Retention by Stealth (or The Hidden Retention Benefits of HealthSeekers)

HealthSeekers Wasn't Built for Retention. But It Helps Retention Anyway.

HealthSeekers was designed to engage people who want better health but aren't ready for traditional membership.

The goal wasn't retention... The goal was engagement.

Yet operators are consistently reporting retention benefits.... Why?

Building a Culture Where Staff Stay and Members Thrive

In most health clubs, retention is treated as a number to manage.

• A percentage on a report
• A monthly KPI
• Something to fix when it drops

But the reality is simpler, and more challenging:

Retention is a daily behaviour, not a monthly metric.

It’s shaped by what happens on the gym floor, at reception, in conversations, and in the first few weeks of a member’s journey. And crucially, it’s driven by the people delivering those experiences.

That’s the focus of our Retention Leadership Workshop, helping clubs move beyond tactics and start building a culture where both staff and members stay.

Make it Easy to Leave, and More People Will Stay

For years, the fitness industry has relied on friction to retain members.

Long notice periods. Hidden clauses. Phone-only cancellations.

It worked… on paper.

But that model is now under pressure. Regulation is tightening around “subscription traps,” customer expectations are shifting, and the tolerance for opaque cancellation processes is disappearing fast.

We asked recently: what’s the last subscription you tried to cancel?
The responses weren’t about price or value; they were about frustration.

That’s the real issue.

The problem isn’t that people leave.
It’s how they feel when they do.

The old model: friction as retention

There’s a long-standing industry assumption that if you make cancellation harder, fewer people will cancel.

This is technically true... but commercially short-sighted.

Friction doesn’t create loyalty.
It creates resentment… and that shows up somewhere else:

• Negative word of mouth
• Lower trust at point of sale
• Reduced likelihood of rejoining
• Brand damage that compounds over time

People don’t forget bad exits.
And in fitness, where rejoining is common, that matters more than most sectors. 

Your Retention Problem Isn’t Pricing. It’s Silence.

Recently, an article in The Guardian explored something simple but powerful: we’re losing the art of talking to strangers.

• Banks are digital
• Supermarkets are self-checkout
• Food ordering is app-based
• Even everyday services that once required conversation are now screen-led.

We’ve removed friction from modern life, and in doing so, we’ve removed conversation.

And that matters.

Because for many people, the leisure centre, health club or gym is now one of the last remaining places where real, human interaction still happens.

Photo by Mikhail Nilov on pexels

Bigwave Marketing partners with GGFit to develop the HealthSeekers brand and national programmes

Bigwave Marketing has announced a partnership with GGFit to lead the branding and marketing development of HealthSeekers, a coaching-led approach designed to help leisure operators and health clubs engage people who want to live healthier lives but do not identify with traditional gym models.

Initially appointed to support operator-level marketing, Bigwave’s role has evolved to include the creation of the HealthSeekers brand identity, product concepts, and campaign frameworks that can be applied consistently across multiple sites while allowing for local delivery.

photo credit: Halfpoint on iStock

GGFit Launches First National HealthSeekers Accelerator Programme to Redefine Community Health and Wellbeing

-PRESS RELEASE-

GGFit has announced the launch of the HealthSeekers Accelerator Programme, a national early-adopter initiative designed to help leisure operators and health clubs across the UK engage people who want to live healthier lives but do not identify as traditional gym members.

Launching this month [January], the programme represents a shift in how public and independent leisure providers approach community health and wellbeing. Rather than relying on membership-led models, HealthSeekers focuses on coaching-led health services, and uses more inclusive messaging to remove the barriers people associate with gyms.

Health, Data, and Collaboration

The HealthSeekers mission is to unite operators, coaches and local communities in a shared movement for better health. Working alongside leisure operators, local authorities and wellbeing innovators, the programme develops a growing network of community wellbeing hubs that empower people to live healthier, longer lives. At the same time, it will collate data based evidence to build operator confidence and health service ambition.

photo credit: Vitaly Gariev @silverkblack on Unsplash

Why You Should Stop Trying to Upgrade Every PAYG Member

Pay-as-you-go members don’t always need upgrading. 

But they do need nurturing. 

And leavers can always visit again on PAYG.

Across the public and private sectors, we’re hearing the same story this autumn; strong membership sales and steady PAYG numbers. That’s good news, but it raises a question; are we nurturing PAYG visitors, or simply counting them?

While this might sound like a public leisure issue, it applies to many models, from low-cost gyms to boutique studios. If you sell day passes, 7-day trials, or 'bring a friend' offers, then PAYG customers are part of your ecosystem too.

For clarity, let’s call PAYG visitors casual members, and use members for those on monthly or annual payments.

Keep Your Staff, Keep Your Members! Strategies for both...

How Staff Retention Helps Member Retention

When we talk about retention in the fitness industry, most of the focus is on members. But the same principles that keep members coming back also apply to staff. And when staff are retained, engaged, and motivated, members benefit directly through stronger relationships, better service, and a sense of continuity that builds trust.

Staff Retention = Member Retention

Members join clubs for facilities, but they stay because of people. Staff are the heartbeat of the member experience. High staff turnover disrupts relationships, creates inconsistency, and makes it harder to build the kind of trust that keeps members long-term. Retaining staff is a key driver to retain members. We see it clearly when supporting operators, good staff morale, positive communication (banter even) between teams, means that staff stick around, and members benefit too.

Speedy Onboarding

Following Up: Why Onboarding Still Matters
In the last article, Inductions for Everybody, we explored why and how clubs should promote and encourage all new members to have an onboarding appointment; because members who do stay longer. That’s better for your business, and better for your members too.

The Airline Analogy

As many of us board flights over the summer, we’re given the option of Speedy Boarding; paying more to get on (and off) the plane faster than everyone else.

What if we borrowed this idea in fitness?

Inductions for Everybody

How can we be more efficient and offer a standard service when onboarding new members? And how can we deliver more? The standard industry term is still induction, but many clubs are changing to ‘activation’, ‘welcome appointment’, ‘step 1’, ‘getting started’, etc. If we’re shifting mindsets, let’s use new terminology.

“All of our members have an induction” is often the response when we ask about retention strategies, particularly onboarding.

Club operators and owners believe that they really are doing their best to ensure all new members have the maximum chance of sticking around.

But when we dig under the bonnet, either through further discussion, or analysis of club data, it often transpires that fewer than half of new members actually attend some kind of onboarding appointment.

 

We’ve looked at this issue many times, with many clubs; from leisure trusts and councils, private clubs and independent gyms, even low-cost, low-staff gyms, where inductions really aren’t popular at all.