Today I received the following e-mail from World Gym in response to my rant about yet another number to have to remember and use. The e-mail has been edited somewhat to protect privacy of the sender and other information:
Dear Mr. Smith,
Thank you so much for your letter today explaining your frustrations with
the World Gym check in procedure. On June 1, 2002 all World Gym locations
in the Colorado Springs area were acquired by Excel Fitness Colorado, LLC
and now operate under new ownership. All your records and membership
information has been transfered from the previous ownership into the Excel
Fitness Colorado database. Unfortunately one of the drawbacks to our system
is that if you try to utilize a location other than the one that you joined
at, your membership info cannot be found without utilizing the membership
number. (Each membership number is coded to be club specific) We know that
change is difficult, so we have been gradually changing the check in
procedure over the last 8 months and posted those changes at each location.
I apologize for any inconvienance the new program causes you, I assure you
that was never our intent. We appreciate your business and thank you for
your continued support. To show my appreciation, I have lowered your
monthly dues to $(deleted) per month, which will be reflected on your March
statement. Excel Fitness Colorado LLC has been a leader in the fitness
industry for over 15 years, operating the largest World Gym franchise in the
nation. We have many exciting things planned for the Colorado Springs area
and hope that you will stick with us during some of these difficult changes.
Thank you again for your comments. Should any additional issues arise in
the future that you would like to comment on, please don’t hesitate to
contact me directly. I will do what ever I can to rectify the situation.
Thanks Again,
(name deleted)
VP / Operations
My Response:
Dear (Name Deleted):
Thanks for your response and particularly the change in dues! I really don’t have a huge problem with using a membership number, but hopefully you understood the real intent of the letter….
In my day job I’m the responsible for Information Technology for a large semiconductor manufacturer. One of the major problems we have in business is the overwhelming number of ways that our employees and customers (the politically correct phrase these days is “business partners” rather than customers) are identified. It seems that literally every computer system requires it’s own unique method of identifying and authenticating the system user. Getting that under control has been a major project at my company. The rule has become: Use a method of identification that the system user already knows or has. About a year ago we instituted a policy that we will not deploy any computer system that does not make use of our standard, already-in-place identification and authentication process. We have standardized on either the user’s name or an ID of their own choosing. We do have system users with the same name, but the identification system is required to handle that issue through the authentication process.
While this is probably more detail than you’re interested in, the point is to make it "falling off a log" easy for people to do business with us and interface with our computer systems, kind of like Amazon.com’s 1-click buying process.
Please feel free to pass this along to those who are responsible for your computer systems. With only a little effort, they can do the same thing for Excel Fitness Colorado LLC!
Meanwhile, thanks again for your response. Many companies either ignore letters like the one I sent to you, or don’t have the sense to put in place a process to promptly respond. I’m impressed. I’ve also put your response (with some editing to protect pricing and your privacy) on the web at https://www.rnsmith.com/
Thanks!
Roland Smith