Peloton members survey
In January 2021 I surveyed 45 Peloton members. Six months on I want to repeat the survey. Please use the comments for any areas you'd like me to explore.
Here are a few topics I’d like to cover off in the survey, but I welcome your comments. For reference here is the link to my survey, published in February.
Areas I’d like to explore:
Demographics - country splits
How is Peloton expanding its market reach. Is it growing outside of the US?
Given my previous survey was in English, Germany was understandably the smallest market for Peloton. That said, content is also skewed toward English speaking countries at the moment. I want to understand if Peloton is growing outside of the US.
Understanding member usage
Last week Greg, a subscriber to my Substack made an extremely relevant point about Peloton’s engagement figures.
love your newsletter, and your analysis is really insightful. That said, I think you're getting suckered into Peloton's engagement metrics game.
As you know, they're presenting their rider engagement by number of workouts. The thing is that Peloton is artificially inflating the number of workouts by nearly eliminating the 45 and 60 minute rides that have traditionally been the mainstay of spinning classes and the Peloton platform for most of its existence.
Instead of continuing to program as many long classes, they've introduced "stacked" classes which sort of approximate a longer workout but which have the benefit of doubling or tripling the number of "workouts" that a rider takes for a given period of time. Which also, conveniently just happens to boost the metric that Peloton has framed for the market as the key data point for engagement.
The engagement question that analysts *ought* to be asking is how the aggregate minutes of workout per subscriber compares MtM and YoY.
Firstly, a huge thank you to Greg for taking the time to comment and get me thinking about Peloton’s key performance indicator, engagement. I’d love to explore this topic in some detail within the survey.
Last time out I covered off the types of activities members are currently using. This is information that Peloton already publishes in its annual report. I want to go further and truly gauge engagement. Are members really spending more time on their Peloton or are they simply stacking shorter workouts together? I’ll build this section carefully so any results are robust and insightful.
Are members returning to the gym?
Closely linked to engagement, are members returning to the gym? Last time around I established that for some, returning to the gym isn’t an option. Peloton offers a cost effective alternative, but convenience was the real factor driving members to shun the gym. Equally some felt unsafe returning, at least whilst mask mandates remain in some areas.
Has returning to the office changed your opinion on home fitness?
There have been a number of high profile companies (see Apple employees to return to the office) that have indicated returning to the office will be mandated for staff. Equally there are a number of high profile companies that will allow employees to work from home permanently (see Twitter allows staff to work from home ‘forever’). It appears the majority of companies will adopt a hybrid working model, allowing a mixture of working from home. How will this affect Peloton usage and engagement? It’s an intriguing area to research.
Net promoter score
Peloton often talks about its 100 NPS goal and how its NPS is high. In Peloton’s latest quarterly earnings it mentions Tread customers reported NPS of 85. This is an extremely high NPS score but it only relates to the product and not the relationship overall.
My survey revealed that relationship NPS was far lower at 60. Peloton’s goal of 100 NPS is pretty far fetched. It’s impossible to please everyone, all of the time, but it’s certain a nice ambition and shows its customer centricity.
I’m going to repeat my NPS question and see if there’s been any changes to the score.
Safety concerns
This year has been turbulent for Peloton with the tragic news that a child was killed by a Peloton Tread (see Does Peloton have a safety problem). A full product recall of the Tread was announced and it is understandably an area that members will be concerned about. I’ll look to understand any lasting impact of the product recall on the Peloton brand.
Peloton members love the instructors
One area that has remained a real highlight are Peloton’s impressive line-up of instructors (see Peloton's secret sauce). I’d love to understand how the instructors are perceived my members now and if anything has improved. It certainly feels like Peloton’s instructors remain the shining light and the strongest unique selling point for Peloton.
What else?
Please use the comments section to suggest an area to cover off. I’d love to get your thoughts on the survey and I value your contributions.