Our damn gym closed, suddenly, and with about three hours warning on Thursday night.
I had an appointment with our personal trainer that night, and my wife was there for her yoga class. Everyone was running around trying to figure out what was going on, very little was clear, and the staff who were naturally upset themselves at their own predicament had to try to deal with a large number of members who were upset and trying to figure out what they were going to do.
We went to Wibbley's right after to console ourselves, and the woman we know who works (well, now worked) at both was working there and we exclaimed "OMG! I KNOW!"s at each other. Another former Epicenter employee was eating and he joined in with his own "WTF!?"s and we were all like "OMG! I KNOW!"s at him, too.
No warning, very little notice, and hardly any organization. The management at Epicenter should be just damn ashamed of themselves for their piss poor professionalism at how they handled it. The Seattle location will remain open, just the downtown Bellevue one has closed. I note that even two days later now the website has not been updated in any way, still shows the Bellevue information, etc. I notice that the About Us section has no information about the upper management, owners, etc. That's probably because they know they have nothing to be proud of.
L.A. Fitness off of 106th bought? was given? all the memberships, so everyone has a membership there now and all their paid personal trainer sessions etc. will move over. In another prime example of Epicenter management's "uality is job #1" attitude, the head personal trainer at L.A. Fitness (Matt) showed us the printout he had been given with all the information about the clients, the trainers, number of sessions paid for (although this is incomplete). He was trying to make sense of it while at the same time having to calmly deal with hordes of very angry customers that had been dropped on him in a horrible way. ETA for the data to actually be successfully transfered to the new gym is Wednesday. Yes, almost a week later.
It seems like a nice facility with quality people, but that's hard for us to see right now when our vision is pretty much clouded red. We pre-paid a bunch of personal trainer sessions because our wonderful trainer, Bo Jin, had been working with us for long enough that we felt he was the right guy for us. He's very unsure he wants to move to the new club, and is looking at assorted options. If you're looking for a really great to work with personal trainer in the Bellevue area, send me an email and I'll give you his contact info.
We went to the new club earlier this afternoon to see what our options were for the pre-payment money (the membership is not an issue, we're fine waiting until that runs out and decided whether to stay with L.A. Fitness or not). We want to work with our trainer, but more importantly we feel like we paid for those sessions with reasonable assumptions at a time when the management knew those assumptions were likely to be false but didn't tell anyone.
It isn't L.A. Fitness's fault that Epicenter management handled everything so incredibly poorly. On the other hand, if their goal is to try to retain the greatest percentage of transferring members for the long term I think they should be extremely gracious about refunds whenever possible. If I don't feel like there's a risk, and that they're there to help me and not just figure out how to monetize me (this is usually how I feel about gyms, especially dens of scummery like 24 Hour Fitness), they're more likely to have me:
- Give them a honest try as a new gym, and keep me as a member.
- Tell others in the same or related positions that I know who also transferred that they're worth giving an honest try.
- Spread good word of mouth to others in the area.
- Not take action with the credit card company in order to try to get the money back.
Like all customer service, the short term bad choice (give up money you don't legally have to) is often a great long term choice (customer loyalty and advocacy).
Right now they're clearly overwhelmed by the position they're in.
I had been going to the gym at the Epicenter location since 1995 through several different ownerships. I am extremely pissed. I've cancelled my credit card in order to avoid be charged another dime by those scum bags (both Epicenter and LA Fitness). LA Fitness was complicit in the whole thing. Search the web to hear the horror stories about attempts to cancel memberships and where they have bought out other gyms "overnight". Have you attempted to cancel your membership yet - you're being charged in the meantime. I've emailed KING 5 Investigative Reporters mentioning the founding partner of Epicenter, former Seahawk Sam Adams. I also intend to report both Epicenter and LA Fitness to the Better Business Bureau and perhaps the Washington Attorney General.
Posted by: Tim | 2008.02.04 at 20:04