I almost didn’t buy the Groupon. I felt dirty. I felt like I was cheating on my friend Christian. But in the end it came down to one simple fact: I was gym free at the time. I needed to workout. Period. Christian’s crossfit gym is fantastic and he’s the best personal trainer I’ve ever worked with. The only reason I haven’t joined his gym is the location. It’s out by the airport, which is as far away from my house as possible. I know myself. I know that if my gym isn’t close to home, I won’t go.
Since I was going gym-free for an unknown amount of time, I’d been paying extra attention to the Groupon/Living Social deals that relate to fitness. When I saw this amazing deal come through, I had to buy it: Voucher for One Month of Unlimited Boot Camp Classes from Fulcrum Fitness for $20! Unlimited access to their boot camp classes? Close to home? Only $20? Sign me up!
Well I never got around to using the Groupon because I ended up getting a gym membership. I kept intending to use it and was busy traveling or with the holidays. The deal was about to expire so I decided to use it. Even if it’s only once or twice a week for the next month it will be something different to change up my routine.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a positive review.
First, the website is a nightmare. Links were broken, it was hard to navigate, the scheduling didn’t work right and I was growing so frustrated with the difficulty in navigation I almost gave up. I wondered how that would go over with someone who could be easily dissuaded from starting a workout plan?
The second–and bigger–issue was the schedule. The gym in Sellwood was closed on the weekends. That definitely does not work for my schedule and I felt frustrated with the fact that I was limited in when I could take their bootcamps as a result. Another issue: everyone is required to take a 30 minute orientation class before being able to sign up. I get that but they were scheduled at bizarre times! I’d have to take time off work in order to go to an orientation class in the middle of the day?!?!
Third, the customer service was atrocious. It was impossible to get a hold of anyone. They even state on their voicemail that they don’t get back to people who leave messages and email was better. Okay….email it was. Except they took days to respond to email as well.
I expressed my frustration about the orientation requirement and that I was not going to take time off work for it and they did work with me. I went in for a quickie 20 minute meeting on my way home from work. The requirement met, I tried to sign up for my first boot camp class a week later. A week later! Plenty of time for them to enter my info into their system.
I couldn’t log in to sign up. <Bang head on wall> Several emails later I finally got signed up for my first class. I was ready to go there with an open mind, despite the annoyances I experienced. I really wanted to use my deal and try the Boot Camp.
The night before my first class I got an email that it was canceled because I was the only person that signed up. What?! You’ve got to be kidding me. I was fed up and done trying. I contacted Living Social and they happily refunded my money.
I went onto Yelp and unfortunately I was not alone in my experience. It seemed that the majority of people had negative experiences at Fulcrum. I was kicking myself for not researching this place better before I made my purchase.
We’re getting to that time of year that people want to sign up for gyms, boot camps, etc. Protect yourself and save yourself the headache I had. My advice:
- Do your research. Google the gym/boot camp to read reviews. Check Yelp.
- Check their websites FAQs. I didn’t do that and I should have. The FAQs will often have the “fine print” that the deal won’t spell out otherwise.
- Check the website schedule.
- Call and see how difficult it is to get someone on the phone. Ask your questions–find out if they cancel classes frequently.
- Ask your friends for a recommendation instead of going in blindly.
I learned my lesson with this negative experience. I hope no one else goes through what I did. Fitness shouldn’t be this hard, this frustrating or this negative. A good gym is welcoming, easy to use and works with YOUR schedule. Good luck!
QUESTION: Have you experienced something like this? What did you do to fix it?
Lisa
I experienced a similar situation with a Bed & Breakfast Groupon I purchased – had to be used by a certain day, but there were only rooms available in the middle of the week, and there were no rooms available for several months, etc.
I called Groupon and requested a refund, and they gave it, no problems, which made me very happy. Perhaps if yours hasn’t expired you might try requesting a refund.
Too bad for the Boot Camp though!
Lisa Eirene
I am super diligent about reading the fine print in all of those daily deals. I check when things are valid, when I can use them, etc. Just to avoid what you experienced! The problem with this boot camp deal was that they didn’t make it easy to use. I feel like the gym had plenty of time to work out the kinks, it’s just bad business on their part. I did get a refund from Living Social and I’m happy with LS. Just not the gym. 🙂
Jane at Keepingthepoundsoff.com
Thank you for sharing this information. Fulcrum certainly did not live up to any positive expectations. I were much more patient than I would have been.
Lisa Eirene
It may seem like I was patient but with each thing that went wrong and kept me from using the boot camp made me angrier and angrier. The ONLY reason I kept trying was that it was paid for. After getting a refund from Living Social, I didn’t care about them anymore. I think it’s important to pass on bad business information though. I hope others aren’t duped like I was.
David Levy
Hi Lisa,
David, Founder of Fulcrum Fitness here. I just saw this and as you can probably imagine, as the owner of business I’m extremely upset and dismayed that this has been your experience with my company.
First, off, I would like to apologize. Being in fitness as long as I have, I’ve seen how hard it can be for people to even set foot in a place like mine. And then to have more hurdles just to actually get a workout in means that I’m not effectively achieving what I’ve set out to, hence, I’ve failed you, and I’m sorry.
Secondly, if I could just address a couple of the issues you brought up. As a small company we listen, and move fast, and we have actually changed quite a few things to create a more successful experience. Just to show I’m not totally crazy, the primary reason your customer service/scheduling nightmares occurred were primarily because while daily deals can bring a lot of business, they can well, bring a LOT of business and we’ve all heard about businesses being sunk by being overwhelmed with customers wanting their service NOW. I don’t mean to shirk responsibility by any means, but frankly, I was on a mission both to make sure this didn’t happen to Fulcrum, and to get everyone the service they bought. Quite the balancing act when you get 1300 new clients overnight!! Who knew?? The truth is, some of the measures that we put in place (like the week waiting period) didn’t work well, as you’ve shown here, but I can say, we did the best we could, being a bunch of super passionate trainers running a business, and that we never meant to dupe or scam anyone.
Specifically, one of the things we tried to preserve the experience for our existing members by stemming the tide was to create an enrollment process versus just opening the floodgates. I didn’t think, and THANK YOU for listing, that this would be such an inconvenience.
I’m also sorry that the orientation was such an inconvenience. We recently discovered (and patched) a hole in that bucket as well.
We have an active phone line with an actual person on the end of it during normal business hours. Messages and emails are returned that day during business hours, NO EXCEPTIONS. In fact, mostly with personal calls, and not emails.
And lastly, another big bump in your journey was the cancelled class. Ouch.. you’ve got to understand that I wince reading these things. Fixed. The only reason that classes are ever cancelled now are due to unavoidable All staff meetings.. and this happens very rarely, AND there’s a ton of communication around it (personal calls).
I think the biggest point here, is that I acknowledge and I have been working to fix, the process of getting members to their workouts. More, that there is nothing I hate more than losing the opportunity to help someone who needs us, and for that reason, I listen, the team listens, and to that, while we’re basically a startup business trying to do some really cool stuff, we stumble and trip like a toddler on occasion.
Additionally, the worst part for me reading this is that it sounds like you never got to experience the wonderful and unique system I’ve spent the last 18 years of my life building. If you can find it in your heart to forgive my company for your experience so far, I’d like to change that. So since you’ve been willing to give me as much valuable feedback as you have, I a. ask is there anything more I can do? and b. would like to get you back in for another shot. On us of course, and then some.
Hope this finds you well..
Sincerely,
David Levy,
Founder and President
Fulcrum Fitness
Lisa Eirene
David-
Thank you for taking the time to read my review. I understand as the founder and owner that negative reviews are definitely NOT what you wanted to read. I would have liked to discuss these things with you, and not on my blog, but as my review described it was extremely difficult to talk to anyone. At some point I had to just decide to give up. I already had a gym membership with convenient hours and locations that I was using and Fulcrum just became too much of a hassle.
I was very disappointed that I wasn’t able to experience Fulcrum’s gym because I sincerely feel like it was going to be an awesome workout with a really cool vibe to the place. My review did not come from spite, it came from sincere disappointment and just plain aggravation.
I want to address a few of your points here.
1) I wanted to like your gym SO much. I want to support the small business owners out there for a LOT of reasons. And I was really excited about seeing a transformation in myself, a kickstart in switching up my normal routine. I was completely committed to changing MY entire workout schedule to fit into your boot camp schedules–even though they weren’t convenient for me. My disappointments aside, I had no ill will for you in this review. Yes, I was *extremely* frustrated but like I said, I wanted to USE your gym!!
2) I greatly appreciated your trainer meeting me at an unscheduled orientation time so I could get my orientation done with. It was a big relief that she worked with my schedule.
3) I am extremely happy to hear that the computer glitches have been worked out. I found that to be very frustrating when I was trying to figure out how to get into the classes and schedules.
4) I stand firm on the classes being cancelled. That is not acceptable to me. When the classes were cancelled I was told specifically that it was because NO ONE ELSE had signed up for the class except for me. I was told the “ebb and flow of the holiday season”–which is unacceptable because the entire month of December should NOT effect when classes were available. In my orientation class I asked
specifically what happened when no one else signed up but me and the instructor said the class would not be cancelled, that she would just work out with me. This was not the case. The gym I belong to rarely cancels classes and if they do, there are other options for me to get my workout in. That is not an option at Fulcrum, so my unhappiness was valid– my workout was cancelled by another person. That’s not how I workout. There’s always something I can do and I need a facility that is amenable to that.
5) I am very glad that you now have a live person answering your phones and handling customer service. That was not the case when I was trying to get someone on the phone a month ago. I’m just speaking from own personal experience–which was very, very frustrating.
Finally, I am a LOYAL and faithful gym-goer. My 5 days a week rarely wavers and had my experience gone differently this review could have been glowing. I love fitness and my fitness is a humongous part of my life now. I do have experience with Boot camps/Cross-fit and LOVED the concept and the execution. Honestly, I gave Fulcrum second and third chances far after I was annoyed and ready to give up. The class being cancelled was really just the last straw for me. I’m sorry that that gives your gym a negative review but that was my experience.
It is my sincere hope that no one else has to go through what I went through and that everything goes smoothly for them. I wish you luck in your success with your gym.