Joshua Twilley

Review of Hockessin Athletic Club

We've always considered joining HAC -- many friend...

We've always considered joining HAC -- many friends are members, but it is a bit of a hike for us (20 minute drive), so we never joined. However, we have enough friends who are members that we thought it was about time we check it out. We made plans to meet friends and even registered online for a day pass so we could see the facility.

As it turned out, when we arrived our friends were not there. Rather than return home, we thought we would check it out anyway -- after all, we were in the lobby with swimsuits, we had registered for the day pass, and we thought a customer service-oriented organization would want to put a good foot forward for potential customers.

Well, we were wrong. From the beginning the front desk was extremely condescending, as though we didn't belong. My wife tried to explain the situation to the desk (who didn't bother to check on the free pass), but apparently the front desk didn't think we would even consider membership. They gave us an ultimatum -- have our friends walk us in, or join. We weren't interested in joining immediately, especially not after this treatment, and this may just convince us it's not worthwhile. We have heard stories of the cliquey exclusivity of HAC, and this just confirmed the stories.

I suggest the front desk should receive training in customer service as well as be prepared to escalate a problem if they can't resolve it with a potential customer satisfactorily.