An investment, not a cost

£430,000. That’s the value to the Everyone Active business of the additional memberships retained in the South-East South region beyond what was forecast for 2018-19.

To clarify: that isn’t the value of all retained memberships. It’s the value to the business that resulted purely from this high-performing region beating the targets it had been set for the year – that margin between forecast and actual performance, whereby the region saved even more members than had been predicted.

Better yet, this £430,000 figure is based on membership fees across those members’ lifetimes alone; factoring in secondary spend would produce an even more impressive total.

And this is no isolated achievement: attrition rates have also fallen year-on-year within the region.

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Driving standards

Of course, this outstanding performance is a result of many factors across the business. However, regional contract manager Ian Cook firmly believes the region’s comprehensive programme of regular mystery shops – conducted by mystery shopping specialist Proinsight via email, phone and in person – plays a highly significant role.

He explains: “Without Proinsight’s work, it would be very challenging to train our staff properly. This clear and progressive snapshot of the business represents the only true feedback we get on how each individual member of staff is doing. It’s the best tool we have to deliver the service standards our clients expect.

“It’s particularly valuable in the present time, when low unemployment rates nationally mean higher turnover of colleagues, which in turn means a higher proportion of staff who are new to the Everyone Active way of doing things. Left unchecked, this could result in poor customer service, which would be incredibly damaging.

“It could also result in poor sales performance, which is obviously the flip side to our strong retention results: we also need our sales team firing on all cylinders if we want to maintain and grow our membership base, and this is a key area of focus for Proinsight.”

“Proinsight’s mystery shopping is an invaluable tool to support our service culture and our ongoing training, which is why I see it as an investment not a cost.”

Ian Cook, regional contract manager, Everyone Active

Cook continues: “As it is, through our work with Proinsight, we can quickly identify and address any issues: our heads of department are expected to support staff with any additional training they need – or indeed to acknowledge and reward great performance – within 48 hours of receiving each new report.

“Proinsight’s mystery shopping is an invaluable tool to support our service culture and our ongoing training, which is why I see it as an investment not a cost, and why we have such a regular programme of mystery shopping in place.”

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Practice makes perfect

The impact of such regular investment is evident in the mystery shopping data, which shows the South-East South region consistently delivering a strong performance.

“Ian’s region is proof that practice makes perfect,” confirms Proinsight founder and managing director David Hopkins. “On average since January 2017, our scores for the South-East South region – where we conduct mystery shops at least twice as often as in any other region – are 11 per cent better across the breadth of our mystery shopping criteria.”

“Within that, sites which we’ve managed for longer – and which have therefore been working with Proinsight for a number of years – get the best scores,” adds Cook.

And this is vital not only to the member experience, but also to sites’ all-important Quest performance. Cook explains: “The first stage of Quest is a mystery shopper, and if you get a low score you won’t even progress to the next stage. It’s yet another argument for investing in regular mystery shopping, so standards are consistently monitored and maintained.

“We strive for an ‘Outstanding’ Quest ranking for all our sites and Proinsight helps us achieve this. I know, if a site isn’t doing well in Proinsight’s mystery shops, that it won’t do well in Quest either. It gives us a chance to address any issues in advance of Quest’s visit.”

“For the value we get from it, it really isn’t expensive.”

Ian Cook, regional contract manager, Everyone Active

He concludes: “I don’t know why more businesses aren’t doing mystery shopping. For the value we get from it, it really isn’t expensive. Businesses should be biting Proinsight’s hand off.”