January 2014 Life Changer`s Chatter

Newtown Athletic Club Employee Newsletter, January 2014
Welcome to Newtown Athletic Club’s first employee newsletter,
we proudly have named ‘life changers chatter’.
Taking customer service to the next level.
December 2013 Results
(score average from 1-10)
# Of Survey Participants
127
Likelihood to Recommend
7.9
Overall staff friendliness
8.5
Inside this issue:
Medallia
 Results
 Comments
2
New Employee Recognition Program: Life
Changing Champions
3
Kudos Korner
3
NAC Events & Promos
4
Employee Fun
4
Your
name
here.
Life Changing Champion!
Back in September we held an all employee meeting to increase our communication
throughout the club, connect our employees to each other, reinforce the importance
of working as a team through a few team building workouts and most importantly,
reinforce our mission to “make lives better….” As our members’ first point of contact
it is important that you have all the information you need to deliver incredible
customer service. This newsletter will serve as another avenue for communication;
each issue will include information on NAC events, promotions throughout the club,
a Kudos Korner– sharing the good feedback we receive about you from our membersand a status update from our new Member Experience Management system,
Medallia.
Most people would consider the NAC to be part of the fitness industry, but if you
were to ask Jim Worthington, our owner, he would disagree. He will tell you time
and time again, we are really in the service industry. We will not be able to sustain
or grow if we can’t get customer service right. Medallia is going to take our service to
the next level. It will allow us to hear the voice of our members so we can improve
their experience based on direct feedback. Medallia is used by some of the top
hospitality and service organizations, such as, Four Seasons, Nordstrom’s, Macy’s,
Omni Hotels & Resorts, Lexus, and Lego, which are all known to be “best in class”
because of their superior customer service! Our goal is to join these organizations
and to be known as a leader in customer service; to “...create the ultimate
recreational, social and healthy lifestyle experience.”
It is important to realize that we all play a role in creating this ultimate experience.
Whether you provide our members a clean and safe work out environment, coach
them to achieve their fitness goals, and everything in between— you are a life
changer. (Hence the name of this newsletter!) We can build a beautiful facility and
buy state of the art equipment, but it’s you that makes us successful and it’s you
who will keep our business growing, most importantly, it’s you who makes [our
member’s] lives better.
I hope this newsletter serves its purpose to keep each of you informed, empowered,
and appreciated. If you would like to contribute to this newsletter please reach out to
me directly at kategolden@newtownathletic.com.
All my best,
Kate
Katlyn Golden
Director, People Operations
Life Changers Chatter
Page 2
Medallia is only as powerful as the people behind it. In order to improve it is
important for all employees to know where we stand in our members’ eyes.
Each month we will post the results from the Medallia Survey in this newsletter. We have already started to make progress based on our member’s suggestions. We will share the suggestions provided by our members and the actions
we took to improve our member’s experience.
What do these numbers mean?!
December Score Details
(score average from 1-10)
# Of Survey Participants
127
Likelihood to Recommend
7.9
Likelihood to be a member in 6
months
Value Received
8.3
Business Practices
7.4
7.3
Staff Friendliness Scores
Overall staff friendliness
8.5
Front desk friendliness
9.1
Management friendliness
8.6
Housekeeping friendliness
8.9
Sales friendliness
8.8
Group exercise friendliness
8.8
Personal training friendliness
8.6
Child care friendliness
8.9
Member Satisfaction Metrics
Overall experience
8.2
Facility
7.8
Staff Assistance
8.5
Equipment Selection
8.9
Equipment Condition
8.6
Locker Room/Showers
8.4
Gym/Club Cleanliness
8.7
Membership Services
8.4
Group Exercise
8.2
Personal Training Services
8.2
Child Care Services
8.3
To the left you will find the average rating for each item on the survey. Congratulations to the front desk for having the highest “friendliness” score! We
will utilize this information to set goals for each team to continually strive to
improve our service.
Below is a “Report Card” for the entire club; a big picture look at how well our
club is doing compared to other clubs and other industries. The Actionable
Loyalty Drives are the areas that we can improve have the quickest impact on
our member’s experience. We will set action plans to improve these areas and
evaluate our progress quarterly. We have listed three goals for all of our employees that can make an immediate impact on these key aspects of the club:
1. Smile & say “hello” to everyone you walk by.
2. See trash in the club, in the parking lot? Pick it up.
3. Notice equipment not working? Tell a manager or email fitness@newtownathletic.com .
If we all chip in, we can make a difference.
Taking Action.
The 3rd floor bathrooms in the Youth Plex need updating.
Quick Fix: We will replace fixtures and stalls and give it a fresh coat of paint by February.
Long Term: Our Architect, Hervey, will be designing a few options for us to possibly expand
or re-capture the space allotted to the bathroom facilities. Estimated completion date: Spring
Diversify Group Exercise class types and intensity levels.
We offer more than 200 classes a week and have added 8 new classes effective January 6th.
Also, all classes are now categorized into two levels (Beginner and Intermediate/Advanced) to better educate our members about the variety
we offer. We also launched Fitness On Demand so members can take a class during off-peak times, all you need to do is pick, click & play!
Parking lot problems with Parking With Small Children & 30 Year Spaces.
Why do we have Parking With Small Children (PWSC) spots? We are a family club and want to ensure the safety of our children. Only 8% of
our 700+ spots are allotted to PWSC. We randomly monitor the parking lots and we are as frustrated as our members, however we must rely
on our member’s, in good faith, to follow the guidelines.
Need more showers in the ladies locker rooms.
This is a large multi-million dollar project that will take place, but not until 2015/2016 when we build out the fitness facility to Penns Trail. For
more information on the next renovation be sure to read your Monday messages from Jim Worthington!
Teens and Tweens need their own space and/or programming.
We do not have a solution for this problem so we will be holding focus group meetings at the end of January to hear directly from the teens and
tweens themselves what they would like to see both indoor and outdoor at the NAC!
Requests for free or cheaper guest passes.
We are beginning to do monthly “community events” that allow guests to come to the NAC for free during a special event (i.e Winter Solstice).
We are also going to look into providing free guests passes that could be used during limited hours and days (non –peak hours, October-May
Know the reason “why”.
Why do we not offer a separate membership for the pool?
Over 3 years ago, we surveyed our members to gauge their interests in the outdoor pool complex, 600 people responded and over 85% were in
favor of the pool. However, the township would only allow us to build if we agreed to offer only one membership, citing traffic impact as their
reasoning. Offering a separate membership is out of our control. However, having only one membership allows the cost of improvements and
amenities (i.e. Both Big Build Projects: Fitness Center & Pool Complex) to be spread over the entire membership base. Both expansions
together allowed us to grow our membership by 40%, reducing the increased cost per membership.
Will we be building an outdoor lap pool?
It is an option we are looking into, however it would not be until 2015/2016. The pool could be outside in the pool complex or we are thinking of
building one on the outside pool deck next to the indoor pool; you would be able to swim back and forth without getting out of the water!
Unfortunately, pools (for the most part) do not make money, they only cost money. Therefore, it is hard to secure a loan from the bank when
we cannot show how we will produce enough revenue from the pool to pay back the loan. Also, since only about 2% of our members utilize lap
swimming pools; we cannot justify a price increase to pay for the pool that would apply to all members.
Why does the NAC cost more than other gyms in the area?
We know the NAC is more expensive than other gyms in the area, but comparing the NAC to any local facility is like comparing apples to oranges.
There is no club within 200 miles that offers the facility, programming and services that we do. We are one of the Top 5 Clubs in the U.S. and
among all of the top clubs we are one of the least expensive. Many in the industry wonder how we can keep our prices so low. If a member
takes advantage of only a few of the services, amenities and facilities we provide they are actually saving money in comparison to what they
would pay separately for all these service at other facilities.
Page 4
Newtown Athletic Club Employee Newsletter, January 2014
Life Changing Champions.
Your name
here.
Monthly Champion!
The NAC‘s mission is to make lives better by creating the ultimate recreational, social and
healthy lifestyle experience.
Many of you make lives better on a daily basis and we want to take this opportunity to
reward you for helping us achieve our mission. This new program will reinforce these
behaviors and recognize your hard work. This will not be a typical recognition program
where only your manager recognizes you. We are going straight to the source, the very
lives you change, our members. The NAC’s top priority is our experience and the incredible customer service you provide, so who better to nominate our Champions
than those who receive this service? This program will acknowledge the extraordinary efforts made by our employees
to fulfill our goals, values and mission of the NAC. It will serve as a formal avenue to highlight the excellence that
exists in all areas across the NAC, but customer service, passion, and high standards of excellence are at the heart
of this award.
Our members will be invited to begin submitting nominations for our Champions this month! A page has been created on the NAC website where members can submit their nomination online. We will ask them to submit a few sentences describing why they are nominating a particular individual. Managers are not eligible to be nominated. This
recognition program is designed for highlighting all of you who work on the front lines every day. An arbitrary selection committee made up of your colleagues and co-workers will review the nominations in order to choose one
monthly Ultimate Life Changing Champion. Look for our first winner to be announced in February!
Good luck to all of our life changers!
Kudos Korner.
We appreciate what each of our employees does on an everyday basis. The following employees have been mentioned in comment cards or the new Medallia survey over the past few months for being super star employees and
each of them deserves “KUDOS”. If you see any of these colleagues around the club, be sure to congratulate or recognize them for a job well done.
Thank you for investing in Group Ex! Andrea & Steffanie are
doing phenomenal!
We can see the difference already!
— Danielle
“I just wanted to give a shout out to Jan
Thanks to Anne Marie Argentieri for
helping to get my
MyZone belt up and
running!
- Robin S.
in the Kid’s Club…. When I came back
from my workout she had my son and
12 other kids playing a game. The
Leslie’s Zumba
class is awesome!
Great energy and
enthusiasm - Ellen L.
kids were happy and engaged and
Jan is so happy, loving and patient”
— Anonymous
I love Eileen from the
Kid’s Club! Makes
Thanks Denise for recommendme have a very reing Kim Carje as my personal
laxed and enjoyable
trainer! She is the best! Very proworkout!” — Danielle
fessional & knowledgeable. Also,
very kind and non-judgmental.
- Cynthia
Please give us more classes with Rebecca! She gets
my heart rate up & She
can DANCE!
- June, Jackie & Janine
I just wanted to call
and tell you that Meg
makes my day when I
see her Monday nights.
She always makes me
smile. Keep her! — Dan
Love Kathi’s Pilates
class– good variety &
guidance . — Ellen L.
Wednesday, Jan 22:
Community Zumba
Day
(Guests are Free!)
EMPLOYEES ONLY:
$20 Donation to
Participate
Can’t attend? Donate any denomination
(even $1) at the Program Desk or Front Desk.
Writing a check? Make payable to Augie’s
Quest for your tax deduction.