Live Well
That is GNC's tagline.
General Nutrition Centers recently lost my business. How? Well, they made me do the work for them. Here's the story.
After running out of my multi-vitamins, I decided to go into the store during the membership week to save 20% on my purchase. So, I stopped at a store while running errands. If you don't know, most of the stores are independently owned (a key part of the story).
The sales associate rings up my purchase, and I proudly hand her my GNC card - she smiles, and then says "your card has expired". I think to myself, "no, that's not possible, I just renewed it at another store". So, I look for my key-chain version of the card - nope it too is expired. So, I asked the associate if she could look up my membership records because it appears I don't have the new cards. The smile left her face.
"Did you renew at this store?" she asks defensively. "No", I renewed at another store in the adjacent suburb. "Well, then you will have to ask them to look it up" replies the now cranky associate. Shocked, I asked if she could call them to look it up. "I doubt they will have time, you know today is the first day of the membership week?" she retorts.
Now dumbfounded, I stand in front of her without words to express my anger and frustration. They are too busy ringing up customer purchases, to look up my membership - what a minute, that's right, I am a member! I simply walk away from the empty store - yes, I was the only customer at this time...
Next stop - the other store. I go and ask the nice sales associate if she could help me. She winces, and turns to the computer - finally I think to myself. She reaches below the computer and pulls out a box of... membership forms. And the light bulb goes off - they can't look them up my membership because they are only in paper format at that original store. Sorted by month, then by member last name, the associate asks "what month did you renew?". If your like me, there are 10,000 things more important to remember than when I renewed a membership into a loyalty club... So, I pick the approximate month and she looks "nope, we don't have a record of that. Would you like to renew your membership?" she asks with a feigned smile.
Resigned, and out of time I simply purchased the products I needed, and exit the doors for the last time. Now, I shall live well - without the assistance of their store or products. Now for icing on the cake, yesterday I received a Renewal Reward card saying "You miss so much when you carry an expired GNC Gold Card" - not really...
Can you imagine a paper-based system for managing your most precious asset? And now leave it in boxes at the point of origin, so that it is not shared with all the stores.
I wonder what Jackie and Ben at the Church of the Customer would say about this loyalty program?
From an experience standpoint, it is about the worst possible combination of events:
1. a uncooperative sales associate
2. having a customer drive to another store - never offering to call and check
3. a terrible loyalty program management system
4. an attitude that the customer needs them, more than they need the customer
5. requiring your customer to do all the work (remember renewal dates, drive to another store, etc.)
6. Strict limited time membership buying requirements - 20% during the first 7 days of each month - again, I need to confirm to their needs vs. my convenience
General Nutrition Centers recently lost my business. How? Well, they made me do the work for them. Here's the story.
After running out of my multi-vitamins, I decided to go into the store during the membership week to save 20% on my purchase. So, I stopped at a store while running errands. If you don't know, most of the stores are independently owned (a key part of the story).
The sales associate rings up my purchase, and I proudly hand her my GNC card - she smiles, and then says "your card has expired". I think to myself, "no, that's not possible, I just renewed it at another store". So, I look for my key-chain version of the card - nope it too is expired. So, I asked the associate if she could look up my membership records because it appears I don't have the new cards. The smile left her face.
"Did you renew at this store?" she asks defensively. "No", I renewed at another store in the adjacent suburb. "Well, then you will have to ask them to look it up" replies the now cranky associate. Shocked, I asked if she could call them to look it up. "I doubt they will have time, you know today is the first day of the membership week?" she retorts.
Now dumbfounded, I stand in front of her without words to express my anger and frustration. They are too busy ringing up customer purchases, to look up my membership - what a minute, that's right, I am a member! I simply walk away from the empty store - yes, I was the only customer at this time...
Next stop - the other store. I go and ask the nice sales associate if she could help me. She winces, and turns to the computer - finally I think to myself. She reaches below the computer and pulls out a box of... membership forms. And the light bulb goes off - they can't look them up my membership because they are only in paper format at that original store. Sorted by month, then by member last name, the associate asks "what month did you renew?". If your like me, there are 10,000 things more important to remember than when I renewed a membership into a loyalty club... So, I pick the approximate month and she looks "nope, we don't have a record of that. Would you like to renew your membership?" she asks with a feigned smile.
Resigned, and out of time I simply purchased the products I needed, and exit the doors for the last time. Now, I shall live well - without the assistance of their store or products. Now for icing on the cake, yesterday I received a Renewal Reward card saying "You miss so much when you carry an expired GNC Gold Card" - not really...
Can you imagine a paper-based system for managing your most precious asset? And now leave it in boxes at the point of origin, so that it is not shared with all the stores.
I wonder what Jackie and Ben at the Church of the Customer would say about this loyalty program?
From an experience standpoint, it is about the worst possible combination of events:
1. a uncooperative sales associate
2. having a customer drive to another store - never offering to call and check
3. a terrible loyalty program management system
4. an attitude that the customer needs them, more than they need the customer
5. requiring your customer to do all the work (remember renewal dates, drive to another store, etc.)
6. Strict limited time membership buying requirements - 20% during the first 7 days of each month - again, I need to confirm to their needs vs. my convenience
1 Comments:
Your experience is a lesson in "what not do to your customers" for all businesses. It's a plethora of dumb moves by both local stores as well as GNC Corporate.
Also, this program is not a "loyalty" program, but instead a "frequent use" program. It is designed to get you to keep buying every month. But with the store by store renewals, paper system, and unfriendly clerks, they aren't even meeting the minimum requirements for most frequent use programs.
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