Background

After weeks of missing exercise classes at my local community gym due to my busy schedule and their lack of classes past 6.00pm I decided it was time for a new gym. I am the sort of person who actually enjoys going to the gym (well most of the time), I find it a great place to escape from the day to day schedule and have some genuine me time. So as my local gym was not providing me with this I went on the hunt for a new gym to pledge my allegiance to.

I am very lucky in that Manchester has a great range of gyms so there was a huge choice available to me from budget gyms to the more luxurious fitness centres. However with the aid of a telephone and the internet I was able to narrow down my choice to three candidates based on product, location and price, it was now down to how they felt when I visited them.

After a week of flirting with different gyms it was Virgin Active who had wooed me successfully – they were confident and friendly, not over bearing and keen to bring me into their fold. There was a fun but relaxed feeling when I visited and I appreciated that they boldly splashed their values on their wall – it felt like they were committed to them so I should experience a ‘fun’ and ‘innovative’ workout that ‘challenged the norm’ whilst giving ‘excellent customer service’ and ‘value for money’!

The Experience

With some excitement I emailed Sean, the membership consultant I had been chatting that I wanted to join and got a great response - “fantastic Jo, would you like to pop in today as I am in the office untill 8:30 this evening, I'd be more than happy to help with this!”. We arranged for me to come in on Wednesday night at 6.15pm – I was genuinely excited.

Its Wednesday night, it’s been a busy day and by some miracle at 6.16pm I have managed to step into the lift to go up to the gym and my new fun healthy lifestyle. My phone starts to ring, oh please not work I think, I look down and don’t recognise it so quickly answer. “Hi Jo it’s Sean from the Virgin Active, where are you?”… okay I am one minute late, this felt a bit over bearing but I ignored it and just told him I will be there in 30 seconds.

I step out of the lift expecting some sort of fanfare and excitement around me being a part of their community. Instead I was hastily greeted by Sean, sat down and given a form as he talked to one of his colleagues and another member. In less than 10 minutes I have signed a contract worth almost £500 a year. Not the celebratory experience I was hoping for.

Okay so it’s time to get my membership card surely there might be a bit more fun and ceremony here? Maybe a nice little pack? Unfortunately not, my ‘membership consultant’ who was so excited about me joining continues to chat to other people as I stand there as a bit of an outsider and just hands over my card and offers me the opportunity to buy a lock so I can use their changing facilities.

The residual feeling I am left with is that they just wanted to secure me in for 12 months and take my money. This did not echo any of the behaviour or attitude I had felt when looking for a gym, I feel a bit cheated. Where is the fun? How has my norm been challenged? And where on earth is my excellent customer service?

Alignment

Putting the signing up process aside how does Virgin Active live up to its brand values? There are some really good product developments in terms of equipment and classes which I have not seen before. They provide both 1 hour, 45 minute and 15 minute classes. The 15 minute fast classes are designed to use latest equipment so they don’t seem like unusual instruments of torture but great tools for your work out – in this sense it is fun and innovative.

Where there is a misalignment is in their people and processes. The instructors are really friendly and enthusiastic but with my experience of gyms they are no different to other instructors I have met. Their gym staff can be inconsistent, some can be really friendly but there are a number who have a brusque nature and some of the confidence I spoke of before can come across as cockiness. Lastly their processes; the sign up ‘wooing’ was promising but the actual sign up distinctly lacked the experience their brand values promised.

They need to look at how their people embody and present their brand to their customers. Simply stating that they have a value of ‘excellent customer service’ will never really allow them to stand apart from the crowd because that is what all gyms are striving for, they should provide a certain type of service that is truly distinctive to Virgin Active Gyms and ensure this is built into their recruitment and training programmes. They should also look at the customer journey and identify what are the critical points for not only the company but the customer and ask how can we inject our brand at each of these points?

Overall there is great scope for Virgin Active to create a much more distinctive experience but at the moment it feels very much the same to all the gyms I have been at before. There are some products that are innovative but this is a point of differentiation that can be easily copied. In creating a truly fun and challenging environment through product but also people and processes Virgin Active have the potential to create a truly unique gym experience.