Customer Behavior Report

Customer Behavior Study:

Personal trainer services

Hezha Muhammad
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Table of contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 3
Target Group................................................................................................................................... 3
Information search .......................................................................................................................... 6
Purchase.......................................................................................................................................... 7
Influencing factors .......................................................................................................................... 9
The buying situation .................................................................................................................... 9
Extensive problem-solving .......................................................................................................... 9
Limited problem-solving ........................................................................................................... 10
Automatic response ................................................................................................................... 10
Personal influences ....................................................................................................................... 10
Lifestyle ........................................................................................................................................ 11
Social influences ........................................................................................................................... 12
Survey .......................................................................................................................................... 13
Survey distribution and collection ............................................................................................. 14
Survey questions and analysis ................................................................................................... 15
Respondents satisfaction about their body ............................................................................. 15
Do respondents read sports/health magazines ........................................................................ 16
Eating healthy ....................................................................................................................... 16
Paying attention to looks ....................................................................................................... 17
Do our respondents like exercising ........................................................................................ 18
Receiving exercising information through the internet ........................................................... 19
Usage of sports supplements.................................................................................................. 20
Usefulness & awareness concerning personal trainers ............................................................ 21
Exercise frequency and challenges in meeting physical goals ................................................ 23
Reasons for exercising ........................................................................................................... 24
Most important things in training ........................................................................................... 25
Exercising preferences; how, with whom and where .............................................................. 26
How much willing to pay for such personal training services ................................................. 29
Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 30
Sources ......................................................................................................................................... 31
Appendices ................................................................................................................................... 32
Survey....................................................................................................................................... 32

HAAGA-HELIA Customer Behavior Study 3/34
Team F
Hezha Muhammad 15.5.2008
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Introduction
Business idea is offering personal training services to customers with
different needs and health conditions. A personal trainer is a professional
who educates people about physical fitness. Personal trainers are also
referred to as quot;trainers,quot; but should not be confused with quot;athletic
trainersquot;. Personal trainers typically design exercise routines and teach
physical exercises to their clients. While some personal trainers work
with only one client each session, others also teach groups of clients.

Personal trainers typically work with clients to improve body
composition (weight loss or muscle gain). They may also be hired for
more specific goals, such as an increase in strength, muscular endurance,
cardiovascular endurance, or flexibility. Some trainers are qualified to
improve sports performance, including speed and power. While not as
common, some trainers may also be qualified to work with people who
need help with physical dysfunction, including the improvement of
balance, range of motion, knee and shoulder issues, and those released
from physical therapy.

Personal trainers often also have a specific method of motivating clients.
Common techniques for motivation include demeanor (some trainers
have an aggressive and commanding demeanor; others are more calm
and supportive; incentives for reaching goals; and positive re-framing or
visualization.

Understanding consumers on a deep level is significant in health and
fitness industries. Therefore we need to analyze thoroughly
fundamentals of our consumer behavior, describe buying process and
identify different influences on their behavior. Main questions that we
are going to take into consideration when studying our consumer are:
who is important, how do consumers buy, what are their choice criteria,
where do they buy and when do they buy (Jobber, 60). We are going to
find answers to these questions through a survey, which is the most
appropriate in this case, because there is not so much information about
face-to-face and on-line personal training in Finland.

Target Group
Our consumers are people who buy personal training services and sports
supplements as a tangible product for personal using. Target group
consists of senior citizens (the biggest population group in Finland),
young people, wealthy professional individuals, corporations, and
average class people.

Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

According to Jobber (2001, 61) most of consumer purchases are
individual, which means that a buyer makes decision to buy a product
independently. Although decision-making can be done by certain group,
where all members relate and influence each other. For instance, Engel,
Blackwell and Miniard (2000) offer five roles, which can be taken by
family members, work colleagues or other members of the buying
center.

1. Initiator: the person who starts to think about purchase and gather
information about personal training to help decision-making process.
2. Influencer: the person who is willing to make an effect on the
outcome of decision-making. Also they present choice criteria.
3. Decider: the person who is in charge of making final decision about
purchase of the product (most often it’s a customer who chooses
needed fitness program , pays and uses it)
4. Buyer: the person who pays and influences delivery of the product
(chooses the type of payment and as we have on-line service our
customer doesn’t need to care about delivery, because he or she will
just use the service through the internet).
5. User: the actual consumer who uses the product.

However one person can take at the same time different roles. For
example, he or she wants to look better by summer time and it motivates
an individual to search for some options how to achieve this goal. After
analyzing received information consumer chooses one of the programs
we have, then makes a payment and finally uses it. So in this example
consumer was initiator, decider, buyer and user at the same time.

Decision-making process shows how consumer buys a product.
According to Michael Solomon, Gary Bamossy and Soren Askegaard
(2002) in this multipart process people first combine as much
information as possible from what they already know about product,
then analyze advantages and disadvantages of each alternative, and
finally come up with a satisfactory decision. However Jobber (2001, 63)
highlights that there is also final step of post-purchase evaluation of
already made decision. But for the first step he offers to admit that there
is a problem. For example, a person admits that he or she isn’t satisfied
with condition of their body and that there is a need to start doing
fitness. In addition, Blackwell, Miniard and Engel identify five steps
which consumer can come through before purchase. These steps form
consumer decision-making process.

Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Need recognition/
problem
awareness

Information
search

Evaluation of
alternatives

Purchase

Post-purchase
evaluation of
decision

Figure 1. , The consumer decision-making process
Blackwell R.D, Miniard P.W, Engel J.F (2000)

However Jobber (2001, 63) points that need recognition can be
influenced by two issues: the size of difference between present and
desired situation and importance of a problem. That means, for example,
an individual has an obesity problem, he or she looks at attractive bodies
in adverts and surely starts to want to have the same one, but the
significance of the problem can be very low in comparison with other
purchase needs (holidays or studying). Therefore even when the
difference is big, person may not step up on information search, because
the importance of a problem is small. Although, it can be the other way
round, when the discrepancy between current and most wanted situation
is small (consumer doesn’t have any problems with overweight, for
instance) then he or she isn’t much motivated to use our on-line personal
training service.

If need recognition is strong enough, consumer starts to look for
alternative ways of problem solution (Jobber, 2001; Kotler, 2003). As
Jobber (2001) and Kotler (2003) suggest the search can be internal and
external.

Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Firstly, consumer takes information from memory, in other words,
appeals to
internal source. Then, if there is still not enough information, external
search begins. It falls into personal resources, such as family, friends,
colleagues and commercial sources, for example advertisements.

Information search
There are two types of information search: Pre-purchase search, which a
consumer may recognize a need and then search the market place for
specific information and Ongoing search, which consumers enjoy to
browse just for fun, or because they like to stay up-to-date on last news
in the market place (Solomon, 2004).

As Jobber (2001, 64) points out, the main purpose of information search
is to build the awareness set. It means to make a list of possible options
that may solve your problem. For example, it can look like this

Face-to-face training
On-line training
Partner/group training

In order to choose one option consumer should evaluate and compare
alternatives, in other words step up the next stage of decision-making
process. In this part consumer establishes criteria for evaluation, features
the buyer wants or not. Also he/she ranks or weights alternatives or
resumes the search. For instance person may decide to exercise with a
wife/husband, so Partner/group training gets higher rank.

Jobber (2001, 65) emphasizes that the first step in evaluation is to reduce
the awareness set to a smaller list of options which deserves more
serious consideration. The awareness set goes through different choice
criteria to create an evoked set: short list of alternatives for careful
evaluation. While assessing alternatives customer can use different
choice criteria, such as price, reliability, popularity. In addition,
Schiffman and Kanuk (2004, 559) state that customers while evaluating
alternatives use two types of information: a “list” of brands (models)
from which they make their selection (the evoked set) and the criteria
they use to asses each brand or model. For example, a person, who aims
to do some exercises for keeping fit and healthy, doesn’t know much
about fitness programs, but he/she has 2-3 options, such as to go to gym,
buy DVD to exercise at home and to take on-line course.

Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Let’s suppose that of these, two were acceptable possibilities and one
wasn’t. Solomon, Bamossy and Askegaard (2002) name alternatives that
are under consideration but not to be bought as inept set, whereas the
ones that are not under consideration at all involve inert set.

The criteria consumers use to evaluate the alternative products in their
evoked set usually depends on important product attributes (Schiffman
2004). Instances can be price, trustworthiness, availability, health issues
and diversity of choices. However, the research described by Schiffman
and Kanuk (2004) shows that most often consumers looking for one
option that performs “right” and feels good, don’t pay most attention to
price and brand popularity, vise versa their final choice reflects their
personality characteristics or childhood experiences; and it’s often “love
at first sight”.
However, a key determinant of the extent to which consumers estimate a
product is their level of involvement.

According to Jobber (2001; 65) involvement is a level of personal
importance and significance that goes with the product choice. Thus
when a purchase is very involving, the customer is going to carry out
very extensive evaluation. High involving purchases include those ones
which are expensive, important and have some degree of risk. On the
contrary, low involvement purchases consist of simple evaluations and
fast decision making. For example, when customer has a need to have
cardio work out, he/she will have a pretty long evaluation trial, as this is
a serious health issue and needs to be assessed thoroughly.

When the customer eventually should make a product choice from
among of alternatives, a number of decision rules may be used. For
instance, Solomon, Bamossy and Askegaard (2002; 262) point out that
there are non-compensatory and compensatory rules. Non-compensatory
rules eradicate alternatives that aren’t efficient on criteria the consumer
has chosen to use, whereas compensatory rules, which usually are
applied in high involvement situations, let decision-maker consider each
alternative’s pluses and minuses to achieve the best choice.

Purchase
Schiffman and Kanuk (2004; 569) also add that there are three types of
purchases: trial purchases, repeat purchases, long-term commitment
purchases. In details, when a person buys a product for the first time and
buys it in small quantity, this purchase is considered to be a trial. For
example, in our on-line personal training web site we are going to have
trial courses for just familiarizing customers with different programs.

Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

We think it’s a really effective way to conquer customer’s attention and
loyalty.

When a new type of product is found by trial to be better than other
products, costumers are likely to repeat the purchase. Typically the
repeat purchase confirms that the product has met costumer’s approval.
In our case, it’s possible to buy different programs for different periods
of time. If people like them, they will wait for new courses and use our
service more and more that stimulates customer’s loyalty.
In addition, long- term commitment purchases don’t fit our company
because we don’t provide durable goods like refrigerators, cars or
electric ranges.

As our business operates on-line, we should research also how usage of
the Internet affects consumer’s decision-making. According to
Schiffman and
Kanuk (2004; 565) it is often suggested that because consumers have
limited information-processing capacity, they must develop a choice
strategy based both on individual factors, such as knowledge, personality
traits and contextual factors, like characteristics of the decision tasks.
Also they stated that there are three contextual factors: task complexity,
information organization and time constraint. That means in on-line
environment the information is more available, there are more
alternatives and more information regarding each alternative. Besides,
information giving is more flexible and time is saved by using
computers to apply decision rules.

Finally there is post purchase evaluation of decision. It’s common for
customers to feel not confident about their purchase; they doubt whether
it was right to buy our service or whether they chose the best type of
work out for them. This goes from the concept named “cognitive
dissonance”. A customer having bought the product can feel that the
other alternative would be better. In this case a customer won’t
repurchase, but may change the kind of product or company at all next
time.

To make consumers feel right about their purchase is the target of
marketers, who should make potential buyers think that the product will
meet their expectations. After having done the purchase, customer
should be also persuaded that he/she has done the right decision. For
instance, it’s easy to do for on-line personal training company, where we
can post in the web site pictures of people who already have used our
service and achieved considerable results. This will encourage our
customers to use the program they chose at most and with pleasure.

Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Influencing factors
Influencing factors in the consumer decision-making process and its
outcome can be classified under three headings (Jobber and Lancaster
2003):

 the buying situation
 personal influences
 social influences

The buying situation

Different kinds of buying situations are identified to be of three major
types (Howard and Sheth 1969):

 extensive problem-solving
 limited problem-solving
 automatic response

Extensive problem-solving

When customers are faced with a need that is new to them, requires
expensive means to be satisfied or otherwise raises high uncertainty in
the consumer's mind, the consumer is likely to use extensive problem-
solving.

Extensive problem-solving involves a high degree of information search
and close examination of alternative solutions (Jobber and Lancaster
2003), exactly like finding the best price-quality service in the current
fragmented field of health clubs (see Hill 2004).

With buyers that are in dire need of information, for example about
exercising and alternative personal trainers, the salesperson can create
immense goodwill by providing information and assessing alternatives
from the product range in terms of how well their benefits conform to
the buyer's needs. The goodwill generated in such a situation may be
rewarded by a repeat purchase when the buying situation changes to
limited problem-solving. (See Jobber and Lancaster 2003.)

Put in practical terms, being the first to be very helpful to a customer
seeking information about the possibilities of personal training can
attract highly loyal customers.

HAAGA-HELIA Customer Behavior Study
10/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Limited problem-solving

Limited problem-solving occurs when the consumer has some
experience with the product in question and may be inclined to stay loyal
to the brand previously purchased. However, a certain amount of
information search and evaluation of a few alternatives occurs as a
rudimentary check that the right decision is being made. This provides a
limited opportunity for salespeople of competing products to persuade
consumers that they should switch service provider by providing
relevant comparative information and for example by providing risk-
reducing guarantees. (Ibid.)

Automatic response

Automatic response purchases happen when the customer feels certain
that there is no pressing reason to conduct any information search before
buying (Jobber and Lancaster 2003). In terms of personal training
service this could mean a customer that has possibly tried out many of
the alternative providers, but even if not, has his or her personal reasons
to stay with a certain provider.

For an internet personal training service, this means people who are
limited on time, money or capabilities to travel to cities where
competitors would be located, and feel that the level of service provided
is both sufficient to their personal needs and is better or close enough to
the level provided by competitors.

The situation is of course changed when competitors would start
entering the personal training cyberspace; from that point onwards being
the first isn't enough and methods like advertising should be used to keep
the brand in the forefront of the consumer's mind and reinforce
favourable attitudes towards the company.

Personal influences
Personal influences concern the psychology of the individual consumers.
Relevant concepts include personality, motivation, perception and
learning. Although personality may explain differences consumer
purchasing, reliable personality measurement has proved difficult, even
for qualified psychologists. (Ibid.)

Brand personality is the characterisation of brands as perceived by
consumers.

11/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Brands may be characterised for example as 'for young people' (Levis)
or 'intelligent' (Guinness). By creating a brand personality, a marketer
may create appeal to people who value that characterisation. Research
into brand personalities of beers showed that most consumers preferred
the brand of beer that matched their own personality (Ackoff and Emsott
1975).

Buzzotta et al. (1982) proposed a two-dimensional approach to
understanding buyer psychology. They suggest that everyone tends to be
warm or hostile and dominant or submissive, and salespeople benefit
from adjusting their behaviour accordingly.

Also as buyer motivations can vary, different kinds of sales or marketing
efforts succeed in attracting different kind of customers. The real
motives for purchase may be obscure, but when found, they can be used
to increase buyer motivation by stimulating need recognition, by
showing the ways in which needs can be fulfilled. These may be
functional, for example, time saved by not having to travel to meet the
personal trainer, or psychological, e.g. the status imparted by having a
great-looking body. (See Jobber and Lancaster, 2003.)

As consumers have different motivations to buy the same service, one
consumer may perceive the same marketing efforts as being honest and
appealing while another may not. In general, people tend to forget more
quickly and to distort and to distort or avoid messages that substantially
differ from their existing attitudes.

Learning is also important in consumer decision-making. Learning refers
to the changes in a person's behaviour as a result of his or her
experiences. A consumer will learn which brand names imply quality
and which salespeople to trust.

Lifestyle
Lifestyle refers to the patterns of living as expressed in a person's
activities, interests and opinions. Lifestyle analysis, or psychographics,
groups people according to their beliefs, activities, values and
demographic characteristics such as education and income. There is a
multitude of different psychographics for different purposes. For
example, Research Bureau Ltd, a UK marketing research agency,
investigated lifestyle patterns among housewives and found eight
distinct groups.

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Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Lifestyle analysis has implications for marketing since lifestyles have
been found to correlate with purchasing behaviour (Jobber and Lancaster
2003). A company may choose to target a particular lifestyle group with
a product offering, and use advertising which is in line with the values
and beliefs of this group. As information on readership/viewing habits of
lifestyle groups becomes more widely known it affects the media
selection used in conjunction with lifestyle research.

Social influences
According to Kotler and Armstrong (2006) and Jobber and Armstrong
(2003) major social influences on consumer decision-making include
social class, reference groups, culture and the family. Social class has
been regarded as an important determinant of consumer behaviour for
many years, but doesn't play such a role in Nordic countries like Finland,
where the income levels are more evenly spread.

The term 'reference group' is used to indicate a group of people that
influences a person's attitude or behaviour. Where a product is
conspicuous, for example, clothing or cars, the brand or model chosen
may have been strongly influenced by what the buyer perceives as
acceptable to his or her reference group (e.g. a group of friends, the
family, or work colleagues). Reference group acceptability should not be
confused with popularity. As personal training is a fragmented and not
brand-oriented industry (see Hill and Jones 2004), acceptability by
reference group carries a smaller influence there. However, it could still
influence the decision whether to use a personal trainer in the first place.

Culture refers to the traditions, taboos, values and basic attitudes of the
whole society within which an individual lives (Jobber and Lancaster
2003). When marketing to a cultural group that matches one's own, the
cultural aspects tend to be taken into accord automatically. When
marketing to a group of different cultural background, more emphasis
has to be put on the proper conduct of business. In Arab countries, for
example, salespersons may find themselves conducting a sales
presentation in the presence of a competitor's salesperson. In France
chocolate is sometimes eaten between slices of bread.

Family members can strongly influence buyer behaviour. The family is
the most important consumer buying organization in society, and it has
been researched extensively. (Kotler and Armstrong 2006.)

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Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

The decision as to which product or brand to purchase my be a group
decision, with each family member playing a distinct part: for example
husband might choose the model for the new car, wife would choose the
colour and children might have a strong say in what cereals to buy.
When a purchase is a group decision, a salesperson will be wise to view
the benefits of his or her service in terms of each of the decision-makers
or influencers. (Ibid.)

When advertising for a personal training service which aims to improve
the overall health of all participants and even whole families, the
advertisements should vary according to the media they are presented
with: in Finland the TV channel Jim displays a lot of programs for
fathers about for example home renovation, whereas many home and
family magazines find their ways to the hands of mothers across the
country.

Survey
A survey was needed in our group, because there is not a lot of
previous/secondary information about personal training either from face-
to-face or via internet personal training. Our survey consists of
quantitative questions and close-ended questions. The advantage of
using a survey is its flexibility and it yields a wide range of data (Jewell,
pp. 207).

Quantitative research is a scientific way of research, since the results
may be mathematically calculated. The process of measurement is
central to the quantitative research (Wikipedia, 2008). Close-ended
questions are closely related to the quantitative questions, since they are
easier to be measured scientifically. A closed-ended question is a
question, which can be answered with a simple “yes or “no”
dichotomous question (Jewell, pp. 209). The closed- ended question is a
specific, simple piece of information.

Example of quantitative/close-ended question:

Is exercising a waste of time? -- Yes

The survey will be available to be filled out and answered by any one
within the Haaga-Helia building. Because of this we are using the non-
probability sampling which means that individuals are selected on one or
more criteria determined by the research (Jewell, pp. 210).

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Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Our criterion is the location where the survey will be filled out. In non-
probability sampling it is not possible to state a sampling error (Ibid).
Non-response bias needs to be taken into consideration as well. Not all
of the people that we ask to answer our survey will have the interest or
time to fill it out. If the people that refuse to answer our survey have the
same characteristics as the people that do answer, the final results will be
unbiased (Wikipedia, 2008). However, if the people have different
opinions and lifestyle, there will be bias in the results. This will be
needed to take ito consideration when analysing the results of the survey.

Response bias is something that also affects our survey results and the
analysis of them. The survey results may be distorted due to the fact that
some answers given by respondents do not reflect their true beliefs and
lifestyle (Wikipedia, 2008).

Since our survey is about exercise and nutrition respondents may answer
in an untruthful way. This may happen, because our respondents may
want to exercise four times a week, but exercise only once a week and
they answer accordingly to their desires instead of the truth. Therefore
the respondents may answer the questions according to the lifestyle they
would like to have, instead of answering what is fact. This needs to be
taken into consideration when making conclusions of the survey results.
Also we will try to have as many participants as possible, in order to
have as reliable information as possible and this way there will be less
room for misleading outcome.

Ethical issues need to be taken into consideration when making a survey
and having respondents answering the questions. First of all, no one will
be forced to answer any of the questions. The respondents need to have
the opportunity to answer anonymously and answers need to be
confidential. Also the questions need to be simple and worded clearly, in
order for the respondent to fully understand the questions. Most
importantly the participants need to know why the survey is taking place
and what the information they provide for us will be used for. This way
they may refuse if they do not want to take part in our survey.

Survey distribution and collection

Survey was conducted mainly in the Haaga-Helia and SLK building and
also using a online based survey (created by ourselves). We succeeded
into getting 155 respond by paper and 18 respond through the online
survey, so all together 173 responds.

15/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

We feel that that this is enough to give us some kind of a direction
concerning the needs of the target customers, since the business would
concentrate first to provide the personal training services to Haaga-Helia
and SLK student and staff.

Survey questions and analysis
Respondents satisfaction about their body

This question was to indentify the satisfaction of the respondents about
their own body. 53 % of the respondents said that they are very satisfied
with their current physique, however almost a quarter (23 %) said they
were not satisfied fully with their body.

Combining this info along with results from question 4, we can see that
82 % of the respondents pay attention to their looks and only 4 % don’t
pay attention to it, so this means that there are plenty of people who
want to improve their looks but aren’t satisfied yet, which in turn gives
us an opportunity to serve their needs.

I’m totally satisfied w ith m y body

Strongly
Strongly
disagree
agree
3%
7%
Disagree
20 %

Agree
46 %
Neutral
24 %

Question 1

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Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Do respondents read sports/health magazines

Question 2 was about knowing whether our respondents, who are also
our target customers reading sport or health related magazines, we
wanted to know this, because we would use that information for
marketing of our services, but since the results showed that only 24 %
agreed with reading sports or health related magazines, we can’t
concentrate our marketing effort and budget for advertising through this
marketing channel, since it wouldn’t be used effectively to reach our
target customers. The fact that 76 % were either neutral or not reading
these magazines, means that they are way too busy to consume their
time in doing that.

I read sports/health related m agazines

Strongly
Strongly agree
disagree 8%
23 %
Agree
16 %

Disagree
25 % Neutral
28 %

Question 2

Eating healthy

Knowing whether or not our respondents pay attention to their eating
habits and what they consume and it seems that they are very aware of
healthy eating, because 70% of respondents answered that they try to eat
healthy which totally correlates with results received from question 1
and 4.

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Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

I try to eat healthy

Strongly
disagree
2%
Strongly
Disagree agree
6% 22 %

Neutral
22 %

Agree
48 %

Question 3

Paying attention to looks

As mentioned in relation with question 1, question 4 was about the
amount of respondents who pay attention to their looks and majority pay
a lot of attention to their looks, proven by 82 % of the respondents
claiming so in the survey.

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Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

I pay attention to m y looks

Strongly
disagree
2%

Disagree Strongly
2% agree
Neutral 18 %
14 %

Agree
64 %

Question 4

Do our respondents like exercising

Our survey respondents say they like exercising, 72 % claims to like
exercising which is a positive, because there is willingness to exercise
due to the reasons identified in the previous questions, only 11 % said
they don’t like exercising at all.

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Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

I like exercising

Strongly
disagree
2%

Disagree
9% Strongly
agree
Neutral 31 %
17 %

Agree
41 %

Question 5

Receiving exercising information through the internet

It seems that our respondents are open to receiving their exercising
information through the internet, since 33 % of the respondents said they
currently get their exercising information primary from the internet and
also it’s possible that the 26 % who were neutral about the question,
would be open to persuasion. This is encouraging because the web-based
health services and personal training services are almost non-existent in
Finland, so this gives hope for possible importation of the service model
to the Finnish society.

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Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

I use the internet as m y prim ary source for
exercising inform ation

Strongly Strongly
disagree agree
10 % 10 %

Agree
23 %
Disagree
31 %

Neutral
26 %

Question 6

Usage of sports supplements

This is a valuable piece of information retrieved from this question in the
survey, since it clearly tells us that the target customers of ours are not
using sports supplements (74%) strongly disagreed or disagreed when
asked whether using sports supplements or not, so this tell us that the
willingness to give sports supplements a try is limited, hence we might
even opt to eliminating sports supplements from our offering even
before starting the business, since only 11 % are using sports
supplements currently.

21/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

I use sports supplem ents (vitam ins, protein, fat
burner etc.)

Strongly
agree
1%

Agree
10 %

Neutral
Strongly
15 %
disagree
44 %

Disagree
30 %

Question 7

Usefulness & awareness concerning personal trainers

A personal trainer is very useful and helpful in
achieving one’s physical goals?

Strongly
disagree
5% Strongly
agree
Disagree 17 %
5%

Neutral
30 %

Agree
43 %

Question 8

22/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

These two questions were to indentify the perception of consumers
towards personal trainer’s and how much they know about the duties of
a personal trainer, it was encouraging to see that 60% of the respondents
thought that a personal trainer was very useful and only 10% deemed
personal trainer not useful, while 30% being neutral, which explains also
from the next question that 32% felt neutral about the knowledge about
personal trainers, we feel this 30-32 % is untapped, which are open to
new suggestions as long as they are aware of the personal trainer’s duties
and benefits. Almost half (46%) of the respondents felt that they are well
aware of the job descriptions of a personal trainer and looking further
into our survey, we found that those who saw personal trainer’s useful,
they also said that they were aware of the duties of personal trainer, so
increasing awareness is very important for a profitable and growing
business.

I’m w ell aw are of the job description of Personal
trainers

Strongly Strongly
disagree agree
4% 10 %
Disagree
18 %

Agree
36 %

Neutral
32 %

Question 9

23/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Exercise frequency and challenges in meeting physical goals

We wanted to know the frequency in respondents training and it became
clear that 59% of the respondents workout at least 2 times a week,
actually 17% even works out 3 or more times per week, which is
encouraging since that means that our target customers do exercise and
going back to question 5, they also like exercising.
27% said they exercise occasionally or rarely, so this group of people we
need to encourage more by increasing their awareness about health
benefits and improved working ability with a health body.

How often do you exercise w eekly

Rarely or
never More than 3
6% times
17 %
Occasionall
y
21 %

Once a
w eek
14 % 2-3 times
42 %

Question 9

As you can see from the next question that we wanted to know what are
the biggest challenges in achieving their physical goals were lack of
motivation and lack of time for exercising, this is excellent for our
company because we can separate ourselves from other personal
trainer’s by providing the fastest and energetic workouts possible and
this is made possible by the respondents telling us that limited
knowledge was the smallest of the challenges.

24/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Meaning our target customers know about training basics and don’t need
constant hand holding, so we can provide this to them through our
interactive personal training website.

Biggest challenges for achieving physical goals

258
244

217

Lack of motivation
Rating scale

Limited know ledge

127 Lack of patience for
results
Lack of time for
exercising

Question 12

Reasons for exercising

In here we wanted to know the reasons for them exercising and we
found that 21% did it to lose excess fat, 41% did it for improving their
overall health, 22% did it for a more attractive body and only 12% did it
for pure muscle gain. We can see that these are not a group of people
that want excess muscle mass; they want to look lean, attractive and be
healthy. This is important for example in the case of website design; we
shouldn’t design the website to be too competitive looking, filled with
muscles and huge bodybuilders. We should concentrate on convening
the message of health, beauty and energy with their corresponding
colours and themes.

25/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Reasons for exercising

Other Muscle gain
More
4% 12 %
attractive
body
22 %
Fat loss
21 %

Improving
overall
41 %

Question 10

Most important things in training

This question didn’t really help us, since the only thing that stood out
from this is that the most important thing for the respondents was that
the exercise that they do is effective. Other answering options got pretty
much the same amount of points.

26/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Which things are the m ost im portant to you in
training

254

Time saving
168
Rating scale

160 161 157 Effective
Individualized program
Healthy nutrition
Affordability

Question 13

Exercising preferences; how, with whom and where

These three question responses had to be put together since, they are
connected, more so than the other questions. First it was surprising to
find out that only 26% wanted to exercise alone and 70% wanted to
workout either with a partner or in a group. Also their preferred ways of
exercising was 34% running/jogging and 36% had other things
preferred, such as team sports, group weight lifting etc. Only 16% chose
strictly weight lifting.

27/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Which do you prefer m ore?

To not
exercise at
all ; 4 %
Exercising
alone; 26 %
Training in
a group ;
34 %

Training
w ith a
partner ; 36
%

Question 14

Also 55 % wanted to workout outdoors and 28% indoors or in a health
club/gym. There were some people who wanted to workout at home
(15%). So to the majority of the respondents we need to come up with a
service that is able to combine their need to be with others while training
and have something other than just weight lifting also. For this we need
to be present ourselves while conducting the classes or sessions, but then
again we simply charge more for those services, without eliminating a
possible target group.

28/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

If you could decide, w here w ould you exercise?

Other Health
Home 2% center(indo
15 % or)
28 %

Outdoors
55 %

Question 16

Preferred w ays of exercising

Weight
lifting
16 %

Other
36 %
Aerobics
14 %

Running/Jo
gging
34 %

Question 17

29/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

How much willing to pay for such personal training services

Last but not least, was to find out how much are our respondents willing
to pay for our services through the internet.

45% weren’t willing to pay for personal training services through the
internet
36% were willing to pay less than 100 €/month for such services
2% were willing to pay 100-200 €/month
6% said price not an issue, if quality is good
11% said other, such as 10€, 20€, 40€, 80€ a month

How m uch are you w illing to pay for the services of a
personal trainer through the internet
Other
11 %

Price not an
issue,
quality is
w hat
matters
6%

100-200€ Not w illing
2% to pay
45 %

Less than
100€
36 %

The response was not great, but good since there are people willing to
try such services although it’s almost non-existent in Finland, specially
the internet based service. So again increasing personal training services
and job description awareness is going to benefit us in the future and
keep bringing us people, that might have been unaware or prejudice
about our services.

30/34
Team F
Yulia Volkova
Annika Austin
Joni Lehto

Conclusion
We found this study very useful, since at least some of our group
members will be making an actual business based on these findings. The
survey gave us a lot of insight about our target customer training
preference, frequency and willingness to use personal training services.

The survey was so useful, that without that some mistakes would have
been made in the business that now will not be done, thanks to the
survey results. Consumer behaviour is very important to know, no matter
which line of business you are in or entering into. Customer knows best
and we have to cater to their needs and demands.

Survey conclusion is that our target customers:

Majority workout 2 or more times per week > active people
Students > so they don’t have much time, workouts need to be
effective, fun and short
Students have low income levels, hence they are not able to pay
high amount for personal training services, but more than half are
willing to pay as long as it’s less than 100€ per month
They want group and pair workout sessions, so we have to design
such service products for those people
They are not looking to be a bodybuilder. They are mainly
concentrating on being fit, healthy and having fun while training.

Overall the customer behaviour report along with the theory and survey
results will give a much better ground for success if one chooses to enter
the personal training market and an interactive web-based one with using
the information retrieved in this study.

HAAGA-HELIA Customer Behavior Study 31(34)
Team F
Annika Austin 23.5.2009
Joni Lehto
Hezha Muhammad
Yulia Volkova

Sources
Constantinides, Efthymios (2004), “Influencing the online consumer’s
behavior: the Web experience”, vol.14 No 2, pp. 111- 126

Jewell, Bruce R. 2000. An Integrated Approach to Business Studies. Fourth
Edition. Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman Limited.

Jobber, David 2001. Principles and Practice of Marketing. Third edition.
London: McGraw-Hill.

Kotler, P. (2003), Marketing Management, 11th ed., Prentice-Hall
International editions, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

Leon Schiffman G., Lazar Kanuk L. (2004), Consumer Behavior:
International Edition (8th Ed.), Pearson Prentice Hall.

Media College. Open-ended Questions.
http://www.mediacollege.com/journalism/interviews/open-ended-
questions.html. Visited 18.04.2008.

Solomon, M. (2004). Consumer Behavior: Buying, Having and, Being (6 th
Ed.), FT Prentice-Hall Upper Saddle River, NJ

Solomon, M., Bamossy G., Askegaard S. (2002). Consumer Behavior: A
European Perspective (2nd Ed.), FT Prentice-Hall Upper Saddle River.

Wikipedia 2008. Opinion-poll. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_poll.
Visited 18.04.2008.

Wikipedia 2008. Qualitative Methods.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualitative_methods. Visited 18.04.2008

Wikipedia 2008. Quantitative Methods.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_research. Visited 18.04.2008

www.udel.edu/alex/chapt6.html, visited 21.04.08

http://tutor2u.net/business/marketing/buying_decision_process.asp, visited
09.05.08

Team F
Joni Lehto
Hezha Muhammad
Yulia Volkova

Appendices

Survey

We are conducting this survey to find out your exercise habits and preferences in order to create
a new innovative, effective and affordable training method for everyone, especially students.

Please take the time to fill out the questions below and remember to put your name and e-mail in
the end to participate in our wonderful FREE PERSONAL TRAINING PACKAGE-RAFFLE.

Strongly Agree Neutral Disagree Strongly
agree disagree

I’m totally satisfied with my body

I read sports/health related magazines

I try to eat healthy

I pay attention to my looks

I like exercising

I use the internet as my primary source for
exercising information

I use sports supplements (vitamins, protein, fat
burner etc.)

A personal trainer is very useful and helpful in
achieving one’s physical goals?

I’m well aware of the job description of
Personal trainers

How often do you exercise? More than 3 times/week
2-3 times/week
Once a week
Occasionally
Rarely or never

What are your preferred ways of exercising? Weight lifting

Team F
Joni Lehto
Hezha Muhammad
Yulia Volkova

(can choose more than one option) Aerobics
Running/Jogging
Other, specify

If you could decide, where would you exercise? Health center (indoor)
Outdoors
Home
Other, specify

Your goals for exercising? Muscle gain
(choose 1-2 most important ones) Fat loss
Improving overall health
More attractive body
Other, specify

What are the biggest challenges for reaching Lack of motivation
your physical goals?
Limited knowledge
(Rate the most important as 1 and the least
Lack of patience for results
important as 4)
Lack of time for exercising
Other, specify

What things are the most important to you in Time saving
training?
Effective
(Rate the most important as 1 and the least
Individualized program
important as 5)
Healthy nutrition
Affordability

Most preferred ways of communication with a Internet (website, e-mail, chat)
personal trainer?
Face-to-face
Other, specify

Which do you prefer more? Exercising alone
Training with a partner
Training in a group
Don’t exercise at all

Team F
Joni Lehto
Hezha Muhammad
Yulia Volkova

How much are you willing to pay for the services Not willing to pay for such services
of a personal trainer through the internet?
Less than 100 €/month
100 – 200 €/month
Price is not an issue, only quality of the service
matters
Other, specify

If you would like to participate in a raffle with the possibility of winning a 4 week training
package with a personal trainer for free, please take the time to fill out the following:

Name:

Age:

E-mail:

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