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KUALA LUMPUR – Last week, The Vibes highlighted five neighbourhood gyms that are offering monthly gym memberships at RM100 and below. While we would love to provide our readers with a comprehensive idea of how much gym memberships from more well-known gyms like Celebrity Fitness, Fitness First, Anytime Fitness, Chi Fitness and FitWorx are and their current promotions, we had a hard time getting in touch with the people in charge.
Out of the five bigger and well-known gyms mentioned above, only two responded; and this made us wonder, why?
Being bigger and more established companies, shouldn’t these gyms be more efficient and well-prepared to answer potential clients’ request?
While we can understand how slow responses could be because of the lack of staff during this difficult time, but the silence that we received is disheartening. Their silence and lack of urgency do not emulate the kind of efforts neighbourhood gyms are putting to bring in more members.
This leads us to believe that these major gyms could be a little too confident in their status and popularity that they do not feel the urgency to respond to a potential client’s questions.
In the piece on neighbourhood gyms that was posted last week, The Vibes acknowledged our readers’ hesitance to sign up with a neighbourhood gym due to various reasons, and one of it being the extensive efforts to find and research less well-known neighbourhood gyms.
However, after our experience with trying to obtain quotations from major gyms and only hearing back from two out of five of them, we have found that trying to contact a major gym is not entirely the easiest either.
Pic courtesy of Fitworx
Among the five gyms mentioned above, FitWorx was the fastest to respond with their current promotions and membership prices. Yet, compared to the promotion prices that neighbourhood gyms are offering, FitWorx’s only promotion now is that members can get two additional free weeks if they sign up with a friend and additional lucky draw opportunities. On top of that, Celebrity Fitness, which was the second gym that responded, is only offering a free trial with a friend and no registration fee as their current promotion package.
Looking at the kinds of promotions neighbourhood gyms are offering, like two free months when a new member signs for six months, or memberships at a cheaper price, these major gyms’ promotions don’t even feel like promotions.
So, in this time of crisis, where businesses are doing everything they can to bring in customers through different kinds of promotions and packages, these major gym companies seem unfazed by the crisis from their lack of efforts to promote their gym. There is no sense of urgency to bring in new clients, nor to maintain a sense of competitiveness with other gyms and their promotions.
Add to that, a lack of business could result in redundancies of staff and the bigger they are, the bigger they fall.
Granting all that has been said, our intentions are not to bring these companies down, but to highlight a sense of social responsibility companies have towards their existing and future clients, as well as to aid our readers in their understanding of their rights as a consumer, especially during these difficult times.
Committing to a gym should not just depend on how well-known or how big the gym is. Commit to a gym that provides you with the best options with the best deals you deserve. Worrying about your gym membership fees should never be part of the workout. – The Vibes, November 17, 2020
