness centres: the impact of fan
engagement on annual turnover. Journal of Physical Education and Sport, 17(3), pp. 1068-
1077.
Han, H., Kim, W., Lee, S. & Kim, H. 2018, "How image Congruity and Satisfaction impact
Customer retention at luxury restaurants: A Moderated Mediation Framework”, Social
Behavior and Personality, vol. 46, no. 6, pp. 891-904.
Hurley, T. 2008, "Managing Customer Retention in the Health and fitness industry: A case of
Neglect”, Irish Marketing Review, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 23-29.
Kim, C.B. & Ling, T.C. 2017, "The Influence of the Service Quality and Outcome Quality on
the Member Overall Satisfaction: A Proposed Model for Health and Fitness Users", Global
Business and Management Research, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 1-14.
Lin, H. 2010, “The study of exercise participation motivation and the relationship among
service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty at selected fitness health clubs in
Taipei City, Taiwan, United States Sports Academy.
Statista. 2018. Revenue of the Anytime Fitness health club company from 2012 to 2017 (in
million U.S. dollars). [Online] Available at:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/348458/anytime-fitness-revenue/ [Accessed 7 Aug 2018].
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Statista. (2018). Australia gym & fitness companies market share 2014 | Statistic. [online]
Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/505452/australia-gym-and-fitness-center-
industry-companies-market-share/ [Accessed 3 Sep. 2018]
Trasorras, R., Weinstein, A. & Abratt, R. 2009, "Value, satisfaction, loyalty and retention in
professional services", Marketing Intelligence & Planning, vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 615-632.
Williams, A.S. 2010, kexamining the role of brand associations in multipurpose fitness
facilities: The relationship between service quality, exercise commitment, brand associations,
and brand loyalty, Indiana University.
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