Hiya Guys,

Recently the feedback board featured an interesting ‘suggestion’ around the new jukebox. Specifically:

‘A lot of the music on the new Jukebox is dance music and not really suited to working out.’

To which the Bodyworks team replied, in part:

‘The developer is increasing the number of songs and the ‘house’ music is being removed.’

Frankly I wasn’t too happy to read this. Music is a matter of taste, yet, where your correspondent sets out as an objective fact that ‘dance music [is] not really suited to working out’ your team seem to be in total agreement. Would a better reply not have been something like:

‘At Bodyworks our membership comprises a broad cross section of the community, we try to provide a broad cross section of music to suit all tastes. We’re adding songs regularly so keep checking back for new tracks.’

Your explicit agreement makes a mockery of your whole feedback system.  The customer is *not* always right- in this case the point is at the very least moot.

But, let’s take for a moment their statement that ‘dance music [is] not really suited to working out’ objectively and look towards some evidence.

Maybe we could start by consulting the various group training instructors at Bodyworks, experts surely in workout music selection. Based on my regular visits to the gym I would say that ‘dance’ music is a very popular format for their choreographies- disproportionately so if you compared their track listings against say the popular music charts. We’re not merely talking about more recent ‘house/trance/techno/…’ music. These guys use dance music from right through the past 20 odd years- remember the 80’s? Jazzercise? 80’s dance music?

But really I don’t even think that the argument as to what is good and what is not should really raise its head here.  Everybody is going to have different tastes- the whole purpose of the jukebox is to, as best one can, attempt to cater to all of those disparate tastes.

Maybe your correspondent was referring more generally to modern dance music, the electronic varieties (Trance, House, Breakbeat, Electro, Techno, Drum and Bass). Maybe they don’t like it? It’s certainly not to everybody’s taste. Maybe your team don’t like it? Ditto.  But, your capitulation really does make a mockery of the whole feedback system. Not all feedback is going to be right. On receipt and analysis you should be considering the, quite obvious, thoughts and opinions of other members. In this case you quite clearly haven’t.

If you must have your ‘perfect’ workout music then you should take an MP3 player with a decent pair of in-ear (noise blocking headphones). If you choose not to and instead rely on the jukebox then you should be prepared to compromise and show a degree of communal tolerance- others may have a different idea as to just what really suits their workout.

Anyway. Rant over. I do love my gym a whole heap. As someone who travels overseas a lot (the IHRSA membership is a real bonus) I still love coming back to my own gym and still sits at the top of my favourites list if only because of the whole sense of community. Let’s not spoil that community with this sort of feedback and response.

Regards

Chris