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Discovery Vitality apologises for controversial rewards programme

“We have recognised‚ to a large degree‚ that what we put in place in April certainly frustrated and upset a portion of our members. And for that we are incredibly sorry.”

With these words on Wednesday‚ head of Discovery Vitality Wellness‚ Craig Nossel‚ said that Vitality was making significant changes to the Active Rewards programme that had left many South Africans angry. Many complained that the new system‚ introduced four months ago‚ made it too difficult to reach the weekly points targets that had been set.

But Nossel said that the wellness programme had listened to these concerns‚ and that the changes would take effect from August 20. These would be the third points system introduced since their Active Rewards programme was rolled out in December.

“The changes put in place now are based on the feedback primarily we’ve got from our members. Our intention is always to motivate people to exercise‚ to get them to be healthy. And when we made the changes then [in April] where some people aid it was going to be too hard‚ we said we were going to monitor it and see‚ and if it was too hard we would move back to something that is – I don’t want to say easy‚ because it isn’t supposed to be easy – easier. We want people to be healthy and we want them to be motivated and we lost some of that‚ to be honest‚” said Nossel.

He said that there would no longer be a one-size-fits-all system. Instead‚ there will be three categories.

“There are those who battle to get started‚ and we want to motivate them to get to a point where they feel more comfortable‚ whether it’s walking‚ running or doing a small amount of exercise. Really just getting them off the couch. The impact on people’s health is massive if we can do that. Having the first barrier of points too high we lost some of those people or didn’t engage those people sufficiently‚” said Nossel.

The second category was for endurance‚ or high performance‚ athletes – who‚ according to Nossel‚ “we upset the most”.

“These are people who exercise‚ are up at 4am or 5am‚ spending an hour-and-a-half to 2 hours on their bike in the freezing cold and felt thankful that they were getting healthy but were getting 100 points and feel insulted by it. Never our intention‚ but that’s what we did‚” he said.

These members would have to apply for elite athlete status‚ and would be rewarded for longer periods of exercise even if it was at lower heart rates.

The third category was for the “generally active person”. The major change is that the maximum points cap will be set at 900 instead of 1200. A 200-point category‚ for exercise at 70% to 79% of maximum heart rate‚ and a 100-point category for exercise at 60% heart rate‚ have been introduced.

These changes‚ said Nossel‚ were much fairer and would deal with many of the concerns and criticisms.

“I think‚ yes‚ we are happy. We’ve been through a rigorous process of analysing and understanding the complaints. Most of the executives have engaged on a daily basis the members who have complained and this has helped us to understand where members are coming from. We’ve looked at the different issues and we think that this will address‚ by far‚ the majority of it‚” he said.

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