Now I recently remembered one of the sales staff telling me that I could switch off my brothers account and start paying my own at any time. So taking his advice I switched off to my own account still keeping my original family rate discount.
A week later I check my bank statement and see that I got charged the regular membership fee. Seeing this, I figured there was a mistake on their end and found the number to call into customer support. After waiting a while on hold I finally got through to a rep who I thought could help me out. After describing my problem to him he quickly defended his company and threw the policy card on me saying there was nothing he or anyone in his office could do for me as it is company policy to charge everyone the regular fee. I realized arguing with him was pointless as he wouldn't see my position at all. I just got more and more pissed off at this point and remembered something that would save my time, and my money...
It was at this point that I remembered last weeks lesson in Tina's integrated marketing class and the power of social media. We were discussing how companies use and manage social media like Twitter and Facebook to connect personally with customers. Giving this lesson some thought I quickly went to Twitter and wrote a post to GoodLife explaining how I felt lied to as a customer and received no help from their supposed customer service department.
Within minutes I received a personalized message back explaining that someone would be in contact with me to help me out. I read this email in shock as I couldn't really believe how quickly someone got back to me. The next day, I get a call from one of the managers at the head office and have a little conversation about my membership and how I felt about the whole ordeal. The next thing I know she says everything is going to be put back as normal and that I will be able to still receive the family rate on my own account.
I was pretty happy after this and it really did restore my relationship with the brand. Using social media to connect with a company really does work because companies want to see happy customers and a squeaky clean online profile.
