Thursday 30 May 2019

GDPR: one year later – have you filtered out the negative vibes?

It’s one year since the General Data Protection Regulation came into being, and the world doesn’t feel very different from a communication point of view. In the fitness industry, clubs are communicating less with members, and Net Promoter Scores have increased, as many detractors will have opted out of communications.


If you made the mistake of asking your members to opt-in, you may have created a culture of only listening to positive feedback. You’ll likely only be asking your ‘raving fans’ what they think, and getting a false NPS boost.

Positive feedback is fine;
it’s good to know what you’re doing well so you can do more of it. But to create great customer experiences it’s equally (or more) important to hear the negative feedback so that you can address issues. Sticking your head in the sand (as some clubs do) regarding complaints is a very dangerous practice. One of the best ways to improve retention is to listen carefully to leavers open feedback, and act on it to prevent future attrition.



If you have reduced or closed off this communication channel following GDPR, listen on your social feeds, aggregator sites and forums. And ask your leavers what they genuinely think; they will give you some of the most honest feedback you will get. So listen to them!

This is the first in a series of posts on customer feedback. Subscribe or come back for the next instalment next week.

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