Tuesday 9 June 2015

Anytime Fitness, anyhow fitness?

ANYTIME FITNESS REVIEW

I just had a terrible customer experience with anytimefitness, and I felt obligated to make their poor service quality and sneaky sales tactics known.

If you haven’t heard of anytimefitness, they are a 24-hour gym global franchise that has sprouted many branches in Singapore. One of the more recent ones was anytimefitness @ nex, which is conveniently located near my house. I didn’t consider working out there previously as I had an existing EnergyOne membership which was considerably cheaper.

With my recent career move, my new workplace meant my usual EnergyOne gym wasn’t convenient anymore. Thus, I was looking out for a gym to sign my life away to sign up for a new membership. One of my friends was free to workout with me, and he recommended that I try out anytimefitness, where he had a membership. He linked me a URL to sign up for a free trial (it used to say 3 days) :



Note the bolded words especially – ‘no obligation’ it says. Try to remember the phrase ‘No obligation free trial’ as you progress through this post.

I keyed in my details, and I received an email shortly:




Free, no obligation, 3-day trial’. Sounds good so far. I tried calling the number provided but no one picked up. I dropped them an email instead, which was replied rather promptly.



So far so good. On the day (8th Jun 15), I went to the gym ahead of my friend, and wasn’t sure where to go when I entered the gym. The staff was sitting in the glass office but was busy on the phone, so I sat down at the couches, planning to wait for my friend to arrive to proceed.

I got a little engaged using my phone and browsing Facebook and stuff, and was waiting around for about 10 minutes at the couch and my friend wasn’t there yet. At that moment, the Australian staff (let’s call him Mr Bull) came out of the office, shot me a glare and did the finger hooking gesture you use to beckon a dog to come to you.

Here doggy!

I was slightly taken aback by the rude gesture, but realised I probably should have gone in after his phone call ended, so maybe he was upset that I just walked in. Alright, no issues, I walked in and quickly opened with “Hi, I signed up for a free trial, do I activate it with you?”

Mr Bull shot me another quick glance and probably realised his earlier assessment of ‘unwanted intruder’ was inaccurate, and his face changed slightly and he beckoned me to sit down to ‘discuss’.

I was a little confused as to what he wanted to discuss. I figured he was going to try to sell me the membership, though advertised as a free trial with ‘no obligations’. That's fine, it's part of his job as sales. 

[All quotes here are reproduced ad verbatim to the best of my memory]

Mr Bull: “Mate, I just got an email this morning, there is no more 3 day pass, the trials are all one day now.”
(his constant usage of ‘mate’ was what led to my deduction that he’s Australian)

“Oh… ok sure”. That’s a bummer, I had planned to come on Monday and Wed. Why would they still email me just the previous day that I could go for a 3-day trial? Let's just give him the benefit of a doubt that this is not a bait and switch but company policy literally changed on that morning. 
(Edit: their website now puts 1 day, as in my screenshot above, so I guess the policy really just changed) 
Ok fine, I can try out the place for a day then.

Mr Bull: “So how this works is, you have to put down a deposit of $68… - “

My ability to pay attention to the remainder of his sentence was impaired by this sudden requirement. What? I have to pay $68? I recovered quickly to catch the rest of his explanation, that it was because he would give me one of their purple tracker devices, so the money was a deposit in case I didn’t return that device. This new piece of information is annoying and should have been mentioned upfront in the email, but seems fair. I didn’t have $68 on me, and had to borrow from my friend. Well, unpleasant already, but not too bad, right?

No. He carried on by saying that if I did not return the device, they would assume I want to sign up and I would lapse into a one-month membership immediately, and I would be charged for that (at something like $148/month I can’t remember).

[Try out our gym, and we will automatically sign you up even if you don’t want to! Yay!]

Woah woah woah hold it. I am just here to try out the facilities, to see if it’s a nice place to workout, to see if it’s convenient to come here everyday after work or before work. I don’t want to sign into a pseudo membership immediately with a stupid bait and switch sales tactic! What happened to the ‘no obligations’?!

I tried to clarify the details – so I would pay the deposit, and if I returned the device after my workout, I would get my deposit back? He responded by giving me an accusing, long hard stare, for a good 10 seconds. I’m not sure what he was trying to do here, intimidate me or size me up or something, but I just kept his gaze, and gave a questioning shrug. What? After 10 awkward seconds, he finally spoke.

Mr Bull: “These trial passes, they are limited mate. I can’t just be giving them up to everyone. If I give you one, I am depriving someone else of their slot you know that mate? Are you serious about signing up or not? If you sign up now, we are having a sales promotion, we can waive the administration fee.”

This made me pissed because firstly, why do I need to be ‘serious about signing up’ when I am just TRYING out the damn place? Secondly, why are the trial passes even limited? That made no sense to me. If there was a capacity issue, I’d understand, but the place was pretty empty – I think there were less than 10 people in the whole gym at that point of time. Thirdly, this whole bait and switch tactic just felt quite unethical so I was annoyed.

I tried to respond calmly and sensibly, explaining that yes, I was interested in eventually signing up, but I couldn’t decide then, as my work had not started. I also wanted to try out FitnessFirst (I didn’t tell him this) and compare the two, as there is a FF very near my workplace.

This was followed by another intense 10 second staring contest. I shifted uncomfortably in my seat as Mr FingerBeckoner continued his creepy silent gaze. Why is he so weird? He finally spoke after he won the staring contest (I glanced out to see if there was anyone paying attention to this strange interaction and also to see where my friend was).

Mr Bull: “Look mate, if you aren’t going to sign up, I’m not going to give you the trial pass mate. You can train with your mate, but I will charge you the walk-in rate of $34. Oh wait, since you are here with him, I’ll give you 50% off the walk-in rate.”

???

So now I was being rejected for a “NO OBLIGATIONS FREE TRIAL” because I apparently need to be very obligated to get the trial. And I’m not familiar with commercial rates, but only knowing Energyone’s walk-in rate of $5.30/$10.70, $34 sounded exorbitant.

I tried to persuade him to just let me have the trial, but this was met with further accusing dirty looks, and he seemed to have made the assessment that I wasn’t a worthy ‘trial-er’, and continued:

Mr Bull: “No mate, you just want to work out for free. These passes are for those who are serious mate. There is a limited number. I’m not going to give you one. You can pay the walk-in rate, at 50%. If you do sign up in the next 2 weeks, I can factor in the $17.”

I was getting very annoyed with his condescending tone and the false promise of a ‘no obligations free trial’. If I wasn’t working out with my friend, I would have just walked out then I think. But because I didn’t want to abandon my friend, I decided to succumb to Mr Bull’s pushy and annoying demands, and just pay the $17.



Is this standard industry practice for gyms – to offer a ‘free’ trial to get people to come down, then make them sign up for stuff and refuse them a trial when they have already came down if they are assessed as ‘not serious’? Just wanted to know if I was treated unfairly or if this was standard practice. Whatever it is, Mr Bull just came across as obnoxious and condescending the whole time. It was a terrible customer experience.

Did you have a bad customer service experience at anytimefitness nex too? Leave your reviews of anytimefitness in the comments below! 

UPDATE (10 Jun)  : I posted on the anytimefitness nex Facebook page, but it just got deleted within 24h and I am blocked. Guess they want to silence this... 

UPDATE (12 Jun) : I wrote a part 2, which can be found here.

85 comments:

  1. Too bad that you have this experience.

    I have had the same experience with Anytime Fitness @ Nex too. The staffs there's extremely cocky and rude.

    I was shooed out by the staffs there because of minor dispute: I hurted my fingers while working out and couldn't put back some heavier weights which I have used before. But I did put back some lighter weights back. I explained to one of the gym managers as he kept on pressing me on this issue, but no avail.

    And you know what happened? The staffs called several security guards from the Nex shopping mall, and hustled me out of the gym. And threatened that I had been barred to enter their gym forever!!!!!!!

    It's simply theatrical, and to my amaze on how they treated their clients.

    I still can assess to other Anytime Fitness branches. But this incident definitely has left a VERY bad after taste.

    Don't bother with Anytime Fitness, especially @ Nex. If you wanna join a commercial gym, I suggest you look somewhere else. There are tonnes of gyms striving for attractting clients, rather than shooing them away. With a monthly fee of $88, I also feel it is not quite worth the price, as other commercial gyms have more comprehensive equiments and FAR better customers service.

    Good luck.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm sorry to hear that Andrew. That is really quite unreasonable of them. Do share this post with your friends to spread the word, so that their HQ will take action. Otherwise, poor customers like you and me will continue to get bullied by their unprofessional staff.

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    2. HI andrew I am a member of AF, but not Nex, think i also have a few inquiries still no reply from NEx AF. i guess its pretty bad service, thanks for the sharing, i almost wanted to head there for training but it seems the staff there thinks they so big, so maybe better don't waste their time. Come down Eliaz mall, the staff here much much better friendlier ma chem friends .

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    3. I just removed me a my wife from that sorry gym I tell you the staff is Rudy and cocky not to mention lazy all they do is sit behind that glass and they do like vistors at all they give you a vistors pass but your guest can only come when staff is there between there hours so most people don't get off until 5 or 6 then staff only stays until 7pm .so your guest can't come after 7 . then on the weekends the staff don't so up at the office and when they do it's around noon I tell u never again will my family or friends deal with this gym then I watch how the Jack the prices for friends I know to join out of 5 people each membership price was jacked up way to high.

      Delete
  2. Firstly, thank you so much for taking the time to explain your unsavory experience and we appreciate receiving feedback so that we can fulfill our journey of continuous and never ending improvements.

    I am the Master Franchise for Anytime Fitness Asia and our team and all of our stakeholders go to great lengths and invest heavily in time, effort, training and tools to foster enjoyable environments and to create uplifting shared experiences at our gyms in the hope of nurturing our sacred mission - to remove the barriers to a healthier lifestyle and to change lives....sometimes we get it wrong and in this instance, we clearly let you down and I sincerely apologize.

    While we endeavor to create uniformity amongst our franchise network, our gyms are independently owned and operated, often with bespoke policies and procedures, however, I am reaching out to you on behalf of our entire franchise ecosystem and our corporate office pertaining to the aforementioned events of June 8th.

    Regarding your question, it certainly is not industry practice to promote a free trial and then to attach
    conditions or deny the access.

    Frankly, the free trial is a great way for prospective members to experience our gym and the more that people take advantage of the trial pass the more members join - so it is counter productive for us to prohibit entry.

    We want to welcome you to our gym and all others that wish to achieve their fitness goals and we promise to provide a clean, healthy environment with friendly, fun people that chase your goals and not your wallets and we promise to offer you convenient 24 hour access and moreover, we undertake to provide you with a key that unlocks the doors to over 3,000 Anytime Fitness gyms throughout the world.

    I seek your understanding and consideration - we have over 3,000,000 members peppered throughout the world and countless numbers of tremendous success stories to share and I ask you to please persevere and give us a second chance - we are making a blanket offer to all Singaporeans to use our gyms for a free one day trial by visiting any one of our Anytime Fitness gym websites and registering with us and we will welcome you with open arms.

    Yours in Health
    Maurice

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  3. Hi Alan,

    On behalf of Anytime Fitness nex I would like to offer my personal apology for your unpleasant experience on Monday. We pride ourselves on being personable and your experience and feedback shows that we must always work to improve.
    Although no longer available we would like to offer you the opportunity to fulfill your No Obligation 3 day pass with us at your own convenience.
    Please accept my apology and take up the opportunity to see how good we really are.

    Regards
    Stewart Hine

    ReplyDelete
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  5. Dear Alan,
    Thank you for sharing your experience. I'm actually on the lookout for gyms at the moment and was thinking of giving Anytime Fitness a try since it would be convenient to access. After reading about yours, and other customers', experience with the branch, I am definitely staying clear of it. There are a lot of other options out there after all! (I don't suppose you know of any good gyms out there?) Thanks for the informative post. Best of luck finding a gym that works for you!
    Regards,
    U-Shiuan

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  6. Good post but I was wondering if you could write a litte more on this subject? I’d be very thankful if you could elaborate a little bit further. Appreciate it!
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  8. Quite Interesting. I did went to AF NEX one time to inquire as my company has a corporate discount there. I was an active member of FF then so I didn't sign up with AF but my experience with one of the staff was quite pleasant. But to be honest, the facilities at FF is way better. Now I'm thinking of signing up with AF NEX since I already terminated my membership with FF, but reading your post makes me think twice about it. Thanks though for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Quite Interesting. I did went to AF NEX one time to inquire as my company has a corporate discount there. I was an active member of FF then so I didn't sign up with AF but my experience with one of the staff was quite pleasant. But to be honest, the facilities at FF is way better. Now I'm thinking of signing up with AF NEX since I already terminated my membership with FF, but reading your post makes me think twice about it. Thanks though for sharing.

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  10. I tried this place as my kids were playing in the water park opposite so had some time to kill. I think $30SGD for a day pass is very steep but I like a 'no-frils' gym with well-worn but good quality equipment. Two toilets with showers and a tiny changing room leaves a lot to be desired on the facilities front however...

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  11. Should I? Was thinking of joining AF but looking at this, think forget it

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  14. Was thinking of joining AF. From the comments, I guess I shall not consider. Moreover, they dont entertain call too.

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  17. Walked past AF. Thinking of signing up so Google a bit more about AF which led me to your blog. After reading, I decided otherwise. Thanks for helping me to save my hard-earned money.

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  19. I'm a member at Anytime Fitness Nex and I love the gym. Remember when you sign up to one you join all 2500++ world wide.

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  20. I'm a member at Anytime Fitness Nex and I love the gym. Remember when you sign up to one you join all 2500++ world wide.

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  22. Thank you for these informative details! Almost going to try at Anytime Fitness, then I saw your blog..

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  24. Was planning to sign up for this then came across this. I would definitely have to rethink now.

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  25. Staying clear of this gym. I think the local franchisees should also reconsider renewing their contract

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  26. The free trial is a lie. I went to surry hills branch and the manager asked me to pay a deposit even though i told him I am going to come during staffed hours. i simply walked out

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  27. The free trial is a lie. I went to surry hills branch and the manager asked me to pay a deposit even though i told him I am going to come during staffed hours. i simply walked out

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  29. Hi,

    Am a member of AF and seems like there are many members who are abusing the rights by bringing frds who are not members. Also, had a few experiences with some guys knocking on the glass door indicating their request to open the door for them.
    Has never done it for them.
    Looks like the hours without any guys supervising is not really working and is depriving us,the members who pay.
    As there is no proof, and i do not think that I shd be the one to handle this...so did not lodge any complaints.
    Bad experience.

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  31. I have a very bad experience in the locker of anytime fitness in upper cross st.

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  63. Thanks for the extra information! I also saw another article that stated Anytime Fitness as a good gym in Singapore. I guess it does has its own reputation. Anyone that interested to read this article, here I share the link
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