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Why Do We Have So Many 5 Star Reviews?

Updated: Mar 22, 2024

Excuse the self promotional Blog Post title but a client, who’s been training with us for a while, came to us yesterday and asked us this very question:


"Why does HPT Bank have so many more 5* reviews than the other gyms and studios close by?”


And it got us thinking...


At the time of writing this, our Bank studio (which has been open for just over a year) has over 130+ 5 star reviews.


In comparison, most of the gyms and fitness studios close to us in the City of London have been open for over 5-10 years longer (some even more) and don’t have half as many reviews, let alone a 5 star rating.


Being honest, whilst we think we do a great job in helping people - we certainly aren’t perfect and we’re always trying to improve things behind the scenes - but I think the big thing that new clients feel when they come to our studio is that the team at HPT genuinely cares about trying to help you get results.


And that is something that is incredibly rare in the fitness industry.



Hybrid Personal Training 130+ 5 star reviews


Big Box Gyms

If you’re currently, or ever have been, a member of a big gym - their business model is to sign you up to a long term membership... and then hopefully never see you again. It’s literally their business model.


If everyone who was a member of a commercial gym like PureGym, The Gym, Virgin Active, Nuffield, Third Space etc - if everyone who was a member actually turned up regularly - they wouldn’t survive. They would need a space 2-3 times the size and the costs would be too high to make it a feasible business.


Crazy right? How many business models can you think of that require customers to not use the service.


They have a term for those members that sign up to memberships and never come - SLEEPERS!! In fact, during the pandemic, one of the big worries in the fitness industry for these businesses (and their profitability) was that it was going to take a long time to get the “sleeper membership” numbers back up. Crazy.


One reason people continue to pay for memberships that they aren't using is because it makes them feel good mentally. But sadly, beyond that, it doesn't actually do much good for them. You can read more about that here.


And so it’s no wonder that very few people actually achieve results whilst being members of these gyms. The gyms don’t care if you get results or not. They care that you pay your membership fees and not much else.


Large Group Fitness Classes

On the other end of the spectrum are boutique fitness studios. Boutique studios run large group fitness classes (15-60 people in a class) and are much better at trying to help people get results and improve their lives.


Quite often these are franchised businesses or independently owned studios. Sadly though, they are also often investor led vanity projects. Lots of smoke and mirrors, bells and whistles, big hype, trying to ride the wave of the latest fad... but usually have very little substance.


Or, they’re non-specialised, generic studios - we’ve all seen the fitness studios that offer pilates, yoga, boxing, TRX classes, pole dancing, meditation and a crèche. How can you be good at anything if you offer everything?


Whilst these fitness studios do genuinely try to do a better job of achieving results for members and helping them progress, the volume of people that come through the doors at these types of studios typically means it is often very, very hard to form a relationship with every customer and offer them the personalised advice they need to progress towards their goals.


Most People Need Personalised Help

With HPT, we focus on Small Group Personal Training - this means a maximum of 6 clients in a session and with our business model we have a maximum of around 150 clients to look after at any given time. A commercial gym might have upwards of 10,000 members they need to service and a large group fitness studio will likely need 300-1000+.


Because we have fewer clients to look after, it means we can offer a much more personalised service and get to know each and every one of our clients in a lot more detail, which helps us develop fitness and nutrition plans that gets them results as well as helping to keep them accountable (which again helps with results).


On top of that, we hire trainers and staff that have a genuine passion for helping people improve their health and fitness - and that shines through in our sessions, in our communication and with the way we treat our clients every day.


It’s not rocket science. Just rare in the fitness industry.


So whilst we'd like to say we have some "secret sauce" or ultra advanced intellectual property, the reality is that we just care about helping people and we have the set up to help people on an individual level. When that happens, people get great results, and then they love us for it, and then they give us great reviews.


Lastly

This post is in no way meant to bash other fitness providers in the industry (well, maybe big box gyms a little). The reality it is that there are lots of amazing fitness businesses and people that want to genuinely help others get fit and be healthy and live a better life and do an amazing job at doing that as well. It's just that quite often, the business models and offering isn't set up for that, which in turn makes it very difficult to truly help people. Fitness is a tough industry built on fads, sex and quick fixes.


Fads, businesses and people come and go very quickly in the fitness industry but, from our experience, clients will always a personalised service that delivers results and at an affordable price.


If you want to find out more about Hybrid Personal Training then check out the website here






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