Research companies Leisure-net and The Retention People (TRP) have joined forces to launch a new customer service survey for the health and fitness sector.

Taking place during September, the study will aim to offer companies within the health, fitness and leisure industry a simpler way to measure their performance.

Called The Net Promoter Score (NPS), the method will measure satisfaction and loyalty levels of members by asking just one question - "how likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?".

According to a spokesperson, the metric has been proven across more than 12 different industries and has been directly linked to "business growth, profitability and increased use of product".

The company will host the research alongside TRP and will offer the NPS survey free of charge to more than 400 public and private operators in order to create an industry benchmark.

Each operator will receive a complementary report benchmarking its score against the sector and the industry average.

Mike Hill, managing director of Leisure-net Solutions said: "This survey is the largest of its kind ever carried out and will give operators a true snapshot of where they sit within the sector in terms of customer satisfaction and loyalty, as well as how they compare to companies outside of Leisure."

NPS is obtained by asking customers to rate, on a scale of 0 to 10, the likelihood of them recommending the service to family and friends.

Based on their responses, customers are then categorised into one of three groups - promoters (9-10 rating), passives (7-8 rating), and detractors (0-6 rating).

The percentage of detractors is subtracted from the percentage of promoters to obtain an NPS. A score of 75 per cent or above is considered quite high.

Current research suggest that the health and fitness sector's average NPS is just 34 per cent, with a promoter score of 54 per cent and a detractor score of 20 per cent.

Alister Rollins, CEO of TRP added: "NPS's main benefit is that it gives organisations a single customer service objective of creating more promoters and fewer detractors - ideal for retention and far simpler to act upon than complicated and hard-to-understand satisfaction metrics or indices."