Rant Discovery Vitality doesnt support Garmin

[covie]

Im on a roll today, mailed SA-active politly informing them of how superfluous their listings are and mailed them a nice spreadsheet of 479 races that I politly asked them to upload to their website.

[Grebel]

It isn't worth the high BP. You can get to Gold without setting foot in a gym or logging one ride. Use your Garmin to monitor your rides for yourself. Have a look at the website and chat to your broker and let them show you how. I did and am a lot happier for it. I whined about the same thing before I was "enlightened"

[Clinton1]

Cool... I just wondered why you insinuate that anyone who regards it as more than mere marketing gimmickry is deluded. Sounded like the type of rhetoric that Momentum training staff tend to come up with, hence the q.

 

And I agree with you - independent is the way to go.

 

And one other thing - in our profession, our personal opinion is interchangeable with our professional opinion...

 

As far as I'm concerned, I get a lot of value from Vitality in my professional, as well as personal, life. As do my clients...

 

I initially typed a lengthy response stating why I feel it is a marketing gimmick but as a result of you pointing out my occupation, and hence ensuring my personal and professional opinions were interchangeable, I chose to delete it.

 

I have done the math for a number of clients and, as stated by yourself, it can work for some but for most it is nothing more than a gimmick that lures them in. Gym is one. People ask for Vitality specifically for this. Ignore the other Vitality benefits, as many of them do too and you will find that only once you have been a member of the gym for more than 4 years do you actually start saving anything.

 

I tend to prefer to sell Discovery on a realistic scenario rather than the best case scenario that most Discovery tied agents do. They promise wonderful discounts to someone who is very unlikely to ever acheive Diamond status.

[chris_w_65]

I initially typed a lengthy response stating why I feel it is a marketing gimmick but as a result of you pointing out my occupation, and hence ensuring my personal and professional opinions were interchangeable, I chose to delete it.

 

I have done the math for a number of clients and, as stated by yourself, it can work for some but for most it is nothing more than a gimmick that lures them in. Gym is one. People ask for Vitality specifically for this. Ignore the other Vitality benefits, as many of them do too and you will find that only once you have been a member of the gym for more than 4 years do you actually start saving anything.

 

I tend to prefer to sell Discovery on a realistic scenario rather than the best case scenario that most Discovery tied agents do. They promise wonderful discounts to someone who is very unlikely to ever acheive Diamond status.

 

Diamond is easy. I am on my third year of gold and so far this year (2.5 months) I already have 44646 points

[Clinton1]

Diamond is easy. I am on my third year of gold and so far this year (2.5 months) I already have 44646 points

 

We are sitting chatting on a cycling forum....

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

We are sitting chatting on a cycling forum....

 

That has nothing to do with it... I have numerous overweight, unfit clients who are also on Diamond / Gold - purely because I showed them the reasons that I wanted them to get there and what the benefits were. Also, I helped them along the way by organizing all the fitness assessments & screening tests (in house)

 

I agree that some Disco agents just sell and leave the client to do their own thing ito Vitality, but then so do many independent brokers... and not only with Discovery products. The same is true for all companies' products. Some assume that it is Discovery's obligation to make sure the client gets to gold. Not so - it is the responsibility of the client, as well as the broker who sold them the product.

 

And as for the only saving anything after being a member of the gym for 4 years - rubbish. You get an 80% discount on the base level subs, which can work out to a saving of R 360 per month (on a R 450 p/m base gym membership) Yes, the initial activation fee is high (at R 745) but then have a look at that versus the month to month cost of a normal membership. You get to break even point in just over 2 months. With a Premier membership, that break even point extends to 3 months (assuming R 500 per month)

 

When including the cost of vitality into those calculations, the break even points extend to just under 4 months & 6 months respectively

 

That's considering a basic discount, without any Discovery Credit card, and with no activation fee on the normal gym contract.

 

Bottom line - if you're not interested in getting your clients to GOLD status, you shouldn't be selling an "integrated" policy, or promising those discounts. That's just bad advice...

 

As for saying it's a gimmick - that's nonsense, and can only come from either not understanding the product, or not utilizing it. If you sell it, you should be helping your client to get the most out of it...

Edited March 13, 2012 by cptmayhem

[Clinton1]

I had made a miscalculation in the gym example but you too are not factoring in the Vitality cost in your saving. It is not as long as stated by myself though.

 

I have no problem with Discovery medical aid and attaching Vitality to that. I still see it as a elaborate marketing scheme though. They deflect attention away from what the actual medical aid pays and focus on the Clicks, Adidas, and the like, discounts. These are things that excite people. That is what marketing is all about.

 

The problem is Discovery risk premiums, even with integrated discounts, are usually not even in the same ball park as their competitors. And then you add in the uncertainty if unforeseen medical expenses affecting your risk premium and the like.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

I had made a miscalculation in the gym example but you too are not factoring in the Vitality cost in your saving. It is not as long as stated by myself though.

 

I have no problem with Discovery medical aid and attaching Vitality to that. I still see it as a elaborate marketing scheme though. They deflect attention away from what the actual medical aid pays and focus on the Clicks, Adidas, and the like, discounts. These are things that excite people. That is what marketing is all about.

 

The problem is Discovery risk premiums, even with integrated discounts, are usually not even in the same ball park as their competitors. And then you add in the uncertainty if unforeseen medical expenses affecting your risk premium and the like.

 

Have another look at my post - I edited to include Vitality cost per month as well.

 

And the integrated premium story? Also not true if your Vitality status is up there. And if your client is claiming in excess of R 30k per year on his med aid, then there is a definite problem. It's also generally only a single event that will cause a year of claims in excess of say, 25k, so the chances of the client having recurring high-claim years is not that high (unless cancer / heart attack patient etc in which case the policy will be doing its job by covering him sufficiently.

 

Anyway - we're now way off topic.

 

IMHO - Vitality is FAR more than a "Marketing Gimmick" and, as many studies (worldwide, not commissioned by Discovery) have found out, it is the single biggest wellness program of its kind in the world. Vitality, if used (and sold) properly, has far-reaching benefits that cannot be dismissed as mere gimmickry.

 

And no, they don't try to use Vitality to divert attention from their Med Aid. The major problem with non-payment on the med aid side is predominately caused by the erronous submission of information by doctors' rooms, where some administrators submit the wrong codes for procedures, or clients don't understand what they're covered for or at. Again, this happens no matter what the med aid provider...

[FanieFiets]

I think you two should take it outside or a room. You also hijacked the post completely......

 

Covie - Did you get any response yet?

[Clinton1]

I think you two should take it outside or a room. You also hijacked the post completely......

 

Covie - Did you get any response yet?

 

I always find it annoying when someone does this... I had already chosen not to respond as I realised it was a pointless back and forth discussion of no benefit to anyone else and then a knight in shining armour comes in a day later and plays hero.

 

And it was in no way a thread hijack. The entire thread is about Vitality and whether it is a valuable offering, a marketing gimmick or crap.

Edited March 14, 2012 by Clint_ZA

[covie]

I think you two should take it outside or a room. You also hijacked the post completely......

 

Covie - Did you get any response yet?

 

From Garmin yeah :

Hi

Thank you so much for your query below, I really do understand your frustration as I too am a Vitality member who cannot get points for using my Garmin fitness devices. However you will be very pleased to hear that Garmin and Discovery have been in behind the scenes discussions about this for some time now and we are very close to getting this all sorted out. Unfortunately these things are quite complex and require teams of technical parties to get all the logistics worked out. Please keep an eye out as this will be happening in the near future.

Glad I have yet another Garmin fan, keep up the training.

Kind regards

Mich

[FanieFiets]

cool thnx covie, actually would have saved a lot of frustration and raised blood pressure if Vitality could have send you the same response.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

I think you two should take it outside or a room. You also hijacked the post completely......

 

Covie - Did you get any response yet?

 

ROFL. Yeah. Was just setting the record straight, Fanie... And the response Covie got from Garmin is great...

I always find it annoying when someone does this... I had already chosen not to respond as I realised it was a pointless back and forth discussion of no benefit to anyone else and then a knight in shining armour comes in a day later and plays hero.

 

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

cool thnx covie, actually would have saved a lot of frustration and raised blood pressure if Vitality could have send you the same response.

 

Yep yep. Seems like you and Clint need to find a deserted boardroom now as well...

Edited March 14, 2012 by cptmayhem

[covie]

Well would have been nice if Vitality said its a WIP, but im in this business and trust me its no mean technical feat to achieve this my team can have a portal, and 20 sites linked to vitality on a technical level within 2 weeks. Hell its just standard GPS data, nothing out of bounds. So that to me is the smoke screen for the behind the scenes corporate machine that needs to turn over.

 

But that said i wish to be able to either upload directly to the site, or have it connect to the major tracking sites, endemondo, sportstracker, fittrack, strava, etc. So will have to wait and see what happens. Technically the sites above have done all the groundwork, all Vitality has to do to enable this is to approach these sites to form an alliance and link up with them.

 

Problem solved, and you only need to upload your data once, that would make me a very happy chappy.

[Captain Fastbastard Mayhem]

Yeah, Covie - Id like that as well. I have a Garmin myself, and would like the complete usability of the fitness portion of Vitality, but tbh it's not an issue to me. I just track it online and don't worry about the points not accruing, rather just doing the fitness assessments each year.

 

But yes, the clarity from Garmin is good (although it's still as clear as the Thames at the moment)