Twitter brings LA Fitness to heel after gym chain shamed

by @gordonmacmillan, posted on 25 January, 2012 at 10:01 am, filed under Social Media and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.

Another day and another brand trashes itself online. Yesterday McDonald’s took a beating after its poorly thought out #McDstories when south.

Now it is the turn of gym chain LA Fitness, which has been shamed into dropping £360 in charges it was trying to extract from a pregnant woman whose husband had lost his job.  Nice. It took Twitter to descend upon the brand to make it see sense and force it into a deeply embarrassing climb down, which has left its social reputation shredded like so much old gym wear.

The story has its roots in December when the Guardian contacted LA Fitness several times over the couple’s case. However, despite repeated appeals from the paper regarding the couple’s changed circumstances the chain insisted that they pay up in full in an apparent bid to make it look like a greedy unfeeling business. Job done. However, as Twitter users piled in the chain buckled.

LA Fitness finally agreed after countless tweets to waive fees for seven months pregnant Hannah, from Billericay in Essex, who originally wrote to the Guardian’s Consumer Champions’ column.

However, it was too little too late. The gym has done untold damage to its reputation in social media as Twitter users calling for people to cancel their membership in protest:

Who would want to be a loyal member of a club (she had been a member for seven years) that turns around when you need some help and tries to make an already tough financial situation worse by demanding fees for a gym membership that is no longer required? And it was a tough situation. The woman was not only pregnant and the husband out of work, but the couple were in the process of moving 12 miles away from their nearest gym. Yet still it insisted they  pay the full 15 months left of the contract, which would cost them £780. It took six weeks pressure for it to agree to waive monthly fees leaving them owing the £360. And on that payment it would not budge despite all the efforts by the Guardian. It is a shockingly poor example of a public relations team not being able see trouble coming a mile off. It also shows the brand as uncaring and not listening. The gym in a tweet called it a “communication breakdown” and said it was “regrettable” and that it apologised for any distress caused. A rather forced apology from a business well versed in understatement. This kind of consumer case is exactly the type of incident that sets social networks on fire and Twitter in particular. LA Fitness sat merrily squirting petrol on the blaze. This was a no brainer for a business like LA Fitness, which charges members sizeable monthly fees, and other businesses should take note. Consumers won’t put up with such bullying behaviour. It was only last night that the gym finally backed down:

“Having reviewed the case in question, we appreciate that this is a unique situation and that the couple are undoubtedly going through a very difficult and distressing time,” it said in a statement. “We appreciate that their circumstances have changed dramatically since they first signed with us, and on this occasion we will waiver any further membership fees with immediate effect.”
According to the Guardian Hannah, who is due to give birth in two weeks, said she was “gobsmacked” by the support of those who had offered to pay the couple’s contract costs for them and “ecstatic” that the gym chain had changed its mind. “We really needed some good news at the moment. You have no idea how grateful we are to you and all those people who wanted to support us. You have been a complete answer to our prayers.” As one Twitter user put it (see below) it is surprising that the gym didn’t back down when the Guardian picked up the phone. In the end it took Twitter to cut it down to size and into the social glare.