My open letter to George DeVries, CEO of American Specialty Health
Hello George,
I'd like to take a moment to write to you about the changes to Active&Fit that are affecting thousands of your members in a really bad way. The way you are changing Active & Fit Direct is unacceptable. To go from a model where you allow multiple gym memberships for a flat fee to a pay-per-gym model, a model where sometimes the cost of signing up for the actual gym itself is LESS EXPENSIVE than your $23 proposed "discount" is ludicrous. To even say that the $5 savings (which your marketing team has worded in the most misleading way I've ever seen) is "still a strong value" is absurd. I have spoken to hundreds of people through social platforms about this and they are echoing the same thing - we are not going to stand for it. You are going to lose a lot of your clientele if you continue forward with this change.
I for one will be signing up with one of your direct competitors if the announcement isn't made that you have decided against moving forward with this asinine policy change. The program I am going with offers the same gyms with a tiered membership system with no additional charge per gym. I hope you reconsider this ridiculous change and come up with something a little more advantageous for both you and your members. In this time where the price of everything is inflating to the point where people can no longer afford basics like food, clothing and shelter, it was nice to be able to get away from it all and enjoy everything AFD had to offer, but unfortunately, the online classes and being limited to 1 gym for $28/mo is not enough of a benefit for many of us due to the fact that we have to travel for work to keep food on the table and having the luxury of keeping more than one gym membership for a flat $28 was an absolute joy because let's face it, you can only be at one gym at a time anyway.
I have started a change.org petition to show you how many of us are against this policy change and in just a few short days have amassed over 600 signatures with many more to come.
Thank you for your time.
Phil