Customer/member experience and incentive schemes in gym cultures of Saudi Arabia

I’ve been regularly working out at mainstream gyms since 2004 in Saudi Arabia and seasonally Europe. By mainstream I mean gym chains with many branches and that focus mostly on body building rather than CrossFit for example.

I’ve noticed a phenomenon that’s common in the training floor amongst all these gyms. For some reason, these gyms hire very muscular floor trainers and private trainers that aimlessly roam around the training floor with chest and nose high up in the air with a sense of entitlement, playing with their smart phones and almost always with a frown on their faces. They never approach you, are rarely approachable and never useful.

In addition, these trainers are incredibly disengaged to the degree that they wouldn’t even attempt to advise and correct your form when/if they see you exercising bad form in a way that could potentially injure yourself. That’s because they either don’t care, don’t know bad form when they see it or maybe even both.

Furthermore, the knowledge base of these trainers seems to be outdated and limited to how you can get bigger muscles with no knowledge on recovery, mobility or nutrition. What little information they do have is almost always outdated.

I was intrigued to understand why most gyms I’ve been through in the past 16 years followed this same non customer/member centric model on the training floor. Of course there is a very tiny minority of trainers who are exempt of this but even they can only swim against the cultural current for so long (a interesting discussion for another time).

There are many factors that contribute to this widespread phenomenon in the fitness world. But I’ll tackle here one factor that contributes a great deal to it. Incentives systems/schemes or the lack there of.

Today and for the considerable past, nonexistent have been customer centric incentive schemes or any incentive scheme for that matter for these floor trainers. I’m not considering PT (personal training) an incentive here since its counted as separate revenue stream for the gym. Nonexistent incentives schemes when combined with other non-customer centric management practices result is the phenomenon described earlier in this article.

Now I’ll tackle what can be done to remedy the important incentive scheme factor by answering the question “How can these gyms change or adopt an incentive system in a way that would completely turn this phenomenon around and contribute to transforming the gym training floor into a more member centric healthy environment?”

First, I’ll list just few behavioral metrics trainers should be evaluated against:

• Always walk around with a smile on your face (to be approachable)
• Behave and carry yourself in a humble and friendly manner (to be approachable).
• Be knowledgeable and updated in matters of nutrition, recovery and mobility.
• Approach and greet each member every time they enter the training floor then ask if they need assistance.
• Adjust on the spot as needed those who you might witness demonstrating bad form which could lead to injury.

These behavioral metrics should be systematically and objectively weighted, measured and scored on a monthly basis. Daily demonstrating these key behaviors will determine a trainer’s monthly compensation based on some type of variable pay scheme. i.e. the trainers would receive 30% of their total monthly compensation for just coming to work for their working hours and fulfilling basic duties. And the remaining 70% would be based on their monthly score on behavioral metrics. The above example is just one variation for the sake of simplicity and clarification. Your compensation and benefits specialist should figure things out easily. You can add on other non-monetary incentives for trainers who consistently achieve high scores. Identify worthwhile perks that are low in cost yet high in impact. Develop policies along the lines of “if you achieve an ‘A’ score 3 months in a row, you get the XYZ perks”. Keep it simple yet motivating.

Now, how can you monitor and measure these metrics daily then score them on a monthly basis? Easy. Mystery member/shopper evaluations. CCTV Cameras. Floor supervision. Survey with members, etc. “Where there’s a will there’s a way”.

You now might be thinking that this seems like a lot of work. It’s not once you establish your SOP’s, policies and a basic system. What is the ROI of investing in this approach or one that’s similar? I’ll list but a few. Enhanced operational excellence, strive for a performance culture, member centric culture, member satisfaction, member retention, member loyalty, free Word of Mouth marketing through loyal members, attract new members and finally, Financial growth.

In conclusion, this kind of incentive scheme only works when executed systematically, fairly, effectively and efficiently. It’s also just one step in the right direction towards a more member centric culture and towards operational excellence.

This is just an example from the fitness industry. The general approach and it’s takeaways apply to almost any job at any industry.