Last week my wife noticed payments coming out of our account from the Canadian fitness chain Goodlife Fitness – although I’d canceled the membership six months ago. I called the customer service line, and was told that since I didn’t hold on to my copy of the cancellation documents, there was nothing they could do. I asked if I had any recourse. The answer? No – the rep on the phone was “knowledgeable of corporate policies and empowered to make decisions”. hmm.
Frustrated, I searched online for executive names or contact information and came up completely blank. Nothing on the website, not a mention on LinkedIn or Twitter and no names in press releases. Zero. This doesn’t happen unintentionally – it takes a lot of work.
The void of Goodlife executive information online is a combination of bold internal policy and intentional purging. Why go through all that trouble? To avoid people like me. Apparently there are a lot of us.
Goodlife’s customer prospects are unique – they wake up one morning frustrated with their fitness level and motivated to change. Goodlife has built its business around harnessing this motivation to convert the sale. With an endless stream of motivated prospects, they’ve made a decision to forego longterm relationship as a costly diversion.
Two Questions:
- Is your organization transparent? Does it view market problems as a motivator and source of learning? Are your executives accessible?
- As a consumer do you look for this type of transparency before purchase?
Interestingly, on the same day I was fighting Goodlife Fitness, my colleague walked into an Apple store with a cracked iPhone he had dropped and walked out with a brand new one – no questions asked.