16 May, 2016 07:14
Corporates have long been moving the goalposts on their rewards programmes, seldom to the benefit of the consumer.
FNB aggressively marketed its Platinum card with the promise of unlimited access to its airport "Slow Lounges", then steadily reduced the number of free visits a month and the time one can spend during the visit. Then it introduced qualifying hurdles, including a minimum bank balance.
Of course, the corporates are entitled to fiddle with their perks any way they like; the small print says so. But inevitably their customers feel duped and angry.
Quite a few Discovery Vitality members are feeling that way since the medical aid company announced its intention to "amend" its Vitality fitness points system from April 1.
Especially those who signed up for the Apple Watch deal, having worked out that they could earn enough points to avoid paying any instalment at all. And then suddenly they couldn't.
Durban's Hanna Elliott is one of them. In the space of a year she went from zero exercise to working out in a gym five to six days a week, shedding 27kg and the need for hypertension medication.
"I bought an Apple Watch through Discovery because I believed that I would be able to achieve Discovery's weekly requirement for full subsidisation of the watch," she said.
"I easily achieved 1500 points with weight training and cardio.
"Now, I'm unable to reach more than 600 points a week (100 points a gym session, six days a week) with the new terms and conditions.
"I am very upset about the monthly credit card instalment that I am now burdened with for 24 months - I wouldn't have signed up for the watch if I knew this was going to happen."
Responding, Vitality CEO Shrey Viranna said the company was engaging Elliot to help her "achieve her goals as we are inspired by her personal achievements and would not want her to lose her motivation".
If people weren't achieving the points needed for full Apple Watch subsidisation, he said, they could either cancel the Apple Watch benefit or pause their goals for a period.
In Elliot's case, having signed up for the watch just two months ago, she can get out of the deal only if she pays Vitality R6000.
Other "amendments" to the Vitality points system, ostensibly to outwit those members who'd been abusing the system, have also angered members.
Viranna insists that it's not a rewards or loyalty programme but rather a "science-based wellness programme, supported by behavioural economics".
More than half of South Africans are inactive, Viranna said. "Discovery's research shows that one additional workout a week reduces the risk of hospitalisation by 7%."
Vitality's rewards - including discounts on flights and movie tickets - are earned by incentivised behaviour to shift health outcomes fundamentally, he said.
But there were those who found ways to cheat their way to the rewards - members swiping their access cards but not working out; husbands and wives recording the identical steps every day of the week; a member claiming Vitality points for completing two different races on the same day in different provinces, and using certain apps that recorded false "workouts".
So, to stop such abuses and remain clinically sound, Vitality now places more emphasis on "verified and clinically relevant heart rate data".
So while Vitality "will award 100 points for less-verifiable workouts, such as gym visits and steps taken, members using heart-rate monitors can earn between 300 and 3 000 points for a workout".
But ultra-fit members' heart rates are lower during exercise.
"Elite athletes can continue to earn Vitality fitness points, but may need to change their training plan to shorter, more frequent, higher-intensity workouts," Viranna said.
Changing a rewards system with the result that your customers no longer qualify for free stuff or certain discounts is one thing; but to get people to commit to a two-year contract on the basis of one set of criteria and then alter it so that they no longer qualify for the full subsidy without altering their behaviour is totally unjustified and unfair, in my view.
FITNESS WATCH
This is how Discovery Vitality's Apple Watch deal works: If members meet all four of their (recently revised) weekly fitness goals in a month, the monthly instalment for their Apple Watch is funded in full. If they don't meet their goals, their Discovery Card will be debited by a monthly penalty, calculated as a percentage of the retail price at the time of collection, based on an interest-free 24-month basis.
For example, based on a retail price of R7400, if a member doesn't meet any of their goals in a month, their Discovery Card will be debited with R308.33 that month. If they achieved three of their four Vitality Active rewards goals in a month, R154.16 would be debited.
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