Hey RTR Family!
Now with more flexibility than ever, we’re introducing a whole new array of membership packages for you to sign up for your favorite Pilates classes.
Our memberships will now have five options to provide flexibility to the number of times you plan to attend per week. The plans start at $150 escalate incrementally up to $320 per monthly billing cycle. The options are 8 classes per month, 12, 16 and 20 (so 2x a week, 3x, 4x and 5x). The price per class drops the more times per month you commit to coming. The most a member would pay per class is $18.75 and the least comes out to $15/class. It breaks down as such:
| MEMBERSHIP & PACKAGE OPTIONS | PRICE | PRICE/CLASS | CLICK TO PURCHASE |
| MONTHLY 8 | $150 | $18.75 | BUY NOW! |
| MONTHLY 12 | $220 | $17.50 | BUY NOW! |
| MONTHLY 16 | $272 | $17.00 | BUY NOW! |
| MONTHLY 20 | $320 | $16.00 | BUY NOW! |
| MONTHLY 28 | $420 | $15.00 | BUY NOW! |
| STUDENT 12* | $160 | $13.33 | BUY NOW! |
| 5 CLASS PACKAGE | $160 | $32.00 | BUY NOW! |
| DROP IN CLASS | $40 | $40.00 | BUY NOW! |
This is a LOT of new information to digest and many of you have been calling with questions and concerns. We get it! And we hear you– to help understand the reasoning behind these changes, and how policies will continue moving forward, we’ve broken it down for you below and provided the answers to many FAQs our team has been getting since these changes were announced!
What happens to ‘No Shows’ and ‘Late Cancels? Are these policies still in effect?
The same ‘No-Show’ and ‘Late Cancel’ Policies are in effect as always. No-Shows & Late Cancels both utilize one of the scheduled classes options of your membership. A ‘No-Show’ (defined as a scheduled class that a client doesn’t attend and doesn’t cancel the reservation) incurs an additional $15 penalty fee. There is no fee for a ‘Late Cancel’ except the loss of the use of that class for the billing cycle. For more information about our policies feel free to visit our FAQ page.
Also, please note that due to our current limitations, temporarily Perkville points will not be able to be redeemed for any freebies. However, you can continue accruing points with Perkville by attending classes and referring friends, we hope to bring this feature back in the future! In the past, Perkville points could be redeemed for RTR freebies such as drop-in classes and guest passes. To sign up, Perkville will send you an email after you attend your first class. All you’ll need to do is create a Perkville account using the same email address as your Mariana Tek account, and then you can start tracking your points!
*Student Membership only applicable to ages 16 – 25. Must have a valid student ID.
I supported RTR Pilates during the lockdown, did this help?
Thank you so much for your support through the shutdown! In addition to the daily mat classes we were able to provide, RTR Pilates focused on our employees’ needs. We were able to maintain financial support and health insurance of our full time staff because of clients exactly like you! So thank you one million times over. RTR Pilates also focused on the mental health of the entire staff. We brought in a community health specialist to help process and guide the team through a series of conversations around quarantine, COVID and stress. The weekly required meetings evolved into a support group for our staff to process and deal with the realities of the lockdown. In our final meeting, RTR Pilates hosted a financial planner to help answer questions and set-up the staff to financially navigate the pandemic and future unknowns.
Why change the pricing now?
The Late Cancel issue is the impetus for looking into how to free up space in our COVID– limited schedule. It is the biggest problem at the moment, however the Late-Cancel problem is not the ONLY problem within the pricing structure – The usage curve of memberships has always been bell shaped (some low end users, some high end users and the majority of the members fall in the middle of the bell). The bell was once centered around 8 classes per month yet over the years that attendance number has drifted up! Post-COVID, the bell is now centered more closely to 12 classes per month and it is on a steep climb. With all the uncertainty this country is facing, people are seeking community, they have more time on their hands and they trust that we are a safe place to work out. This is a wonderful problem to have, however, the ‘unlimited’ pricing structure our clients are accustomed to will sink us. Not only have we already run out of space to accommodate our current members, we have no space to add anyone new and we have very limited staff to add classes. The utilization curve looks far less like a bell and more like a straight line climbing up to 30 classes/month. All the while, ‘unlimited’ members are scheduling more and more and more classes. Unfortunately, it just does not work
Why not just institute a Late Cancel Fee?
In a sense, the ‘Add-on’ class is a Late Cancel Fee, just in reverse! The structure of the membership model is based around consumer intent. For example: A client plans to take 12 classes in a month. However, we understand things may come up, if a client is forced to late cancel (cancel within the 12 hours prior to the start time of a class) but still wants to take the intended 12 classes that month, they can add on a class at $20. The class add-on becomes the ‘late-cancel fee’. Should a client decide that it is okay for them that month to just take 11 classes, then the ‘late-cancel fee’ becomes the cost of the missed class $17. Either way, there is a small ‘penalty’ for a Late Cancel.
Is COVID-19 the reasoning for the pricing change?
Yes and no. COVID created an environment that amplified pre-existing issues. The slide of membership usage over the past ten years would have led to this pricing change at some point and in truth, it was probably overdue. The membership fee was initially based off of a usage of 8-classes per month but prior to March 2020, the average usage by members was closer to a whopping 12 classes per month! That’s a 33% increase! Thus the reason the 12 class per month package is priced exactly the same as the old membership. After quarantine, usage drastically shifted upwards. This is a demonstration of a couple of factors:
- We’ve been able to successfully create an environment where clients feel safe to continue to workout. (Yay!)
- Clients availability has changed as many are now working from home and can attend our classes more often.
- Clients that previously came to Pilates a few times a week and perhaps went to a gym or other fitness facility the other days are now exclusively coming to Pilates.
All of the above factors are fantastic! Unfortunately we have very limited resources– resources that have been diminished by governmental regulations, distance protocols and reduced workforce. In August 2020, we had reached a saturation point with class availability and was only able to accommodate less than 40% of the previous clients.
Where did some of my favorite instructors go and why are they not on the schedule?
Instructors have returned on their own volition. Many instructors are now virtual schooling their kids, others may be in contact or caring for someone in the ‘high risk’ category for COVID-19. When or if instructors become available we schedule them immediately. As you can see, there are many mid-day class times currently unavailable and that’s because we don’t have the workforce we once had to cover those times. For reference, in March 2020 we had about 55 instructors teaching or subbing. In September 2020 we have 28 on the schedule. So, not only are we limited by governmental constraints, our workforce has significantly decreased. Don’t fret though! Our RTR Pilates Training team has been working diligently to develop new instructors and as these instructors graduate the program they will be adding class options to the schedule!
What happened to Happy Hour classes?
Happy Hour classes have been eliminated from the schedule starting October 1, 2020. This change was due in part to a few factors: One, with reduced class sizes AND having clients pay ½ price for classes even as the class is maxed out every single time, it loses money every single time. It’s simply not sustainable for business! Additionally, much of the workforce that taught happy hour classes has not returned to teaching. So, those on a Happy Hour membership had less and less options. Once our work force returns a bit more and limitations are lifted to where we can at least break even hosting these classes, our goal is to put them back on the schedule, however there is no projected date for this to happen.
What is Perkville? How can I use my points?
Perkville is a service that RTR Pilates has provided as a way to ‘reward’ clients that frequent the studio, refer our service to friends and regularly attend class. This free to you service allows you to accumulate points and then redeem the perks! Given the limited class size and schedule, we are unable to allow for redemption at the moment. RTR Pilates needs to accrue revenue from every available reformer. At some point, we hope to be able to return to gifting classes to our regulars.
Does RTR Pilates Donate to Charities?
RTR Pilates donates approximately 85 packages yearly to schools, charities and fundraising organizations. We feel it is beneficial to our community to give away our services and support causes that are near and dear to our clients’ hearts! However, given the limited resources we have with COVID limitations, we’ve ceased donating for the time being.
Will things go back after COVID-19?
There are too many variables and unknowns to know exactly what the future holds. Of course we want to be able to return to donating to auctions & charities. Perkville points will continue to accumulate and will be available for use once we can make class sizes a little bigger and have more classes on the schedule!
Can I take more than one class in a day on a membership?
Yes, you can! However, we have limited the scheduling options from the consumer side to only allow you to schedule one class per day as it overcomplicates the system otherwise. If you’d like to take more than one class in a day, send an email to info@rtrpilates.com and we can get you set up ASAP!
How does booking yourself to more than one class a day complicate things? If we allowed you to book more than one class per day, then clients would get moved off of waitlists while being scheduled into other classes! We had a situation where a client was on four waitlists one Saturday morning and was moved into 3 of the 4 classes! This would have used three classes of their membership for the month, when in reality, the client only intended to take one. For this reason, we’re maintaining the parameters of the membership to only allow the client to schedule one class per day. However, if you’d like to take more than one, we can accommodate by scheduling for you! You just have to reach out.
Why can I not schedule beyond my membership window?
We are currently working with our software programmer for a solution to scheduling beyond your current billing cycle. At this time, the software does not limit the number of classes a client can schedule with the new membership structure because of the option to schedule beyond the current billing cycle.
Scheduling beyond your billing date, from a technical standpoint, is called scheduling ‘unpaid’. Because you technically haven’t paid for the classes beyond your next automatic payment. Most studios do not allow clients to schedule unpaid because it can create administrative nightmares (i.e. client’s auto pays not processing, yet client can still take classes, etc). The scheduling ‘unpaid’ option is allowing clients with a membership to schedule MORE than their selected membership option. The software is NOT prompting them to purchase the add on class…as you can imagine this is a huge and unforeseen problem.
Our admin team is currently reaching out to those that have been scheduling more than their membership allows. But our team of three in the office just isn’t big enough to handle this administrative task regularly. We are removing the ability to schedule unpaid until the software tech can code the scheduling software to behave as we intend. We are hopeful they can figure something out.
