Stop talking and start listening

I don’t like the gym. I don’t like pacing about on a step machine in an underground bunker under fluorescent strip lights with other miserable, sweaty, grimacing people watching EastEnders and counting calories. There I said it.

However, I do like going to exercise classes where a good instructor will focus your energy on the results you want, and motivate you to push yourself to achieve your goals.

A new gym has opened just a 10 minute walk from where I live, so last week I went to look round and to find out about classes. Katie showed me round. She was very nice and enthusiastic about the benefits of gym membership. I explained that I travel a lot, don’t have a routine, don’t like the gym, and was looking for exercise classes that I can go to, as and when suits me.

She said it was possible to just come to classes but that gym membership would be cheaper.

I explained that I was just interested in classes, and some months it might be cheaper to be a member, and given how often I could attend, I’d just like to try the classes first. That was all I was interested in.

She showed me the five-aside football pitch, and the indoor and outdoor tennis courts, which were all very impressive.

She said that there were lots of additional benefits to membership, like a free fitness assessment and – with wide eyes – state of the art step machines (that apparently were only available in a handful of gyms in the whole of the UK!).

I explained that I was just interested in classes, wasn’t so keen on the step machine and that some months it might be cheaper to be a member, and given how often I could attend, I’d just like to try the classes first. That was all I was interested in.

At the end of the tour Katie said that if I changed my mind about membership to let her know.

Yesterday, Dave, Katie’s colleague from the gym called me to follow-up from my tour with Katie and to see if I had had a moment to consider gym membership.

I explained that I was just interested in classes, and some months it might be cheaper to be a member, and given how often I could attend, I’d just like to try the classes first. That was all I was interested in.

He told me at length about the additional benefits of being a member.

I explained that I was just interested in classes, and some months it might be cheaper to be a member, and given how often I could attend, I’d just like to try the classes first. That was all I was interested in.

He said if I changed me mind about membership to give him a call.

So what happened here?

I just wanted to find out about exercise classes. The gym just wanted to sell me membership.

Sometimes customers don’t know what they want. And they are not always right. But whether I was right or wrong, neither Katie nor Dave listened. They were just working really hard on their brief to ‘sell monthly membership’ and I was becoming increasingly frustrated at not being heard.

This is a bad situation, and sadly it is not uncommon. You have perhaps experienced a similar situation and felt the frustration of not being heard.

I suspect that Katie and Dave have performance measures set by senior managers that relate to the number of gym memberships they sell each week. Not for listening to what their customers wanted. This meant that it became their sole focus regardless of what their customer wanted or needed.

What if this same situation happened at your organisation? Do your customers or supporters ever feel the frustration of not being listened to because of an internal focus on performance measures above what they really want or need?

And more importantly, in a quest to achieve our short-term measures could we fail to listen and respond to our customers or supporters needs, leaving them frustrated and less inclined to offer support in the long-term?