Don't Let Leavers leave without a chase

Leavers are outnumbering joiners at many clubs this autumn. Clearly the rising cost of living and economic uncertainty is having an effect, but you need to find out more about why your members are leaving. There are two parts to this article, the first talks about the reasons to contact leavers, and then a real-life anecdote about cancelling a corporate gym membership.

Attrition on the rise

Lots of clubs have seen reasonable membership sales in September 2022, traditionally the second-best sales month of the year. Few had record sales numbers though, and membership attrition is on the rise across the whole industry.

Some public sector clubs and chains are seeing around 150 leavers for every 100 joiners, and even independent gym owners are seeing more cancellations than new members.

When presented with this conundrum, our question is always “why are your members leaving?”. The two most common responses are “we don’t know” or “I guess it’s the economy/competition/other”. It’s incredible that so many clubs are still not reaching out to leavers, at least to learn from them, if not to save them. Learn how, when, and who is cancelling (these could be on a leavers KPI dashboard), but most importantly learn why.

Why is contacting them so hard?

Sure, it’s hard to contact members who are cancelling. It can be a thankless task. Here are three of the reasons people don’t want to do it, and arguments against the excuses.

1. They don’t like us
   They don’t all dislike you, or your club. Some will be keen to give you feedback if you just ask them.
   
   
2. It’s not worth it
   You will never get a reason out of many of them, but it is worth it. You need to try to contact as many as possible. Even if you only hear from 5 or 10% of cancellations, you will still find out something that you can change in future to reduce attrition. And some leavers will appreciate the gesture. Even though they don’t get back to you, they may rejoin in future because of your efforts.
   
   
3. There are so many of them, we don’t know where to start
   All the more reason to try to contact as many as possible. Try simple ways to contact them all to start with, trigger an email or SMS (or both) linking to a survey or form. You’ll get low engagement from low effort though, so if you have the resource, choose to contact certain segments or demographics (e.g., high value, cancel method, clicked but didn’t feedback) by phone, letter, or other messaging channels.

If you’re an independent club owner, you typically have a closer relationship with your members, so have relatively fewer cancellations, and thus more success reaching out to them. But larger clubs and chains should have more resource and systems to take on the problem, using economies of scale to learn more from more leavers.

At GGFit, we work with public, private, and independent clubs; chains, trusts, and single sites on all aspects of member retention. It can seem counter-intuitive, but we sometimes start an engagement with the leaver’s journey. The feedback from members cancelling can help with defining the new and active member journey, increasing their engagement and length of stay. Plus, as a bonus, you might save a few leavers along the way.

Member stories

I’ve chatted with several friends who’ve cancelled memberships over the last month or two, and they’re always amazed by the lack of contact they get. Most get absolutely nothing, not even an acknowledgement after writing or cancelling their direct debit.

One friend read his contract terms diligently, and hand-delivered a cancellation letter to the club (a large, expensive national chain), only to be told that he couldn’t cancel in writing (even though the terms said he must). 40 days after completing the website form and stopping his payment, he’s still awaiting confirmation of cancellation. In the meantime, he’s received 3 free guest passes for the club, for the first time! 

There were so many positive stories of cancellation conversations during the pandemic – supporting members and ex-members, but it seems most of the fitness industry is sticking its head in the sand and reverting to a focus on sales and offers at any cost. 

You’ll miss 100% of the shots you don’t take

Meanwhile, more and more members are leaving. Therefore, there are more lessons being missed. You just need to try and have a conversation with cancelling members. You will not save them all, but you’ll save none if you don’t reach out to any of them.