What I learned about customer service from my ex-wife, and How to keep your Gym and Tanning members from Bad Mouthing your gym if and when they cancel their Gym Membership
When it comes to Fitness Center Marketing, this is just as important as any Marketing you can do for your Fitness Center, Gym, or Tanning Salon
So what did my ex-wife teach me about customer service? That some people will never be satisfied, Period! Oh, and never to go into court unless you have a bag full of money and bus full of lawyers, and that means not trying to sue a gym member over a few hundred dollars because it will cost you time, money, and more members than that one.
I know you think your gym and members are different from the one’s you hear about from new members that come in saying “that other gym is pitiful, they suckered me into signing a contract and didn’t tell me so and so”
Then two months later when these same people try to cancel their 1 or 2 year contract at your gym, and you tell them the same thing the other gym told them, they go out and bad mouth your gym.
There are some people you cant satisfy. I know, because I’ve got an ex-wife that would make the devil give his contract up on her soul.
Here’s what I do with someone who breaks their contract or just wants to quit because their unhappy at my gym.
I try to talk to them first and find out why their unhappy. Than I tell them they have a contractual obligation just like with a cell phone company.
If that fails, and I can tell they’re the type that will just cancel a credit card or checking account anyway, then i will tell them to consider their contract cancelled and hope they will return when they decide to join a gym again.
This has never failed to get a positive response, and some have come and rejoined later. But the best part is that the bad mouthing almost stopped.
I do try to make aware to the member at sign up, about our policy about cancelling their membership.
I started putting a cancellation notice on the bottom of our contracts that they have to initial so they cant come in and say, like I’ve heard so many times, “i wasn’t told about the cancellation policy. even though its on the back in all the fine print too.
I don’t like fine print about an important issue, so i have it on there twice so they cant say they didn’t know. Your employees are not going to remember to tell everyone that sign’s up about the cancellation policy, and even if they did, they’ll tell you that they weren’t told.
I know you hard nosed business folks are saying ” the contract plainly states the policy, so i dont care”, and your right. But i’m just telling you what i have expierenced for 8 years now.
I have members come in or call in and all the time saying they haven’t been to the gym in 9 months, and they should not be required to finish their contract out because of that, or they say “I called 2 months ago and left a message on the answering machine saying i wanted to cancel, and your gym is still drafting my account and i want a refund for the past 2 months.”
With these people i have no fear. Tell them to get their contract out and read it again. Of course they say then that they lost their contract. then i tell them I’ll mail them a copy if they like. All the time being nice. Usually this disarms these excuse makers, but sometimes i cancel them if they are the type of people that i spoke of at the beginning of this post.
Nice will get you so much further in life. My ex-wife has much to learn in this area, thank god i cancelled her contract!!!
To learn how to open a 24 hour fitness center, build and start a gym from scratch, manage a gym, and fitness center marketing, check out my book at www.how2ownagym.com
Questions or comments?
email: fitnessmarketing@comcast.net
