University Service Marketing Podcast Transcript: Pure Gym Case Study

This podcast transcript analyzes the service marketing strategies of Pure Gym, a fitness chain in the UK. It begins with an overview of the service context, including market size, trends, competitors, and target customer groups. The analysis then delves into service quality using the SERVQUAL and three-stage models, identifying strengths and weaknesses in Pure Gym's service delivery. Finally, the transcript provides recommendations for improving the service marketing mix, focusing on the 7Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Process, and Physical Environment) and the integration of technology to enhance customer experience, suggesting improvements to the people element, the process and physical environment.

Running head: SERVICE MARKETING
SERVICE MARKETING
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Transcript for Podcast of Services Marketing - Pure Gym
Greetings to everyone, I welcome all of you for the podcast on service marketing. The
podcast will be based on the company, Pure Gym. PureGym is located in the regions of
United Kingdom and was founded in the year 2009. PureGym is a private company and
belongs to the Fitness Industry. The company was founded by Petter Roberts with the aim of
growth and reputation and currently the company owns more than 294 gyms. The company,
PureGym is considered to be a fitness chain for no-frills health clubs within United Kingdom.
The sites of PureGym are open almost 24 hours for offering, the use of cardio equipment
weights along with well-structured exercise classes (Puregym.com 2020). Before identifying
the service offerings and processes of PureGym, I would like to familiarize you with the
conception of service marketing. The basis of service marketing is value and relationship.
According to AMA (American Marketing Association), services can be defined as the
amalgamation of benefits, satisfactions and activities that are offered by organizations for
associating with sales. The characteristics of services are different from product marketing
such as heterogeneity, inseparability, intangibility and perishability. PureGym offers 24-hour
services in almost every location. With the general exercise and fitness regime, the gym also
offers the amenities such as saunas and swimming pools. The gyms are fully equipped with
real-time link with Television directly with the security and emergency staff services.
The United Kingdom Fitness Industry has been considered to be in good shape during 2015
with the elevating number of fitness clubs, number of membership with high market value.
Almost one amongst every eight people within United Kingdom is a member of any fitness
club, reflecting a penetration rate of 13.7 percent (Statista.com 2019). The data of 2019
reflected a high rate of around 6.7 thousand fitness and health clubs within United Kingdom
and 9.7 million members. In 2019, United Kingdom generated revenue of around 5.5 billion
USD. Total number of fitness centres in United Kingdom is around 3419. During 2018, the
annual turnover in fitness facilities was estimated to be around 2 billion GBP (Statista.com

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2019). From 2015 to 2020, the average growth in the industry has been expected as 5.9
percent. This industry covers activities, gym and training services except the operation of
personal independent trainers (Statista.com 2019). The revenue of the market is dependent on
the membership fees and customer retainment. Currently, the market is considered to be 2
billion Pound market. Total number of centres or businesses within the industry is calculated
as 4,780 (Ibisworld.com 2020). The trends in the Fitness sector in United Kingdom are highly
concentrated on the changing technological infrastructure and societal influences. The
demand for improved fitness gears and technologically based equipment is increasing
amongst the customers. Social fitness is becoming a new trend, where social experience is
also crucial along with a great customer experience (Mohamad and Cresswell 2019). During
the year, 2015, the company, PureGym was successful in acquiring one of its major
competitors LA Fitness (Wantoch et al. 2019). Currently, irrespective of the competition in
the market, PureGym is considered to be one of the most reputable and largest operating
fitness centre chain within United Kingdom (Coleman 2017). Currently, the direct
competitors of PureGym are The Gym Group, Gymbox, David Lloyd, Virgin Active, GFG
Fitness, Bannatyne Groups and The Gym Group. PureGym targets a wide range of customer
groups for offering maximum support with their 24/7 (Puregym.com 2020). The main target
customer groups involve, youngsters between the age group 16-25, Generation Y between the
age group 25 to 39. The other group of target audience involves people with healthy lifestyle
and college student, who have busy lifestyle with studies and part-time jobs. Perceived risks
of this business involve the high rate of competition from the Internet fitness channels and
emerging local brands (Puregym.com 2020).
PureGym maintains its competitive advantage by offerings unique value propositions such as
24/7 opening hours in most of the gym centres and most significantly, lower-cost flexible
membership options along with quality equipment’s (Puregym.com 2020). The main aim of
PureGym is supporting people by leading them towards happy and healthy lifestyle. The

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service quality of PureGym is competitive and offers the company an edge over its
competitors (Puregym.com 2020). However, increasing competition both physically and in
digital media can affect the operational efficiency. Moreover, 24/7 service operation of the
centres can affect the consistency of service delivery, which is facilitated by the staff
members. The model of SERVQUAL will assess the service quality of the company.
A research tool, with multi-dimensional nature and designed for capturing the perceptions
and customer expectations of service is known as SERVQUAL. SERVQUAL is dependent
on five dimensions depicting the quality of the services such as, assurance, empathy,
responsiveness, tangibility and reliability (Kant and Jaiswal 2017). Service quality
assessment helps in focussing on addressing customer needs and demands as well as all
determine the alignment between service expectations and service delivery (Prentkovskis et
al. 2018).
PureGym ensures the quality of the service delivery by assuring the need attainment of the
target audience by shaping their delivery categorizing the service offerings, so that every
form of concerns can be addressed with full accountability and responsiveness. According to
the analysis of SERVQUAL, it can also be deduced that company has maintained high
quality of tangibility by employing quality equipment support. The membership flexibility
ensures the factor of reliability of service delivery with customizable packages.
Another tool for assessing the service quality of PureGym can be three-stage model. This tool
involves three stages, pre-purchase, service encounter and post-encounter stage (Valtakoski
2019). The pre-purchase phase includes the stage of attracting target audience with
communication and registration with flexible membership. The service encounter stage
involves the assistance and training in the gym by the instructors with the help of renting a
property and conducting activities with quality equipment. Post-encounter involves

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maintaining the infrastructure, equipment and membership records for optimum quality of
service delivery.
The main concern identified in the three-stage model and SERVQUAL was the inconsistency
of service delivery due to the high number of customization, categories of delivery and due to
the 24/7 pressure of the company for delivery similar pace of services affects the overall need
attainment. Another concern identified within the service quality of the PureGym is approach
is restricting itself by offering physical environment through fitness centres rather than
understand than understanding the expected value proposition, which can also serve as a
potential risk for company.
Effective response to these components can lead to appropriate and successful framing of the
service marketing mix of PureGym. The marketing mix of service involves three more
constituents than the product mix such as people, physical environment and process
(Eftekhari 2019). The recommendations for PureGym can be based upon the three elements
of service mix. The people elements can be improved for consistency in service delivery.
PureGym can appoint employees based on the shifts of the operation and appoint experienced
gym manager or instructors for handling each of the team in a specific shift. The company
can also implement more employee benefit programs for ensuring and respective the positive
efforts of the employees. For ensuring quality process, PureGym can integrate technological
and digital advancements for the purpose of diversifying their service offerings and physical
environment in the categories of both physical and digital (Chitty, D'Alessandro and Gray
2019). PureGym can start offering online memberships for digitalized live gym classes for
reassuring their mission of improving the lifestyle of people and can readdress their motive
for 24/7 service delivery (Rather 2019). This change in the physical environment can help
with the operational costs and employee allocation for night shifts in the centres (Mohamad
and Cresswell 2019).

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With the discussion and analysis conducted for ensuring the quality service delivery of
PureGym, it can be concluded that with the directed focus at improving 7Ps and
implementing advanced technologies, the company can redesign its service delivery approach
for a better and sustainable future amongst increasing competition. I would like to end the
podcast in this note. Thank you everyone for tuning in.

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References:
Chitty, W., D'Alessandro, S. and Gray, D., 2019. Services marketing. Oxford University
Press Australia and New Zealand.
Coleman, C., 2017. Low-Cost Gyms Have Muscled Their Way Into The Fitness Market – But
Are They Any Good?. [Online] The Telegraph. Available at:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/body/low-cost-gyms-have-muscled-way-fitness-
market-but-good/
Eftekhari, A.A., 2019. Service Marketing Mix and Its Effects on Stakeholders' Behaviors.
Ibisworld.com 2020. Ibisworld - Industry Market Research, Reports, And Statistics. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ibisworld.com/united-kingdom/market-research-reports/gyms-
fitness-centres-industry/
Kant, R. and Jaiswal, D., 2017. The impact of perceived service quality dimensions on
customer satisfaction. International Journal of Bank Marketing.
Mohamad, M.R.A. and Cresswell, M., 2019. Technology as tool to overcome barriers of
using fitness facilities: a health behavioural perspective. Proceedings of the British Academy
of Management, pp.1-31.
Prentkovskis, O., Erceg, Ž., Stević, Ž., Tanackov, I., Vasiljević, M. and Gavranović, M.,
2018. A new methodology for improving service quality measurement: Delphi-FUCOM-
SERVQUAL model. Symmetry, 10(12), p.757.
Puregym.com 2020. Low-Cost 24 Hour Gym Memberships | No Contract | Puregym.
[Online] Available at: https://www.puregym.com
Rather, R.A., 2019. Consequences of consumer engagement in service marketing: An
empirical exploration. Journal of Global Marketing, 32(2), pp.116-135.

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Statista.com 2019. www.statista.com. Topic: Fitness Industry In The United Kingdom (UK).
[Online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/topics/3411/fitness-industry-in-the-united-
kingdom-uk/
Valtakoski, A., 2019. The evolution and impact of qualitative research in Journal of Services
Marketing. Journal of Services Marketing.
Wantoch, P., Ferrari, R., Bamford, J. and Duarte, M.J., 2019. Non-price effects of
mergers. Competition Law Journal, 18(2), pp.73-78.