Barriers to Leaving

Today I cancelled our membership to LA Fitness. The main reason we cancelled our membership was because of the financial cost. At $54 a month this is hard to justify when you are working on a budget and particularly one salary. The main reason I used LA Fitness was for the swimming pool and the C2 concept rower. Jessica used the gym primarily for running on the treadmill. There are alternatives to the gym for us and we will be able to save $54 a month. The primary alternative is our P90X that we do together each morning, which is far better than a workout at a gym and the time spent commuting. The second alternative for the pool is using the local swimming pool at McKinney High School for less than $2 per visit. This will come in handy when I start training for my third triathlon in September. I say all that to let you know my plan for continuing to exercise and not give up my daily discipline of taking car of my body.

We have been talking about cancelling our membership for at least a month possibly two and today we finally made the jump to cancel our membership. The process to cancel our membership was very frustrating and time consuming. When I called LA Fitness they told me my options of cancelling consisted of mailing in a piece of paper stating that we desired to cancel our membership. Are you serious? I can join a gym and you can take my credit card and charge me monthly, but you cannot easily push a button to cancel our membership, that is crazy. I know the whole idea is to make money by creating barriers for you to cancel a membership, but this is ridiculous. Obviously they do not value customer service. In a culture and a marketplace that values relationships over money, realize the great potential you have to create an experience that allows your customers to leave without frustration or barriers.

When you are faced with barriers to exit something or get out of something, do you easily give up or do you face the barriers and knock them down? Do you face the resistance head on and overcome the resistance in front of you? The reality is that often times you have to overcome various barriers, you can easily give in or you can push through. What barriers are in front of you today? Go and push them down.