I am a bit of a Gym Junkie and need my daily endorphin rush to clear the head and get myself ready for a good evenings sleep. I have been a member of a very large and well-known gym for about three and half years now. The gym is located in an Auckland suburb called New Lynn and occupies three levels.

I had a bit of a break over the festive season and returned last Monday to start getting myself back in to shape for 2012. After changing in to my gym gear I rushed up to my favourite room – Cardio and on entering had to take a step back. The seasonal lets fill the gym drive had begun. As far as the eye could see there was a mass of perspiring, grunting fellow endorphin junkies or all shapes and sizes, all intent on pushing their bodies to the limit. A quick cast of the eye across the room located two cycling, two running and three cross training machines not being used.

I quickly filled my water bottle and rushed over to the first cross trainer only to be greeted by a yellow and black OUT OF ORDER sign. Rushing to the next sign provided the same answer, and the next and the next and the next…. As I was about to leave in a state of heightened frustration for being deprived of my endorphin dose an exhausted fellow endorphin junkie stumbled off his cross trainer and I quickly annexed this territory for myself for the next 20 minutes.  

Plugging in my MP 3 player and flicking through the TV channels I was then greeted by fuzzy noise and a Poltergiest TV screen.  No viewing or Mozart but incessant gyrating pop music for me for the next twenty minutes was the only option. Needless to say that at the end of my 60 minute cycle I jostled my way through narrow passages of people waiting for group gym sessions and then had to contend  with a shower area in less than a clean state.  Even more depressing was that on leaving the gym I felt the beginning of scratchiness in my throat.  

This morning I am typing my blog for the week with a box of tissues next to me feeling in a state of ill health…… courtesy of my favourite gym!  So what is the moral of my Blog?  My gym experience reflects external indicators of a company that is not in touch with its clients.

A quick analysis of my gym experience highlights the following regarding customer satisfaction: 

1. As the global economy worsens and potential  markets and profits shrink, companies  (such as my gym) should be intent on  nurturing  customer satisfaction and keeping their current customers satisfied rather than chasing  potential new customers with no consideration of impact on present business performance.
2. Chasing after new customers could be false economy in that the advertising costs and potential gain in new customers is offset by the loss of present clients with no potential real growth.
3. Successful companies will be the ones that recognize that present economic imperatives will force a paradigm shift regarding how they deal with customers. New ways of measuring customer satisfaction will need to replace outmoded methods such as sales volume, frequency of complaints, etc.  The focus will need to be on sustainability of current customer base and by implication a satisfied customer base leads to word of mouth growth. Social networking is a powerful tool and woe to the company who ignores it. The power of the Internet pen has brought down governments and customers are more and more intolerant of accepting poor service. Customer satisfaction leads to loyalty and product repurchase. This principle is universal and can be applied to any product or business. The customer coming through the physical or virtual shop door and returning again and again reflects the essence of business success. You have something that I want and I am willing to pay you for it. But it is more than want – it is what meaning a product or service adds to a customer’s life that counts. This does not only apply to the customer but to a business as well. My present gym experience is that  the gym collective  people = profits  and  not my needs as an individual customer are not being considered or met. Furthermore, my perception is that the marketing strategy seems to be company profit over customer need. Companies have customers. Customers are individuals and it is the individual need, not the group need that needs to be nurtured. Lose enough individuals and you lose the group.
4. The goal of every company should be to nurture customer loyalty and commitment to brand. This takes continuous customer experience management and by implication satisfaction measurement.   The Customer must remain central to company service, product or provision.If not your business will be like running on a treadmill.

Mindlogik Ltd. provides face to face group and online training  on how to develop and consider Competitive Advantage strategies using Mind Manager 2012. These courses are run on a regular basis. Keeping ahead of the pack. The A, B.C’s of knowing what your competitors are doing and how to use this to your advantage helps attendees develop a business strategy using MindManager 2012 that they can use on a daily basis to know what their competitors are doing, how they are pricing their products and what needs to be done to position their own businesses for achieving competitive advantage. Their  business mapping approach provides visual assess to the competition in attendees own businesses or  industries. The course also provides opportunity to apply these concepts to develop a strategic marketing plan with a focus on customer satisfaction.

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