Leon and I are always studying how to better serve our Empower community. To this end, we consume endless books and pod casts on business and coaching and nutrition and fitness and community building.
Yesterday morning before work I was reading Joey Coleman’s excellent book Never Lose a Customer Again which features real case studies of businesses that do an outstanding job of customer retention.
Gyms are generally poor at this. Most people never even make it three months into their gym membership. So I was delighted yesterday when chapter 12 mentioned CrossFit’s effectiveness at retaining members. There’s a lot of things that CrossFit gyms do differently than commercial gyms that lead to success and longevity for members. And the author held up Kelly Starett’s CrossFit San Francisco as a leader in this regard. The 21st affiliate in the world, Kelly must have opened in early 2005 so at date of publication, had been operating for 13 years. The author emphasized that 8% of CrossFit San Fran’s membership have been there for 5 years or more. Impressive by gym standards. Except…
CrossFit Empower affiliated 2008 in Surrey. In 2009 we relocated to Clarke & 3rd on Vancouver’s East Side while I apprenticed at CrossFit Vancouver. When my apprenticeship was complete, we opened March 2013 on Vancouver’s West Side. Some of our members followed us making the commute for awhile but with the exception of Dr. T who lives on the West Side, the move ended their relationship with us. So on the West Side we have been in operation only since 2013, 8 years less that CrossFit San Fan.
Saturday at our 10th annual 12 Days of X-Mas event we presented Empower team jerseys to our members who have been with us 5 years or more (essentially since we first opened on the West Side). More than 30% of our members received a jersey!
We know there are no other gyms in the city that can boast this sort of retention rate but we still want to get better at serving you. It’s not good enough to exceed the 8% gold standard offered by Coleman’s book, we want to strive for 100% retention. Thank you for supporting us and for making Empower such a great place to train and work. Keep telling us what we can do better so that we can keep serving you for 10 years, 15 years, and for life!
Maybe one day they will write a book about us:)
