What Ever Happened to Building a Relationship With a Customer?

This post is a bit of a rant, based on a couple of annoying situations that have cropped up in my personal life, but they have made me think about business and the way that businesses take money from their clients, and the attitude that surrounds the whole process.

Suckered Into a 12 Month Contract

The company I work for moved offices 5 months ago and when we moved I found a local gym and joined up with a monthly membership plan. I had to pay a hefty joining fee as well. I work 45 minutes away from home so when I leave it will no longer be practical to use the gym so I need to cancel my membership.

I rang up the finance company who kindly informed me that I had signed a twelve month contract. Inspecting the small print indicated that this was in fact true. It would have been nice if the gym staff had told me this when I joined. I wrongly assumed that I was on a month-by-month plan that I could cancel with the usual one month written notice period. So, unsatisfied I went down to the gym and spoke to the manager asking if she could sort it out for me. It’s amazing how people can treat you so nicely when you are paying them and then turn quite nasty when you are no longer able to use their services.

The manager of the gym insisted that all new clients are told quite clearly that the minimum contract is 12 months. That might wash with their regular meat-heads but I am not the kind of person to simply ‘not hear’ such details as she implied. She then added, “well it’s your word against mine isn’t it?” Seriously, that’s the kind of comment I expect from some defiant teenager, not the manager of a business.

Legally, I don’t have a leg to stand on. I signed a contract that clearly states (on the back of the paperwork) that the contract is for 12 months and that upon cancellation the full amount has to be paid. This is not the point I am laboring however. My point, and I explained this to the gym manager is that as a client, I can no longer use the service they provide. They have been a great gym until now but do they really want to force me to pay for 7 months membership just because they can do so on a legal basis? Is that how they want to run their business? Is that how they want to treat me? She didn’t really know what to say to that and actually looked rather embarrassed.

She said I could write to her confirming my new work address and that she would get onto the finance company on my behalf. I don’t expect a positive response.

A Canceled Booking That Wasn’t

My second issue, also related to quitting my job… I do karate and this weekend there is a special event on that I had signed up for some months ago. I paid my deposit back then. Once I resigned from my job I told my karate instructor that I could not longer make the event (it’s so far away that I need to take the Friday & Monday off work and I can’t do that as I am working out my notice period).

Last week I had an email from my karate instructor to everybody who had signed up for the event. Apparently 5 had dropped out but he had already paid for accommodation and was now suggesting that those that had dropped out still had to pay.

Now this situation is rather different from the gym membership. My karate instructor is a lovely guy but he leaves things to the last minute, he should have sorted out the booking well in advance so he is facing the same situation that I am - he’s made a booking that now he wants to cancel but it’s too late to cancel so he can’t get his money back. So to be fair it’s him that is on the receiving end of an agreement that he can’t cancel. I can’t comment too much as I don’t know what conditions he agreed to when he make the booking.

What’s the Underlying Problem Here?

I see a common theme running through these issues - both businesses have taken money from a client, the client can no longer use the service and wishes to cancel. The business doesn’t want to give up that revenue so fights with the customer over legal and contractual terms.

Now sometimes a business genuinely has to protect itself from loss of revenue. If I was a cake maker and I made a wedding cake for somebody and then an hour before the wedding they told me the wedding was off then I would still charge them because otherwise I have lost revenue. But in the case of the gym especially, this is not the case. I will no longer be using the gym, taking up space, using their equipment. The gym do not lose anything. The caravan park is similar, unless the cancellation is made at very short notice (I told my instructor I was dropping out some weeks ago) that caravan can still be rented to another customer, so again, no loss of revenue.

The thing that irritates me is the attitude on behalf of the businesses. I read a lot of blogs and you know the theme I keep reading recently about how to sell online and how to get readers for your blog etc? It’s all about building relationships and trust. That’s a stark contract to the attitude that these offline businesses have. They are just out to sting you for as much money as they can while they can and then they don’t care what happens after that. There is no trust or relationship building going on there.

Well rant over I guess. I think I’ll go chill with a couple hours of Lord of the Rings now… :-)

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