Setting up gyms is no longer guesswork, art work, and gut feel, it is now a science.

The results speak for themselves.

In the Case Study - The Importance of Equipment Availability to Gym Customers are the results of over 14,000 customer surveys, and it also shows how one of our clients increased their Net Promoter Score by 181%, from 27 to 47 and now to 76, one of the highest Net Promoter Scores (customer satisfaction) measured in our industry!

We are now building a large body of evidence about the massive impact that 'Equipment Availability' has on customer satisfaction, the power of it has led us to pose the question in the attached case study;

'Is Equipment Availability the Higgs Boson particle of the gym industry?'

When everything else remains constant, ie staff are the same and behave the same, equipment quality is the same, cleanliness is the same, location is the same, change rooms are the same, but there is a variation in 'Equipment Availability' we are measuring massive changes in customer satisfaction. The extent of which has surprised even us.

We have seen Net Promoter Scores (NPS) double and triple when 'Equipment Availability' has been improved and more than halve when it has declined.

Renfrewshire Leisure saw its NPS increase from 27 to 47 by solving an acute shortage of Treadmills, and then increase again to 76 by expanding the size of the whole gym and improving 'Equipment Availability'.

Strathclyde University similarly saw an increase in their NPS score of 123% by solving a shortage of Treadmills.

We also measured this phenomenon in reverse by measuring a gyms NPS score fall more than half, from 27 to 10 when 'Equipment Availability' fell as the gym got busier December to January.

In all these examples the more than doubling and halving of the customers satisfaction was caused by a variation in 'Equipment Availability', everything else remained constant.

Analysing individuals satisfaction by how Available they find equipment is equally startling as shown in the Case Study - The Importance of Equipment Availability to Gym Customers. It varies from a NPS of +52 for customers who find their 3 favourite equipment types 'Usually Free' to -15 for customers who find them 'Usually busy and it bothers them', in the same gyms!

Is there any other aspect of gyms customers experience that can cause these doubling, tripling and halving of customer satisfaction scores, if everything else remains constant?

GYMetrix is the first company to measure 'Equipment Availability' and simultaneously measure customer satisfaction and in the process uncovering a truth that in retrospect seems obvious;

To use equipment is the main reason customers are on the gym floor, how easily they can use the equipment, how available it is, directly affects the value they receive from the gym and their satisfaction.

It appears that whilst high 'Equipment Availability' is not necessarily a guarantee of high customer satisfaction, low 'Equipment Availability' however is a guarantee of low customer satisfaction.