Les Mills NZ
Les Mills Wowest Welcome Pilot.
Turning the first 12 weeks of membership into a retention advantage.
Background
Following D&Co’s CX Moments that Matter strategy for Les Mills New Zealand, onboarding was identified as one of the most critical opportunities to improve the member experience and strengthen long-term retention. The first 12 weeks of membership are where new members either build confidence, routine and a sense of belonging, or begin to drift. With this insight, D&Co and Les Mills NZ focused attention on designing a more guided, personalised and progress-led onboarding experience that could help new members feel supported from the moment they joined.
The challenge
The challenge was to move beyond a traditional join-and-orientate model and create an onboarding experience that actively helped members build the behaviours that lead to retention. New members often arrive with motivation, but can quickly become overwhelmed by unfamiliar spaces, unclear routines, limited support and no visible proof of progress. Les Mills NZ needed a way to help members know what to do, understand why it mattered, see their progress and feel supported at the moments where reassurance and accountability make the biggest difference.
“The Wowest Welcome has given us a different way to think about those critical first weeks of membership. Rather than simply welcoming someone into the club, we’re looking at how we can actively help them build confidence, establish a routine and see the progress they’re making. The early results are really encouraging, and the next live trial will help us understand how we can turn that into a scalable experience for more of our members.”
— Brett Sutton, CEO, Les Mills New Zealand
“The opportunity was never simply to make onboarding feel better. It was to design the first 12 weeks around the behaviours that drive long-term membership; confidence, routine, progress and belonging. What’s exciting is that we’re now seeing strong early evidence that a better experience can translate into greater engagement, stronger perceived value and, ultimately, better retention.”
— Russ Douglas, Founder & Principal Strategist, D&Co
From CX strategy to prototype to a 12-week onboarding experience
Our solution
D&Co translated the Moments that Matter strategy into a practical onboarding solution: The Wowest Welcome. We designed a prototype experience, tested it with members, gathered feedback, and used the findings to prepare a more structured 12-week pilot experience.
The Wowest Welcome was built around a simple but powerful idea: new members are more likely to stay when they feel guided, supported and able to see meaningful progress. Rather than treating onboarding as a single welcome moment, we shaped it as a 12-week journey that combined digital guidance, physical touch-points, human support and measurable progress over time - balancing the PHD factors; the physical, human, and digital experience touch-points.
The experience brought together a tailored welcome experience, an Evolt 360 body scan, at-home fitness assessment, a personalised process dashboard, Support Crew touch-points, WhatsApp communication, EDMs, progress prompts and member feedback loops. Each element was designed to help members understand their starting point, know what to do next, track improvement, and feel that Les Mills NZ was actively invested in their success.
The pilot created a strong behavioural signal. Members in the pilot attended 27% more often than the broader six-month joiner benchmark. Over 12 weeks this was an important indicator because increased attendance helps build routine, confidence, perceived value and a stronger foundation for retention.
Member sentiment was equally encouraging. Participants rated their overall Wowest Welcome experience 7.7/10, satisfaction with Les Mills Britomart 8.61/10, likelihood to recommend Les Mills Britomart 8.96/10, and confidence using the club compared with when they joined 8.43/10. Most powerfully, members scored their likelihood of still being a Les Mills member in six months at 9.26/10. In addition, 83% said they had either built a strong, sustainable gym routine or were getting there, 91% believed an experience like this should be offered to future new members, and 70% said the Wowest Welcome improved their perception of membership value.
The work also surfaced clear priorities for the next iteration. Members valued the components that made progress visible, personal and tangible - especially the Evolt 360 scan, personalised dashboard and welcome experience. At the same time, the pilot showed the need to simplify tools and channels, reduce friction, clarify week-by-week expectations, and focus human support on the moments that matter most.
We are excited to now be working towards a controlled live trial in the coming months, testing the refined 12-week experience with new members at Les Mills Britomart and using a matched comparison cohort to measure attendance, confidence, retention and commercial signals in a real new-member context. The Wowest Welcome is now primed to become a commercially meaningful onboarding model: one that can improve the member experience, increase early engagement, reduce churn and create a stronger foundation for long-term membership value.
Deliverables
CX Moments that Matter strategy translation into an onboarding opportunity
12-week Wowest Welcome experience strategy
New member onboarding journey design
Wowest Welcome prototype design and member testing
Member feedback capture and experience refinement
Pilot experience architecture and service blueprint
Evolt 360 body scan integration into the onboarding journey
At-home strength assessment experience
Personalised member dashboard prototype
Welcome experience and Support Crew touchpoint model
WhatsApp, EDM and member communication framework
Progress prompts, check-ins and member feedback loops
Member survey design and analysis
Attendance, confidence, routine-building and value perception measurement
Pilot performance analysis and commercial impact framing
Executive recommendations for the Les Mills Britomart live trial
Recommendations to simplify tools, channels and onboarding guidance
Live trial roadmap and next-step experience priorities
Related Work
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Southern Cross Health Insurance
Developing the Southern Cross 'Moments that Matter' CX Toolkit
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Mitre 10
Nailing Mitre 10’s CX Strategy
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New World
A New World of Possibilities