Virgin Active — Local services in London

Been a member for a couple years as its close to the office, but things have really gone downhill recently. in short - they no longer have ANY staff on the floor to offer people advice (only personal trainser) and the entire gym is in need of a refurbishment (dirty showers and change rooms, dated equipment, and a poor smell over the gym floor).

Cons There are no longer ANY staff (except paid personal trainers) on the gym floor. Have a question about an exercise? The only way is to pay for a personal trainer. Unacceptable for a gym of this price. the staff that are in the red shirts are always in the small room talking with one another, i suppose that's more fun than talking with customers. Shower area: absolutely horrific conditions! there is always an inch or two of water all over the shower area due to drainage issues. mildew and mould in the showers. to make it worse, the gentlemen who are meant to clean the showers spend their time socialising rather than cleaning. Showers have see through glass: yes, that right - you can see through the shower glass to the stall next to you. if there are 10 showers free and you choose a stall, within 2 minutes you have someone in the stall next to you. make of that what you will. Lockers: dirty inside, i think its been years since they have last been cleaned. machines: the weights and machines all look tired and old. i suspect a lot of the equipment needs to be changed over. Hot tub area: the hot tub/jacuzzi is filthy dirty inside. i'm not sure when (if ever) it is cleaned. people run the jets so it gives the allusion of being clean, but once the jets stop the dirt settles its off putting the entire space has a horrid odor. perhaps the basement location with no natural light doesn't help, but perhaps if the place was cleaned occasionally the smell would be more pleasant. Personal trainers have NO regard for people trying to work out without a PT: they will take over your machine, and spend 20 minutes chatting and talking about form, with no regard for anyone around them. Showers: hot water. its one thing having a cold shower in the summer, but its not very pleasant having a cold shower in the dead of winter after a workout. Often times the hot water is out. Weights: you probably shouldnt use this gym if you intdend to use weights. Customers leave the weights everywhere (i suppose considering the state of the gym people seem to give up as well) - so if you are looking for anythign specific, chances are its on the opposite side of the gym hiding in a corner.

Pros There is a new chap working at the front who is pleasant/friendly and actually seems to be enjoying himself. The rest of the staff just gossip about their low wages (why not work somewhere else then?). Yoga and spin classes are fun. The steam room has recently been redone and is perfectly usable. The pool is nice and not...

My self and 10 of our work colleagues were planning on joining Virgin Active on the Strand, but coincidentally we had a terrible experience with the attitude of 2 staff in the reception/membership team and their attitude regarding something else. I was VERY disappointed with the reception and membership team....obviously all that matters to them is their targets and money....disappointing considering this is Virgin who always advertise on tv as being an "all-inclusive non discriminative brand"? Perhaps teach the gentleman with an American/canadian accent on your reception another lady who's name started with an A on the membership phone line some manners and decentcy and about your brand values of Virgin being a "caring brand" ? I work for a charitable Wildlife Protection organisation and we work for free to save any Wildlife across London that is suffering. We do this to practice compassion....something your team lacks. We have a severe lack of volunteers in your area and we had a report of an injured and suffering seagul outside your door and so I called to ask in one of your team could check on him for us, most businesses help....but virgin? The Canadian/American sounding man on reception was EXCEPTIONALLY careless and rude saying "why should we care about a seagul as it's not an endangered species"....I explained all animals regardless of being endangered feel pain...so if he could check we'd be very grateful, to which he hung up on me...I called up again to explain and he hung up as soon as I said who I was, then I called again and the lady who works in the membership/reception team whos name starts with A answered and hung up as soon as I said it was about an injured bird outside their branch....and these experiences made me and 9 colleagues who were plannong to join this club decide against joining ever.

This is unacceptable for a leading brand that promoted themselves as "caring"? Is it acceptable for a reception team to be so rude? Is it acceptable for them to hang up several times when I was only asking from our Wildlife charity to check outside their door? Is that too much to ask in todays world? It's disgusting and disappointing and I will never recommend your gyms to anyone only because of this attitude. This was an innocent animal left suffering bleeding on the pavement outside the virgin active gym in the strand as the staff just didn't care to even look outside the front door.

Nice attitude, well done team at the Strand Virgin Gym. The poor bird suffered in pain, but hopefully you still made your targets as that's all you care...

I have joined this gym not even a month ago counting on high level of customer service but I must say I have received none of it.

The reception team is barly saying hello when you enter, they re miserable and unhelpful. I come to the gym often BEFORE my work as I often work in the afternoons, which means I am restricted time wise. On several occasions I wanted to get myself coffee from a coffee machine which is on the floor ( well advertised to me during my initial sign in visit!) And on several occasions it wasn't working. It can be frustrating when you have only some time left before you leave and count on nice coffee before work and you have to struggle with coffee machine instead of relaxing. Yesterday I have reported it to the staff. ( yet again) they have sent a manager. He came in and looked at me saying " oh it's you again, let's see what you ve done" suggesting it was me that did something wrong with the machine .... I've looked at him and politely told him:" it's not me, it's the machine that's broken yet again. Last time he couldn't make it work neither ) He tried to press the buttons and make it work but yet again the card reader wasn't working. I wouldn't even mind if it was broken but it would be nice to have a note on it so you know you can't use it and in my case I wouldn't have set up myself in the sofa with allmy staff but quickly left to Costa ( to get some coffee before work). I did tell him that but he just said that lots of people use it and thats why it doesn't work!...then he purred me coffee without using the card charger ( which was obviously broken) and said: " well you got a free coffee out of it so its fine with a very nonshalant attitude...I was stunned!

In the gym of this caiber you should make sure everything works perfectly and if you offer coffee service the machine should be checked on regular basis. If you fail to check it properly and the client is telling you it happened yet again (!!!) you definetly don't treat her like a nuisance. I don't care for a free coffee but an appropriate service to pretty pricy membership price I pay... With this kind of attitude from the manager I am not surprised the reception staff is so badly trainned. I don't think i will be continuing my memership. I have received better customer service in gyms of much...