MI and Health clubs – Retention by Increasing Motivation

 

Health and Fitness Employers - Improving your member retention by changing the ‘style’ and effectiveness of your staffs’ interactions with your members.

You may have the little boxes on your gym kit so members can automatically log their workouts. You may even have software to track your members’ visits against their own attendance goals. You might follow members up with a phone call or a verbal contact at their next visit. But have you looked at whether these methods themselves could have more of an effect on your members’ behaviour?

You can improve the effect of these contacts by changing the ‘style’ in which your staff communicate with your members. There is much evidence now to show that how your professionals interact with clients is the key to influencing behaviour.

The Current National Institute of Clinical Excellence (October 2007) guidelines on effective behaviour change state that:

i) Current training and education in this area should be reviewed, and to disinvest in approaches that lack supporting evidence.

ii) It should be ensured that all practitioners and volunteers have fair and equal access to training and support

iii) Relevant national organisations should consider developing standards for these skills.

 

Why do health club employees need to be effective at influencing exercise behaviour?

The number of monthly membership payments members make is strongly associated with the frequency with which they use their club. The risk of premature cancellation is higher in members who only use their clubs infrequently compared to members who use their clubs at least once per week. It has also been shown that the frequency of club visits is associated with the frequency with which fitness-staff talk to members. Furthermore, the frequency with which fitness-staff talk to members is associated with the risk of cancellation, independently of visit frequency. In other words, all members, irrespective of how often they use their club, benefit from fitness-staff interaction. Research into the communication styles of health professionals trying to modify clients' behaviour, consistently shows that how professionals talk to client's directly influences motivation, confidence and subsequently behaviour. Studies of communication skills training programmes show that a wide range of health and fitness professionals can learn communication styles that increase the probability of behaviour change. It therefore follows that if fitness professionals can be trained in communication styles that increase client motivation and confidence, they will attend their clubs more often and maintain their membership. 

The majority of staff do not approach members because they lack the confidence to do so and even when they do the style will not develop by chance, no matter how friendly and attentive they are.

This can be applied similarly in the field of clinical exercise adherence or personal training.

There is a desperate need for a trainable and assessable skills set to be acquired by health and fitness specialists, to enable them to direct clients’ behaviour in the desired direction. This skills set must be evidence-based and effective. Motivational Interviewing is the evidence-based technique which best serves this purpose.

In-company courses are £1950 for the 2-day workshop for up to 16 staff.

‘Motivational Interviewing for Increased Member Sales and Retention’ - enquire about this in-company course.

For more information contact HFI about MI training.