Fitness First is a leading global fitness chain with over 400 locations worldwide. Founded in 1993, today they lead the way in providing tailored, personalised experiences through world-class facilities.

In South East Asia, Fitness First has grown rapidly to 90 locations making them the clear market leader in the region.

Yet, their success has encouraged a number of competitors to enter the market over the last five years and there are now more than 250 health clubs in Singapore alone.

Fitness First Singapore realised that in an increasingly crowded market, delivering a great customer experience is the only way to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage.

Despite their commitment to delivering a great CX, Fitness First Singapore lacked an effective way to tap into the voice of the customer.

“Prior to using RateIt, we had no way to really listen to our customers. We used surveys and member interviews, but they didn’t give us the data we needed to really understand what our customers were saying, or drive the right behaviours in our clubs,” explains their National Customer Service Manager.

Their current market research and survey-based methods provided a limited and biased view of the customer experience – and they still lacked the means to operationalise a customer-first mindset.

With an ever-increasing membership base, and growing competitive pressure, they knew that a better solution was required.

Fitness First Singapore implemented RateIt to better understand their customer experience, and to support a customer-first approach to running their health clubs.

Almost immediately, RateIt’s in-the-moment feedback tablets helped Fitness First rapidly increase the volume and regularity of customer responses they were receiving. Instead of ad-hoc feedback summaries from call centre polls, Fitness First was getting real-time feedback from the thousands of interactions club members had with the brand every day.

“RateIt was a plug-and-play rollout and as soon as we started using their platform we were getting lots of useful data. Club managers were able to clearly see what their customer experience was, what their members were saying, and how that experience compared to other clubs. It was a level of insight we’d never had before,” Tengku explains.

In addition to providing the tools to listen to their customers, RateIt gave this leading gym chain a way to build a customer-first mindset into their daily operations. RateIt dashboards and leaderboards were embedded into the daily working rhythms of club managers, and CX outcomes were included in performance, bonus and promotion frameworks.

“RateIt is the first thing the company reviews at 7am, every day. It’s part of our DNA. It had been so hard to listen and respond to customers are much as we’d like to, but RateIt has provided that bridge between consumers and staff. It’s given us the ability to know what we’re doing well, and how to fix what we’re not, on a day to day basis,” says Tengku.

Since introducing RateIt, Fitness First Singapore has been able to confidently set NPS and CX floors knowing they have the tools and processes required to deliver an exceptional experience at every location.

With the ability to really listen to their customers and the tools to action that feedback, Fitness First has been able to materially improve the customer experience they provide their members.

With staff at all levels embracing a customer-first mindset, the brand has increased its NPS score by 20 points and its Customer Experience score by 15 points – both incredibly significant results – in the two years since introducing RateIt.

“Our NPS and CX scores have been improving ever since we’ve implemented RateIt, which can be largely accredited to the company’s decision to fully embed RateIt into its day to day operations, culture and training,” says Tengku.

The high levels of customer satisfaction that the company has been able to reach through this program have also laid the foundation for Fitness First to expand throughout the region.

“Reaching this level of NPS was significant in us getting funding for club expansion. It showed that we could provide and sustain great customer experiences and keep retention rates high,” Tengku says.

Fitness First Singapore is a trailblazer in customer experience. Mohaizad and his team are leading the way in providing exceptional customer experiences, and RateIt is excited to be along for the journey. As the brand continues to expand, and customer-first continues to become the mantra of the business, the experience that members receive is only expected to get better and better.