I've been bringing my children to Tricks since summer 2009. They really do enjoy themselves during their classes, and their teachers generally do seem to care about their students (we had great experiences with Trayce and Sarah), hence the 2 stars.
However, Tricks (at least this particular location) has some organizational and communication issues. A few times, I had received phone calls from their staff advising me that they wanted to move my children to a different class time. I would then show up with my children at the agreed day & time only to be met with confusion by their staff. I would also receive phone calls after only missing *one* class asking if I would like them to save my child's spot in their classes. Umm, I paid tuition, so common sense would dictate that yes, I would like to get my money's worth...right?
In March, I received a call from their bookkeeper that I was tardy paying my children's tuition, when in fact, I had been paying 2 months in advance for over a year. Since I was driving when I received the phone call, I called them back when I arrived home and spoke to a different staff person, who supposedly pulled up my payment records on her computer and still insisted that I was behind on my payments. I was told that the next time I brought my children to class, I could pay for March tuition, April tuition, AND a late fee for my two children, totaling approx. $225.
I then took time to print out all of my bank transactions with Tricks for the past year and a half and formatting it into an Excel spreadsheet. The next day, I called them AGAIN and spoke to a very nice older woman (I believe her name may have been Eileen) who once again pulled up my records, and within a minute found that I had indeed been paying AHEAD of time, and that I did not, in fact, owe Tricks $225. Now, why the staff person the previous day couldn't figure this out, I have no clue. It's not rocket science, people. Count the number of payments and compare them to the number of months I've been bringing my children if you have to. Eileen then offered me a 50% discount on the following month's tuition. That and her helpfulness and customer service skills were the only things preventing me from dropping Tricks right then and there.
To prevent making this review more of a novel than it already is, I will just say that in the end, I decided to stop bringing my children to Tricks Gymnastics. On April 13, I informed their staff in person that I would not continue when the month was over and was told that they would make a note of that in their computer. Then, on April 26, I received a call from their bookkeeper informing me that I was tardy on my payment again.
Let me tell you...it took a lot of self control on my part to not let loose a few choice words. But you know what? That phone call cemented in my mind that it was absolutely the correct decision to drop Tricks. read more