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Post by Dale on Aug 20, 2016 0:16:11 GMT
John,
Please understand where we are coming from. The lines of communication you speak of have not worked. The forums on the portal do not get published or answered (there is a fair question on the Corporate Office Questions thread about automating the re-running of declined accounts from the 11th of August...8 days later nothing from you). Emails go unanswered. Calling an actually reaching our contact is nearly impossible. With regards to contacting you directly we fear a similar outcome to dealing with Gary Findley. I dealt with him directly and he was very hostile. There was NEVER a "huh, that sounds like a good idea" rather it was always his way or the highway. I believe you might agree that the email you sent me (that I shared on the forum) was not very inviting either. As a result of the breakdown of these lines of communication we have had to create this forum.
In addition, we can not come up with a single example of where corporate took our feedback and adjusted/changed anything. If you can find an example please feel free to share.
You mention "stirring the pot". This post will do no such thing. Think of this post as no different than one for the corporate portal except this one WILL be published.
You mention in your post "do what it takes to win". We believe the ideal situation for Snap Fitness is a Win-Win scenario. To date many of your franchisees/customers do not feel this has been the case. The sheer number of new and increased fees over the last 12-18 months has been brutal. We know that you, Peter and the other members of the leadership group would prefer that this type of forum did need to exist, believe us, we wish it did not either. Prospective clients/zees will surely vet your company and see this feedback which most certainly will steer some folks away.
It is our belief that 2-3 changes made by corporate would reverse the dissatisfaction with this franchise, in turn, buying a tremendous amount of goodwill and eliminate the need for this type of forum.
John, now is your opportunity to take the ball and run with it. We are communicating in a professional manner. Expressing our ideas. Pleas work with us on the following issues (we all know what they are) and OVERNIGHT you will see these zee's go from disgruntled to singing your praises:
1. Make the 30 day trial optional. In other words "at participating locations" like so many franchisees do with various programs. This can be done overnight and will make HUNDREDS of clubs sing your praise.
2. Implement credit/debit card auto updating. Ditch all other projects. This is the #1 want from your customers. We put 30 day trials first simply because it can be changed immediately.
3. Fitware is to expensive. Clubs went from $45/mth to $155. You know the slim margin the majority of your clubs are working on. We need relief.
Ok John, we do not how to communicate any clearer or more professionally. In a perfect world we can advance from this forum to group phone calls, team building sessions, etc. There is absolutely no "stirring the pot" here. Please work with your peers and provide us a timely response.
Sincerely,
Snap Fitness Franchisees
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Post by thatkidfromjersey on Aug 20, 2016 11:28:39 GMT
Dale,
The more and more I read and think about these posts, the clearer it becomes to me. Is there a chance we may get corporate to cave on a few of these issues just to shut us up? Maybe. But the fact of the matter is that this is always going to be the Peter Tauton show. That will not change. They can make the 30 day trial optional, but then they'll find 3 other ways to put their hands in our pockets. They can give us the auto updating, but that's not going to make them prioritize people over money. It's always going to go back to the same old $hit, because the underlying corporate mentality will not change. It's almost like being in an abusive relationship.
A lot of times I'll have someone come into my club, usually a traveller from out of state, and they'll tell me the club is one of the nicest Snaps they've ever seen. I'm always baffled by that because my club is not that nice. The space is really small. The equipment is old. There's really nothing special about it. So I ask them why, and their response is something along the lines of "well it's clean and the equipment works". Wow. And then I'm kind of disappointed to see that Snap members have such low expectations for the brand. Then I think, what the heck is wrong with all these franchisees? How hard is it to vacuum your club once in a while and call in a tech when something breaks.
Then it occurred to me. It's probably not that these franchisees aren't capable of running a good club. It's not that they're lazy, or stupid. I think they're choosing not to run a good club. They're tired of working working and working just to pay corporate more and more and more. They're tired of standing behind a franchise that doesn't stand behind them. They're demotivated by having a corporate management team they can't trust. They've given up on Snap.
The fact that all of us are on here means that at least WE haven't given up.
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Post by supercool on Aug 20, 2016 13:05:48 GMT
The attitude displayed to many owners by corporate of late has been the general attitude from all the big wigs at corporate for years. I remember years ago, some owners in our area were talking about starting an advertising co-op. Bill Rodriguez (remember him?) told me in a phone call that it was "a waste of time" and that "a lot of owners are wasting time emailing each other back and forth, when they should be working in our clubs". A year or two later, Snap encouraged the formation of advertising co-ops.
I thought maybe things would get better with Gary Findley leaving, but it doesn't seem like it has.
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Post by fishstyxx on Aug 20, 2016 13:23:01 GMT
TKFJ,
I don't really see this as an us vs. them scenario, though that's the way corporate has positioned themselves. If the focus is on members then everyone wins. If we focus on members the members benefit and in turn the club benefits and that results in corporate benefiting. However, that's not an instant gratification scenario for corporate. Corporate seems to be set on increasing franchisee costs and introducing programs of little benefit to members or franchisees, but instant increased revenues for corporate. Unfortunately the unintended consequence is that it takes the franchisees' focaus away from the member experience and puts it on corporate. It also leads to pissed off franchisees, which lead to unhappy staff, who are the ones who interact the most with members, who then have a less enjoyable experience. The instant gratification is increased revenues in the short term, but in the long term it leads to more club closings and reduced revenues.
I believe the things Dale has mentioned above will help to improve the member experience, which in turn will improve things for the franchisees and in turn corporate, but this is a long term strategy. It may be that corporate's goal is to improve the balance sheet in the near term. On the $8.95 1 month pre-pay, I would just add that it should be a home club membership. We have clubs near us which aren't doing well which may opt to run the program, only to have prospects sign up there and then use our club. As it is they offer a $0 program/activation/enrollment year round and we have people who sign up there and make a B line to our club. We've combated that by offering multiple benefits with our program fee, which the majority of members find to be a benefit to their membership. We're looking to continue to add more benefits to that as time goes on.
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Post by thatkidfromjersey on Aug 20, 2016 15:24:03 GMT
TKFJ, I don't really see this as an us vs. them scenario, though that's the way corporate has positioned themselves. If the focus is on members then everyone wins. If we focus on members the members benefit and in turn the club benefits and that results in corporate benefiting. However, that's not an instant gratification scenario for corporate. Corporate seems to be set on increasing franchisee costs and introducing programs of little benefit to members or franchisees, but instant increased revenues for corporate. Unfortunately the unintended consequence is that it takes the franchisees' focaus away from the member experience and puts it on corporate. It also leads to pissed off franchisees, which lead to unhappy staff, who are the ones who interact the most with members, who then have a less enjoyable experience. The instant gratification is increased revenues in the short term, but in the long term it leads to more club closings and reduced revenues. I believe the things Dale has mentioned above will help to improve the member experience, which in turn will improve things for the franchisees and in turn corporate, but this is a long term strategy. It may be that corporate's goal is to improve the balance sheet in the near term. On the $8.95 1 month pre-pay, I would just add that it should be a home club membership. We have clubs near us which aren't doing well which may opt to run the program, only to have prospects sign up there and then use our club. As it is they offer a $0 program/activation/enrollment year round and we have people who sign up there and make a B line to our club. We've combated that by offering multiple benefits with our program fee, which the majority of members find to be a benefit to their membership. We're looking to continue to add more benefits to that as time goes on. I hope I didn't come off implying that it's us vs. them. It's not, or it shouldn't be. Rather, corporate and the franchises should be LASER ALIGNED, because one can't succeed without the other. If, and when, that happens is when you will see Snap return to growth. |
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Post by supercool on Aug 20, 2016 23:06:17 GMT
It's hard to see them coming around when they're now charging a whopping $30,000 franchise fee. From what I hear, they don't negotiate on it either. That's their prerogative, but I can't see them selling too many more locations in the US at that rate.
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Post by Dale on Aug 25, 2016 13:39:49 GMT
John?? John? Legit questions...where are you John?
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Post by supercool on Sept 1, 2016 14:05:25 GMT
I wonder if John was told to stop responding. I also notice a lot of the latest posts are not being published on the franchisee portal forum. Go figure.
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Post by thatkidfromjersey on Sept 1, 2016 14:10:27 GMT
It's possible they're out of the office on vacay.
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Post by John V on Sept 2, 2016 17:56:02 GMT
Guys, I heard you missed me, not on vacation just busy helping franchisees to succeed. This one will be long, but I wanted to knock out all of your questions at once, so you all felt you got your questions answered. We are looking into the auto update for the credit cards. This is not as simple as you might think. we use one payment processor across the planet and they don't currently have this in place to do it. They can update, but when they do it, their system re-runs the entire batch of declines. so if a club had 50 declines and the auto updater fixed 5 of them for expired cards, the other 45 would be ran again, costing the franchisee a lot of money. I know it seems stupid and simple, we are working on it and we understand it is important and would also get that it needs done. It will take IT development also to integrate this into Fitware once the processor has it ready to go.
Fitware software cost $155 per month which is perfectly inline with all other major fitness software companies. Mind-Body, Club ready, ABC... guys this is a complete CRM with a very robust prospect tool, member engager tool... coming very soon you will also have e-contracts and a complete dashboard that tells you everything about your club revenue, expense, corporate statement and prospects without having to pull a single report.
Our New license franchise fees are right in line or lower than virtually all other fitness concepts out there. we are the second largest fitness brand in the world today and our fees are right where they should be as such. Guys, before you spot off about stuff like this understand this is the world we live and work in everyday. Take a look at any other national brand or better yet global brand and see what they charge for franchise fees or a new license. We look at this every year and meticulously compare ours against Anytime, 9 Round, Farrell's, orange Theory, f-45, Workout Anytime, Planet... we are right in line or less than all of them.
You asked what we have heard and changed? How about this we surveyed the owners and managers a year ago and found they didn't like the level of service they were getting with the FAM dept, as a result we sold half of our corporate stores, reallocated all of those resources back in the office to create the Brand Performance team and tech support teams. This week I just hired 3 more people for the team, because I feel we can do even better in this area with more resources. We heard people wanted the convention to only be two days instead of three and so it is this year, and we have our largest attendance ever expected this year. We heard you wanted e-contracts and the ability to do memberships and price presentation via a tablet. Done! this will be rolled out at or before convention. We heard from many of our best owners that we need to hold the bad ones accountable more so they don't hurt the brand. In the past 18 months we have done over 100 site visits for compliance and we have transitioned 150 disengaged, absentee owners out and brought in new owner operators, that are running the current play and winning! we also have over 300 clubs going through modernization, this will bring a huge chunk of the US clubs up to brand standard and help them to complete, in an every growing competitive landscape. You asked us to find a better and more relevant technology than Easyfit and we did. We found the best in the industry My Zone (just voted #1 tech fitness device). I guess I could go on and on, but I think I have made my point, you only asked for one example.
I hope this helps have a great weekend everyone!
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Post by cheryl on Sept 8, 2016 5:29:54 GMT
Fitware software cost $155 per month which is perfectly inline with all other major fitness software companies. - This is true if you're a stand alone company running 1 instance of the software. However, if you use the leverage of the corporate footprint (meaning something like 1800 instances) then the price is cut by almost 70% or $60/month. You have to compare apple orchards and apple orchards and not apples and apple orchards. coming very soon you will also have e-contracts and a complete dashboard that tells you everything about your club revenue, expense, corporate statement and prospects without having to pull a single report - We already have a paperless environment and the other items you listed are STANDARD in every other fitness billing software system. we surveyed the owners and managers a year ago and found they didn't like the level of service they were getting with the FAM dept, as a result we sold half of our corporate stores, reallocated all of those resources back in the office to create the Brand Performance team and tech support teams - Selecting a company which does nothing but fitness billing and management software would enable you to reduce costs by RIFing the majority of the tech group and pare them back to providing IT support. Seriously though they shouldn't even be supporting that. It should be outsourced to a company which does nothing but IT support. Yes, I know the IT group wants to try to convince you how difficult their environment is with their doors and such, but it's not. They've made it much more convoluted and difficult than it needs to be. Taking these 2 steps would enable you to pare that group to close to 0. This week I just hired 3 more people for the team, because I feel we can do even better in this area with more resources. - Throwing money (or people) at a problem may make you feel better, but it's just the opposite of what you should be doing. You should be working with experts in these fields and outsourcing it to professionals who live and breathe technology 24/7 and have pedigrees in those fields, not someone who just passed their Windows CE class. We heard you wanted e-contracts and the ability to do memberships and price presentation via a tablet - Yes, but guess what we've already implemented it. To steal a line from "Die Hard"... "Welcome to the party pal" We heard from many of our best owners that we need to hold the bad ones accountable more so they don't hurt the brand - These terms are very subjective. I'd like to know your definition of a "best owner" and a "bad one". Is this based on revenue per square foot, memberships per square foot or profit per square foot? Is the square footage even taken into account? A club which grosses $30K/month mush surely be better than one grossing $10K/month. However is the $30K club has $40K a month in expenses and the $10K/month club has $5K/month in expenses, then which is really the best owner and which is the bad one? Do you have that level of detailed information to make that determination? We have transitioned 150 disengaged, absentee owners out - Check me if I'm wrong Sandy, but isn't this what Snap sold prospective franchisees on? I remember a conversation with Snap's CFO stating that he was planning to buy and open Snap all over the US because he could run them as an absentee owner. Has he been transitioned out? As I've stated before this was a patently false claim by Snap which was obvious just 3 months after opening our club. I felt we had been swindled, but we made it work, just not in an absentee owner model as claimed by Snap. search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=caddyshack+check+me+if+I%27m+wrong&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001we also have over 300 clubs going through modernization, this will bring a huge chunk of the US clubs up to brand standard and help them to complete, in an every growing competitive landscape - See my comments in the "Club Modernization" post. Looking for phase 2 Cartman. You asked us to find a better and more relevant technology than Easyfit and we did. We found the best in the industry My Zone - I like MyZone. I think it's a great tool for group fitness classes. I struggle to see it being effective in the main section of the club. Can you list the clubs which have implemented it in the main section of their clubs, not just in the class environment. Since you mentioned Easyfit I'll bring up another concern which is Snap taking the same action with MyZone as they did with Easyfit, and that is to undercut their franchisees on price and advertising to their members. I know the argument was that it was only for a limited time, but that limited time encompassed the New Years resolutions time of year. That type of behavior makes me reluctant to offer a solution which Snap can turn around and undercut me on again. |
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Post by cheryl on Sept 8, 2016 6:10:10 GMT
I posed this question to a fitness billing software company we're looking at...
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Hi Abby,
We were given the following as an explanation why our frachisor can't implement the MC/Visa auto updater:
This is not as simple as you might think. we use one payment processor across the planet and they don't currently have this in place to do it. They can update, but when they do it, their system re-runs the entire batch of declines. so if a club had 50 declines and the auto updater fixed 5 of them for expired cards, the other 45 would be ran again, costing the franchisee a lot of money. I know it seems stupid and simple, we are working on it and we understand it is important and would also get that it needs done. It will take IT development also to integrate this into Fitware once the processor has it ready to go.
Does this make sense?
This is really outside of my wheelhose, but I spoke with a couple of our techies. They fell off their chairs laughing. Their response: The process is really very simple, fast and efficient. Credit cards are just numbers. There's a list of ones which were replaced and activated. The list of cards to be run is filtered through the list of cards replaced/updated and the updated number is swapped with the new one. You don't have to run a card to find that the number is no longer valid. We call it a prequalification filter. The original list is modified and a new list is generated with all valid numbers. Even if their developers weren't smart enough to figure out how to write that algorithm then the obvious question is why wouldn't they filter out the cards which processed successfully and then update the others and run only those. Who's writing their code? Sadly, this is all basic stuff. Do they think they're saving compute cycles by not filtering all of the numbers first? You can run millions of cards through that filter in a millisecond. Perhaps they're running their data processing on a Commodore 64 or a TRS-80 over a dialup through a 56K US Robotics modem. Unreal!! What processor are they using? There are plenty that do this internally. 2 words "You're Fired" tell them to get a new processor. This all sounds like bunk. Follow the money: Is someone making money by not implementing this? Does their processor make more money? By 2/17 everyone should have new chipped cards. I may not be a fortune teller, but I'm guessing their processor will figure it out and implement it by 3/17. Have you set up a sit down with your client? This one is a no brainer, they're either dealing with idiots or thieves, of which neither is good. We have a much better solution.
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Weren't we originally told in the forum (spelled forthem) that this wouldn't be implemented because it was only available for Visa? Hmm, is Hillary working part time as a forum moderator?
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Post by Tired Franchisee on Sept 19, 2016 22:12:53 GMT
John?? John? Legit questions...where are you John? |
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Post by cheryl on Nov 2, 2016 16:18:17 GMT
We heard from many of our best owners that we need to hold the bad ones accountable more so they don't hurt the brand - These terms are very subjective. I'd like to know your definition of a "best owner" and a "bad one". Is this based on revenue per square foot, memberships per square foot or profit per square foot? Is the square footage even taken into account? A club which grosses $30K/month mush surely be better than one grossing $10K/month. However is the $30K club has $40K a month in expenses and the $10K/month club has $5K/month in expenses, then which is really the best owner and which is the bad one? Do you have that level of detailed information to make that determination? Ok John, you out of shape, fat piece of shit, what's wrong you don't want to put down metrics which will pinpoint what a good owner and a bad owner are because it won't allow you to throw those terms around willy nilly and stop those terms from being subjective? You've had almost 2 months, why don't you get off your fat lard ass and fucking do something? |
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