Factors Affecting Customer Retention: Anytime Fitness Report

This report examines the factors affecting customer retention at Anytime Fitness, focusing on the Sunshine Coast branch. The study investigates the impact of price, equipment variety, service quality, customer satisfaction, communication strategies, and brand image on customer loyalty. The research problem addresses the attrition of customers and declining revenues, aiming to identify reasons for customer churn and strategies for improvement. The methodology includes a mixed research design, combining qualitative and quantitative analysis, with a sample of 62 current Anytime Fitness members. Findings are presented through descriptive and inferential statistical analysis, including gender, age, and marital status demographics, along with qualitative insights on the key variables. The report aims to provide actionable recommendations for Anytime Fitness management to enhance customer retention and increase market share.

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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