“Impact of failure in customer retention on trainer's turnover in Singapore's fitness industry and the unintended consequences”

Comments

The proposed research - “Impact of failure in customer retention on trainer's turnover in Singapore's fitness industry and the unintended consequences” - implies a causal effect of customer retention (independent variable) leading to trainer’s turnover (dependent variable). As the two variables are mutually interacting upon each other the theoretical constructs to substantiate such causal relationship would be difficult in the first instance. It would have been neater to just restrict the investigation to exploring the potential relationship between these two variables without any causal suggestion and restructure the proposal discussion accordingly.

Introduction:

While a fair scenario of the fitness scene in Singapore is painted in section 1 Research Background and Rationale you need to specifically draw out and state the ensuing Research Problem in a concise manner which could lead readily into your discussion in section 2 Aims and Objectives of the Study and section 3 Research Questions thereof. For example it is unclear from your section 1 if you are implying trainer’s turnover is a direct consequence of failure to retain their customers ie the trainers are terminated ? If such be the case you need to explicitly present the legal obligations of trainers to maintain a pool of regular customers as part of their employment contract (say). In any case the practices in the health and fitness industry pertaining to trainers need to be clearly highlighted as part of the background discussion and subsequent rationale for the proposed research.

The three null hypotheses presented needs to be more appropriately and concisely restated. For example, “H0 : Failure in customer retention results in an increase in the rates of trainer’s turnover in Singapore fitness industry” (p.6) could be more succinctly restated as “Hnull : Trainer’s turnover is NOT related to customer retention”. In addition, hypotheses H1 and H2 each attempt to test multiple variables association in a single proposition. In general each hypothesis should articulate a certain association between two variables as part of proper hypothesis construct. Hypotheses H2 and H3 should be split into multiple two-variables assertions instead.

Incidentally, after reading the presentation in section 1 to 6, the impression conveyed is the fitness trainer’s profession is akin to marketing and sales professional. In both professions customer retention is the key to job success. Failure to retain customer leads to dismissal from job. If such be the analogical situation you need to specifically highlight the unique nature of fitness trainer’s profession, its peculiar issues and challengers, as to warrant your proposed research investigation as part of research significance – potential contribution to knowledge and/or practice, and research rationale – to promote better understanding and to proffer some potential resolutions for business owners of fitness establishment (say). In addition, issues of customer retention, trainer/staff turnover and profitability are a perennial concern for businesses in general and not confine especially to fitness establishment. You need to delve further into the literature to establish the unique nature of fitness establishment, the distinct role of the trainer and the peculiar needs of fitness customers in your proposed research.

Literature Review:

Issues of (i) employee turnover due to organisational ambient, compensation and rewards, etc ;

(ii) customer retention in response to products and services offered, loyalty rewards, relationship with trainers, etc; (iii) business’ profitability due to customer retention and purchase, costs associated with recruitment and training of new hires, etc. as discussed in various sub sections of section 7 Literature Review are multi-faceted and mutually inter-linked ie a circular “Chicken-and-egg” type of issue. It would be exacting and difficult to argue for a simple direct one way cause-effect relationship as implied by the caption of section 7.4 Impact of Failure in Customer Retention on Employee Turnover. (Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to rephrase the caption the other way round instead – “The Impact of Employee Turnover and failure in Customer Retention” ?)

The opening statement in section 7.4 reads “The failure of organisations to retain their customers has been seen to have a direct relationship with the rate of employee turnover” (p.18) depicting a mutual two-way relationships. The ensuing arguments include : “When organizations do not retain their customers, they experience low profits and thus are unable to offer their employees competitive wages and remunerations (leading to trainers’ turnover)” (p.18) The last sentence of the same paragraph then concludes : “failure in customer retention is one of the primary factors which fuel the rate of employee turnover” (p.19). Such lines of arguments are weak. The converse is equally possible – Non-competitive wages and remunerations leads to inability to hire high quality trainers resulting in poor customer service and retention leading to low profitability ?

If you are still keen on pursuing a direct causal relationship between variables customer retention leading to trainer’s turnover your arguments would have to be better couched in solid prior research findings. Else as it is you could only proffer on a probable relationship between the two variables with no cause-effect connotation at best for your research.

Research Methodology:

The link between the variables to be investigated (i) Independent variable - customer retention, specifically pertaining to failure to do so, and (ii) Dependent variable – trainer’s turnover in fitness establishment, and the employment of SERVQUAL model is not explicitly discussed. For example you need to justify why SERVQUAL model is selected in the first instance.

Two tentative set of questionnaires designed by the researcher – one for the club customers, one for the club managers, are provided in Appendix 2. Trainers, with trainer’s turnover being a vital variable in the proposed research, are inadvertently omitted in the survey design. The constructs and specific items/questions in the questionnaire have yet to be discussed and justified via the literature thoroughly (though some of the items can be inferred implicitly from the discussion in the preceding section 7 Literature Review). The purpose and grouping of questions as to reflect assessment of either of the 2 variables (Customer Retention and Trainer’s Turnover) is yet to be delineated. Issue of internal validity of the individual items in questionnaire survey (since it is designed by the researcher) should have been deliberated, for example via pilot testing.

Respondents’ criteria, sampling, etc. for the two set of quantitative questionnaire surveys, to be administered online to fitness clubs members and managers of the fitness (via face-to-face interview?) are not deliberated. Deadline for closure of the survey, the targeted numbers of respondents for both set of respondents also need to be stipulated as part of research design.

Sample Solution