Life Time — Local services in Johns Creek

I rarely gave bad reviews to local business. However, my experience of this week with the Life Time Fitness team, especially the Member Services Manager in Training Kaitlin Casey, far exceeded any bad experience I had anywhere else. They earned the worst rating and the longest review I ever wrote.

I have been a member of Life Time Fitness of Johns Creek since 2015. Because I traveled a lot and spend most of my time running on outdoor trails when I am back in town, I couldn’t justify paying $80+ per month for occasional usage of Life Time Fitness. I joined LA Fitness Johns Creek on January 29th. Their monthly fee is a quarter of what I paid Life Time Fitness. Much more reasonable for what I get

The same night I joined LA Fitness, I went to Life Time Fitness to cancel my membership. A gentleman that I can’t remember name asked me to fill out a pink form and told me that I would see one more charge on my credit card and all would be set.

I did see the charge posted in February. I thought all should be clear and threw the pink form away. It turned out to be a big mistake. I should have read the reviews on Google and Yelp and should have kept the form for my record for at least another a few months.

I noticed another charge on my credit card being posted the night of March 30th. I went to Life Time Fitness on April 1st to check what’s going on. I was surprised to find out that I have to cancel my membership AGAIN. This time, the girl at the front desk used computer to capture my signature. She told me that someone at Life Time Fitness needs to put my cancellation into “the system”. I should sign on a digital signature pad, instead of the pink paper I signed the evening of January 29th. I should have received an email of cancellation confirmation from the member service manager. The gentleman I spoke with the night of January 29th never told me about all above. It seems they didn’t put my cancellation information into the system. I was still an active member. My credit card was still being charged.

The front desk girl told me that I don’t need to worry because LifeTime Fitness should have kept a copy of the cancellation/customer service form I filled out on January 29th. The Member Service manager Kaitlin Casey will come in office the next day to address this issue and will call me.

It never happened!

I went to Life Time on April 2nd, waited for 20 minutes for the team to locate Kaitlin. She told me that she didn’t see a copy of my form and needs to call “the corporate”. She put notes into the computer and promised to call me the end of the day to update me on the progress.

Again, it never happened!

I went to Life Time the following day, waited for another 30 minutes for the team to locate Kaitlin. She seems totally forgot what’s going on. After searched in “the system” and a few minutes Q&A, she finally recalled what she promised. She told me that she could not locate the copy of the customer service form I filled out on January 29th. Ha, seems someone also failed the corporate record management process and didn’t retain my record accordingly.

Kaitlin said that she needs to escalate the situation to the general manager Mishkat Lightwala. She put a reminder on her computer calendar, and promised to call me back 9:30 AM the next day.

Again, it never happened! I called the number on her business card and left a voice message. She never called me back.

That's it. I will work directly with Life Time corporate and my credit card company to get my money back from so on.

I believe good communication and trust-based interaction is the key to good customer experience and success business. I haven’t seen any of that in this team. They are unprofessional. They failed to follow set business processes. What makes it worse is the empty commitment they made to their customers.

A few tips for potential and current members

1. Always keep a physical copy of paperwork
2. Don’t buy their promise. Be prepared for the worst
3. This is a franchise. Owners do whatever they want
4. There are much better...

We purchased our gym membership so that my kids could swim during the colder months - the indoor pools super nice and has a great beach entry for kids. It was great for the first month!

My first less than great experience with Lifetime John’s Creek was a female pool manager curtly yelling across the pool for me and my kids to get out - no explanation, just get out of the pool. I assumed the lifeguard needed a break, but after 30 minutes I went to the front desk check.

The front desk employee responded that yes, I must have got them wrong and that the pool was closed. When I showed her the hours posted on the website, she looked confused and went and got a different manager. He immediately starting apologizing and saying that we were shooed out of the pool because they thought we weren’t members as an outside swim teacher was teaching toddler lessons nearby and they assumed I was part of that since I have young children.

On the most basic level they couldn’t even be bothered to ask if we were members before telling us to get out? And even if we weren’t members before - being told abruptly to leave wouldn’t have endeared me to register. Not only that, but the employees working at the front desk didn’t know the hours for the pool, nor were they willing to double check. Had I not already known the hours, I would have just had to take her word for it and left.

Still everyone involved (minus the female pool manager) was very kind and apologetic, so it was easy to move past this experience.

The most recent experience -and the one that I have now cancelled my membership because of- is in regards to the outdoor pools.

In April, a pool manager tested my 4 yr old daughter for her 25 yard swim with the promise that she would get to go down the big slides when she passed. He also said that when my son (almost 3 yrs) was ready to test out that he could as well to go down the big slides. It is important to note that there is nothing on the website regarding height requirements for the slides, so we took the manager at his word and didn’t think anything of it.

When the outdoor pool opened my daughter was so excited to go down the slides and has been having a blast. My son was super excited to do that with her and had been practicing to test out. This weekend he finally felt ready and tested out with the lifeguard and manager on duty encouraging him to keep going and he’ll get to go down the slides! He was over the moon when he passed and was so proud to get his wristband.

This was only until he got to the top of the slide and had the lifeguard on duty there tell him he wasn’t tall enough and neither was my daughter. Needless to say, both kids were heartbroken.

I should say that I have no problem with there being rules. The lifeguard at the top of the slide was just doing his job. As for the 2 different pool managers and lifeguards that tested both of my kids in addition to the many lifeguards that had let my daughter go down before, what is the deal? How do so many people not know what is going on at their place of business?

I went to cancel my membership as I already have a neighborhood pool and continued with this one so my kids could slide down the slides. I was told by the employee at the desk that the member services team would contact me by phone since this cancellation was outside the usual realm. Instead I just got a quick email from them with “It has been our pleasure to serve you in your healthy way of life goals and aspirations.” I then tried to reach out both by email and phone only to be completely ignored.

I highly recommend going anywhere else for your fitness journey. Lifetime has great amenities and fortunately there are other Lifetimes nearby. This one just happens to be a special kind of disaster where no one seems to know what is going on, nor do they particularly care about resolving any issues. They are also frequently understaffed so that certain amenities are not available at any given time. The membership is too expensive for that kind of service or...

Former member. Gym and equipment are great, most facilities are nice. I give it one star because of the service and management. Hard to say this, because there are a few wonderful, sweet, awesome people at LTF. But overall, you'd be much better off down the street.

Here are the reasons:

1. Consistent, bizarre, awful experiences with people behind the counter. Way too many men get hired here that are walking meatpacks jacked up on something - too sexist and young to work in a family facility. My wife quit coming here after one month because she found the service unacceptable. I stayed another 6 because I liked the facility anyway. Then I made the mistake of trying to bring a few guests. Do not sign up for lifetime fitness if you want to bring guests. They will embarrass you with bad service, if they allow your guest at all.

2. What they sell you and what they deliver are two different things. They show published pricing for adding a family member, but when we tried to do it, the price was 4 times as high. They claimed my salesperson was mistaken, even though she showed me a designed page of pricings. I was told my son could come as a guest - not true. I was told I could bring my children for up to 3 visits before deciding if I wanted to add them. Not true. I was told many, many, things that were later denied. Sales turnover is very high (average sales pro lasts under 5 months) so the person who sold you your membership will likely be gone when you go to complain, and the management doesn't register any care for your complaints unless they see that you are a big spender in the system.

3. THEY MAKE IT VERY HARD TO CANCEL, and when they do finally have the one person in the building who can do it available, he lets you know that they require a 30 day notice from the cancellation forward. I visited the club 3 times over the course of a few weeks (they tell you when you sign up that you have to cancel in person) and each time the mystical supervisor who handles cancellations wasnt in (all three were peak hours). After your time has been epically wasted you are made to sign an agreement to let them keep charging you for another month! So - to be clear - they bill in advance from the time you join.

Whenever a business relies on forcing people to pay more than they want to, against their will, you know that business does not extend the real value it claims. If LTF wanted to fulfill its brand promise, it could very easily. Very, very concerning this business of forcing an individual to pay a bill they dont want to pay for a service they don't want to use after you have already collected a year of $$ from them.

So their goal is making as much cash as possible per member, to a point of extreme I've never seen before in a gym. Staff are chronically rude, most of the men here are extremely sexist and totally inappropriate to work in a facility with women and children. All in all I felt like one of those suckers at the amusement park who is forced to pay $6 for a bottle of water.

I want a gym I can grow with. One that cares about my health. One that really gets human empowerment. I would like to NOT leave this review, but this place is such a bait and switch that I feel its my civic responsibility.

PS - a reminder - the facility, equipment, showers, etc are all worth the...