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Talking point: Everyone's talking about ... Hospitality
From training to service, what can the fitness industry learn from hospitality? We ask leaders who benefit from a multi-sector viewpoint
Hospitality level standards of service is something we’re prioritising at Fitness First UK. The health and fitness industry is relatively new compared to the seasoned hospitality industry and we lack experience in customer-centricity and consistency in operating procedures. Hospitality is renowned for first class training along with well refined operating practices and ingrained mystery shopping, which is something we need to develop. However, our industry is revered for its positivity, energetic approach and hunger to succeed – people moving across from the hospitality and retail sectors tell me it’s a joy to work in health and fitness.
We can develop a hospitality-style, service based-culture by importing talent from hospitality and retail to help develop our people, using new suppliers who share their experience from other sectors and tailored to the needs of fitness. Owners and leaders also need to be bold enough to adopt cultural changes without losing the essence or strengths of our industry.
As we aim to drive up service standards at Fitness First we’ve made changes, including bolstering our leadership team with talent from Boots, WH Smiths and Matalan. We’re re-writing, and modernising, our operating foundations, with the new strategy being built around the customer. We’re also investing in new technology and learning and development.
Having a wider skilled and experienced leadership is expected to bring a step change to our industry, ultimately making businesses more valuable and more desirable to work within.
It’s all about the experience on offer. Restaurants really nail the customer journey, especially those in the data-obsessed quick service segment. Every touchpoint is designed to make the customer feel an emotional connection, from the menu to the ambiance to the service. Fitness should do the same.
By improving how we map the member journey – from the way they learn about a boutique fitness brand, for example, to the moment they finish their first workout – we can drive brand equity and lifetime customer value. People don’t just want to break a sweat; they want to feel inspired. We have to operate accordingly: focus on delivering an exceptional member experience, day in and day out.
As CEO at Xponential, I’ll be emphasising respect and dedication for small operators. My job is to help franchisees succeed. At Taco Bell, I developed a deep admiration for franchisees – their entrepreneurial spirit, their grit and their ambitions.
Culture isn’t top-down – it’s about unlocking potential by empowering people. You start by articulating a vision for something extraordinary, then make sure you’re keeping the path for creativity and collaboration clear so everyone feels they have a platform. A winning culture is not about bureaucracy or hierarchy – it’s about giving people the freedom to innovate, solve problems and grow together.
The hospitality industry has about a 100 year or so head start on the fitness industry, so we have a lot to learn. One of my favourite reads on this topic is Isadore Sharp’s book about Four Seasons – the business he founded.
He reckons it took a few decades to get it right.
The simple point is that exceptional service is so easy to understand but really quite hard to deliver consistently. It’s all about the culture of your company. You need the right sort of people, who are skilled, motivated and empowered to deliver that exceptional service.
Our industry can be quite focused on what’s new and what’s different, rather than what’s good. How often do you hear about new hotel concepts? Not that often because that’s not really what people want. They want really good experiences. I’m all for innovations, but keep them in perspective – they’ll never be more important than getting the basics right. I’ve seen plenty of concepts in our industry come and go, shining briefly and brightly in PR terms but fading as businesses once the shine of new has gone.
It starts with making service culture a priority, which in my view starts with making sure you’re in control of your culture. For us that means investing heavily in our relationship with our service delivery team, which involves rigorous selection, thorough onboarding, inspiring training and ongoing career development opportunities. I want every instructor and personal trainer to have been through this before we put them in front of our members, and I want the best ones to stay and make a career with us.
We made the changes to shift from a partly freelance and self-employed model to a fully employed model around decade ago and we never stopped working and trying to improve our team member experience ever since. We’ve made significant investments in our academy and learning and development functions, and take great care and attention in all of the internal rituals which together help define our culture. When this is combined with our obsession with tracking member satisfaction using Net Promoter Score – so everyone is in no doubt as to what our organisational priority is – then we make some progress. This does require a lot of staying power because there are few short cuts or quick wins.
It’s vital both industries deliver high-quality customer interactions and touchpoints throughout a customer journey that should be personalised, creating a more authentic and enjoyable experience.
The hospitality industry is particularly skilled at using data, insights and benchmarking to create customer journeys. Using these insights, key players have developed journeys that start from the initial stages through arrival, stay, departure and post-departure.
As an industry, we can learn from hospitality and explore how we can use data and insights to understand customers’ needs. We can take these insights and use them to build all-important customer journeys.
Like the hospitality industry, we have different customer groups with wide-ranging needs. We must understand these reasons and use them to tailor our approach.
In hotels for example, a regular business traveller may be looking for a warm welcome and comfy bed whereas a family on holiday may require more information on the locality. This can be applied when we have a gym user who understands the equipment but is looking to vary their workout, compared to a first-time user who requires advice to become more active.
Data and insights can also guide how we decide to approach pricing, loyalty programmes and yield management to address supply and demand, as well as retention. The hotel industry is strong in these areas and we’re looking at how we can learn from this.
Service has long been at the heart of the hospitality industry, not least due to the abundance of customer reviews which play a big part in the decision-making process for customers. Guests can forgive a slightly tired design but not bad service. When you combine this with an understanding of how competitors fare, they can ensure teams are trained to deliver excellent service and a product that’s deemed value for money.
I’ve learned many things from my experience in hospitality, but one that always sticks with me is that when you have a culture of trust and empower your team to do the right thing, they will do just that and will surprise you in how creative and caring they are, which can have a profoundly positive impact on customers.
I envision Crunch as a place where we treat every check-in as a moment of truth. We’re in relentless pursuit of this standard every day and it’s essential we deliver a legendary experience to all our members with urgency and consistency.
My passion for this vision comes from my time as COO of Pizza Hut. In the restaurant world, every meal served really was a moment of truth. And the ability to fully adopt that level of urgency, which is common in that restaurant space, will be a competitive advantage for Crunch. It’s also critical for the fitness industry at large.
A hospitality-style culture can fuel excellence with a focus on ensuring team member training which reflects this value of delivering a great experience for every member in every moment with us. Fitness brands and health club operators need to have their ears tuned in to the voices of gym members to ensure the industry is meeting their needs, and also aware of the latest trends.
To develop a service-based culture, the industry can also be open to importing talent from other sectors.
We’ll meet the moment by meeting our members, team members, and franchise partners where they are. This may sound vague, but it’s really not. The urgency of this approach moment-to-moment is a very specific challenge we’re taking as a collective to deliver a legendary result, and it will show up in every aspect of how we function as a company.
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