Thursday, September 18, 2008

Well, shit

The pool at the gym is out "until further notice."

When I inquired at the front desk if the pool was having repairs done or something, he said, "Oh, I have no idea what's going on with the pool."

Way to go Urban Active customer service!

You know the one thing gyms could TOTALLY improve on? Their fucking customer service. It never occurred to me before because I've never really had to inquire after anything, but today it really hit home.

These people don't care if you show up. Most of the time they appear to be sneering down at you instead of, you know, being happy and encouraging. Going to the gym should be a fun, invigorating experience. You should feel better afterward. And, generally, I do, provided I don't interact with the front house staff behind having them barcode me in.

That's really the trouble. Gyms are always hard sell to get you in the door, but they figure that once they've got you locked into a contract, they don't really have to offer anything anymore. After all, you signed the contract!

Thing is, they don't realize that people who are locked into contracts at gyms they hate will go rant to all their friends (and all across the internet) about how crappy their gym is, which means you may have one person for a year, but you just lost 5-50 possible memberships (depending on just how much and how irate their rant was).

Come on, people, is it so hard to let your front house staff know why the pool is closed?

Seriously.

And now I'll be getting really behind on training scheduled - and on my weakest event! Which kind of irritates me a lot, actually.