Community centers play a vital role in the health and well-being of local residents.
Through their physical spaces and engaging programming, community centers connect seniors, empower local youth, promote healthy lifestyles and strengthen community bonds. These social connections can foster stronger, safer and more inclusive communities, while services and programs can advance individual and community-level health and wellness initiatives.
Achieving positive outcomes hinges on community center performance; leading us to ask: does your community center measure any Key Performance Indicators a.k.a. KPIs? These are the measurable values that indicate how effectively your organization is performing in terms of engagement, financial success, member loyalty and more.
KPIs can give your community center data that can be used when setting engagement goals, devising strategies to reach targets and tracking progress.
Here we look at the three must-know KPIs community centers should be measuring – and using – to elevate member experiences and improve health and wellness outcomes.
No. 1 Member Dropout Rate
It’s estimated that in 2021 some 66.5 million Americans ages six and older, or 1 in 5 people, were members of a health club or fitness studio, according to IHRSA’s (The Global Health & Fitness Association) annual Health Club Consumer Report. Yet, the report found that most health and wellness centers lose 50% of new memberships within the first six months.
A community center’s member dropout rate is among the best indicators of the effectiveness of its engagement. By measuring how many members opted out of renewals or dropped out of memberships midway through, community centers can better understand when and why people are walking away from memberships and find ways to mitigate these dropout causes.
Are potential members dropping out after an initial trial period? It’s possible finances or your onboarding experience had an effect. In fact, 87% of gym members surveyed by IHRSA whose membership outlasted the six-month threshold had a positive onboarding experience. Does your data show that memberships wane ahead of annual renewal dates? It could be that your members haven’t seen – or experienced – the full value of your programs and services.
No. 2 Member Loyalty (a.k.a. Net Promoter Score)
The strength of every organization is rooted in its ability to build strong, long-term loyalty – and it’s no different for community centers. This brings us to our second must-know KPI: your Net Promoter Score (NPS), a customer experience metric that measures loyalty.
By tracking your community center’s NPS, you’ll discover whether or not current members are satisfied with their membership. Truth be told, your NPS score is one of the easiest metrics to track. It’s all based upon asking your members one simple question: “On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this company to a friend or colleague?”
This isn’t just an exit question either. Community centers can and should pose this question to members at various points throughout their trial periods and annual membership plans as NPS scores are a key way to garner member feedback on their experiences. It can also be an early indicator of engagement – be it positive or negative. With this feedback on satisfaction, community centers can make changes to better engage members and increase loyalty.
No. 3: Employee Engagement
It’s important to note: KPIs aren’t just about numbers. One of the most important indicators of a community center’s success comes down to attitudes, especially of your center’s staff.
We have another question for you: are you measuring how your employees feel about coming to work every day? What about asking employees about your organization’s mission? Are they aligned with your mission? Do they readily share this mission with your members? And are your employees themselves benefitting from your health and wellness programs?
You can gauge employment engagement by tracking employee retention rates, conducting employee surveys and knowing your eNPS score. If your employees aren’t satisfied, engaged and loyal, how can you expect your members to be?
Every day, community centers make neighborhoods better places to live, work and play.
By understanding your baseline KPIs, community centers can uncover problems and mitigate issues to ensure members, and employees, remain engaged and loyal. With the help of a digital wellness solution, community centers can digitize and simplify their onboarding processes, communicate relevant program offerings, send program reminders, provide encouraging messages and track key KPIs to improve member, and staff, experiences.
Contact our team to discover how Avidon Health’s Engagement Rx can optimize your member engagement, support employees and elevate your performance metrics.