How LES MILLS+ transformed customer retention with a winning strategy 

Many businesses have a peak season that drives most of their revenue, making customer retention critical for sustained growth. In the fitness industry, this season is December and January. Competition becomes fierce as people set health goals in line with their New Year's resolutions.

LES MILLS, a global fitness leader known for both in-person and online workouts, faced an unprecedented challenge: a rapid decline in demand for home workouts. This trend put LES MILLS+, their online fitness platform, in a vulnerable position. As the year-end approached, the marketing team felt the urgency. How could they quickly retain LES MILLS+ customers?

• The challenge: Reduce churn and boost customer lifetime value during LES MILLS+'s busiest time.
• The strategy: Develop a custom data model to identify at-risk customers and promote annual subscriptions through personalized, multi-channel messaging.
• The results: The team retained 53% of customers predicted to churn, and 80% of at-risk customers converted to annual memberships—exceeding their six-month churn reduction goal in less than two months.

December through January marks the “high season” in the fitness industry. These two months are critical as people cancel unused memberships, set new fitness goals, and look for ways to refresh their routines. Beyond the usual seasonal pressure, LES MILLS+ faced additional hurdles. With the pandemic era winding down, the appetite for home workouts was waning, and the demand for gyms and in-person classes rebounded. Between the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 high seasons, search demand for home fitness dropped by 7.7% year over year.

The marketing team at LES MILLS+, with support from the product and data teams, decided to act fast. They launched their “Churn Intervention Project” to identify and retain customers through predictive modeling and a multi-channel messaging strategy.

The team’s first play was to develop a machine-learning model to identify at-risk customers. They then integrated this data into Customer.io Journeys to use in personalized, multi-channel campaigns. With in-app messaging, push notifications, and email, the team engaged customers with tailored discount offers on annual memberships.

The results were almost immediate. In just two months, 80% of targeted customers converted to annual subscriptions.

The project’s early success meant scaling up was crucial, even as headcount and resources remained unchanged. Fortunately, automated workflows made this possible. Customer journeys remained personalized, even as audience segments updated in real-time. All in all, automation reduced the project’s rollout time by 35%.

Today, the automated systems and data model from the Churn Intervention Project serve as blueprints for future initiatives, giving the team more freedom to enhance the fitness experience for their customers.

High-season ad spending often spikes, but LES MILLS+ proved that prioritizing retention over acquisition can yield significant cost savings. By focusing on retaining existing customers, they saved hundreds of thousands in ad spend.

This was made possible through Customer.io’s seamless integration with Snowflake and Segment. Data modeling in Snowflake created tailored audience segments, which were then enriched with real-time customer events from Segment and sent to Customer.io. This setup allowed the team to accurately target customers with highly personalized and engaging content.

The result? They retained over 53% of customers predicted to churn, all while keeping costs low and engagement high.

LES MILLS’ mission is to help people build lifelong healthy fitness habits—a journey that takes time, dedication, and consistency. For LES MILLS+, long-term customer retention is critical to sustainable growth, but the pressure to prove value quickly is always there, especially with fierce competition and shifting market trends.

Despite these challenges, LES MILLS+ has overhauled its retention strategy. Using Customer.io, they launched a scalable, automated churn prevention program that now runs on autopilot. This allows LES MILLS+ to keep their customers on track toward fitness success while staying strong and agile in achieving their own business goals.