Email reply back from Virgin Active from another person in the company.

See below email reply back from Virgin Active from another person in the company:

Dear *****,

Thank you for your below e-mails addressed to ***** please be advised your comments have been passed to myself to respond as I organise all our Member Feedback for the UK Business.

Firstly I would like to thank you for taking the time to write to Virgin Active and advise your comments have been duly noted and recorded into Head Office.

We took the decision to remove gym sweat towels from your club for a variety of reasons, all of which I understand have been discussed with you in detail. We came to this decision a number of months ago now and we were aware of the fact that members may be upset with this decision, consequently we removed them from a group of clubs as a trial earlier this year to ensure our decision was a correct one based on balance.

Historically, we at Virgin Active have not included the supply of laundered gym sweat towels within our range of services. However, Holmes Place (the business we acquired in November 2006) did include this service in all their clubs. In some clubs we do feel that we want to maintain this service in our clubs. However in others we do not, and in the interest of having a consistent level of basic service across our clubs of a similar demographic and location we have removed them.

This action simplifies our operational management of the club considerably, managing just one type of towel in the Laundering and stock management process opens up an amazing amount of valuable time for the operations and cleaning team to focus on the basic Brand Standards and cleanliness of the club, one of our highest priority key performance indicators.

The reduction in towel laundering volumes across our business clearly has positive affects on the environment and helps towards our green initiatives. This also obviously reduces our laundering costs too, helping us manage our clubs as efficiently as possible which enables us to continue on our drive to offer excellent value for money by re-investing in the basic facility and adding innovative equipment to the clubs.

We certainly considered the negatives to removing the gym towels, that being the fact members have become used to the service of available sweat towels and often use them out of habit, and there is often a need to wipe sweat from equipment after use so a provision is required. We have experience of operating clubs for many years and the provision of paper towels dispensed on the gym floor has suited this purpose very well in all cases.

Member Feedback is of vital importance to us. We feel that this is best channeled through our staff in the clubs who can act quickly and specifically to any member query. Our General Management and Duty Management team are very keen and proactive in being open to feedback from any member on any subject and acting on it quickly. We are aware that such face to face and instantaneous service does not suit everyone, so again with speed of execution in mind we have systems both in the club and online where members can provide us with written and sometimes more formal feedback. We are happy with how this process is working and there is no necessity for you or any member to canvass our members for feedback on any issue.

We fully understand the opinions of our membership base on gym towels and there is no need to generate more ballot/vote style polls as it really does distract our team from delivering excellent customer service and ensuring that every member has a great visit.

I understand ***** has previously confirmed with you that Virgin Active do contribute financially to Virgin Unite and will continue to do so.

Hopefully my explanation satisfies your questions fully and if not please feel free to contact me directly.

Kind Regards,

*****

Virgin Active UK