I’ve been in research mode… signing up for different membership, subscription and one-off courses to gather data for my upcoming book.
Here’s what I’ve experienced from the last three:
It was a health-related program where I entered a lot of data into their system and, after I signed up, learned that AI would craft the best eating plan for me. It was an epic fail from the start.
How do I know? It provided me with a macro eating plan of 40/40/30. Not only did it not define which macro was which, the total equals 110% of calories rather than 100%. Canceled immediately.
Next up was another health-related program where I invested in a customized workout and eating plan. Again, gave tons of info and was promised my customized plan within “24 to 48 hours.”
First, I was bombarded (only word for it) with additional “buy this” offers from the company within 8 hours of purchasing the plan. So many in fact that I emailed support to complain. Three days later, no response from support, I still don’t have my customized plan and I’ve counted a total of 26 additional offers. I’ll be canceling once I see the plan.
The third is an advanced certification that I signed up for and paid in full. I registered for the training in January (non-refundable) knowing it was a 90% chance it’d be held in Texas and 10% in Montana (I was betting on Texas).
A few days after registering, they decided on Montana and, given travel requirements, I can’t make it. I emailed them 3 days after registration asking if there was any way I could get a refund as I can’t make Montana on those dates and they’ve decided not to offer anything else this year (I’ve participated in their courses before and they know me).
It has taken 2+ months of resending that email and requesting a response to receive “No, we don’t offer any refunds” (to be fully transparent, I did receive two responses from the business co-owner saying “she’d check” and then nothing).
I understand the no refund policy, it was on the registration paperwork, what I don’t understand is why it took 2+ months of follow-up to get what is essentially a template response.
They are masters at what they do (truly!) and their backend systems leave a lot to be desired. They also haven’t sent out the roughly 20 hours of pre-work which was promised by mid-February.
It’s easy to see the issue in each of the above examples and what to do instead when crafting your client/program experience.
