Fusion Lifestyle says negative press about Bedford leisure facilities is 'unfair'

Fusion Lifestyle Ltd representatives gave an update on its service delivery and performance to yesterday’s Environment and Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee (Thursday, April 21).

Councillor Graeme Coombes (Conservative, Wilshamstead Ward) told the meeting that as a councillor he wants to support Bedford borough’s facilities.

But having sat through a number of discussions about the management of the leisure facilities he has a very negative perception of Fusion Lifestyle.

“If we look at your Net Promoter Score, which was +12, which we have to admit is not a great Net Promoter Score,” he said.

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty and satisfaction measurement taken by asking customers how likely they would be to recommend a product or service to others.

“It scores quite poorly on cleanliness, changing rooms facilities and the showers,” he said.

“This mirrors a lot of the public discussion that has gone on around Fusion.

“Fusion has a quite a negative perception in the public eye, certainly in the media that I have seen.

“How are you actually getting over that negative perception of Fusion in order to actually get people back to use the facilities?” he asked.

Steve Rose, senior business development manager at Fusion Lifestyle, said: “I think some of the press is a little unfair.

“I’m not saying for a second that we’ve got everything right, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that.

“But in terms of the NPS scores, I think +12 is actually not a bad score, anything positive is a good score.

“Based on the fact that if you score six or below that detracts from it, and if you score seven or eight a lot of people would see as a generous score.

Mr Rose explained that the overall score is based on scores of six and below and nine or ten, the scores of seven and eight are discarded.

“In terms of cleanliness, it is one of the highest negative scores but it’s also it scores higher from the positive scores,” he said.

“More people score it nine or ten than who are scoring it at six or below.

Mr Rose explained that Fusions measurement system allows the company to deep dive into the NPS data.

So, for example, analysts can see if a trend is impacting how cleanliness is being rated.

“One of the things that we found when we first reopened from Covid was a lot of the cleanliness issues were related to other gym users not following Covid rules, not cleaning the equipment properly [after use], things like that,” Mr Rose said.

“We also found a trend that during busy times, which generally speaking was between 4 and 6, 4 and 7 on an evening when its swim school.

“That was when the centres were getting a lot of negativity around the cleanliness levels.

“We have reviewed cleaning rotas, we’ve also implemented a new dedicated cleaning position.

“And you’re right, it is perception, if people see someone cleaning a changing room, even if it’s not clean, people will think that it’s clean, that something is being done, it’s being dealt with,” he said.