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Discovery lowers Vitality Active Rewards targets, makes points earning easier

In response to complaints received from its members since its last Active Rewards target and points reshuffle, Discovery announced today that it is lowering the required points targets members need to hit to earn rewards,  it’s introducing new ways for members to earn points and creating a new fitness category for real fanatics.

All of the changes will come into effect on the 20th of August 2016.

Dr Craig Nossel, the boss of Vitality at Discovery explained to htxt.africa why the changes were made.

Discovery Changes

“We recognise that the changes that we made in April, did upset and frustrate some of our members and our clients. And for that we are incredibly apologetic. The changes we are making in response to having listened to the issues,” Nossel said.

The major changes in which Vitality members will now be able to earn fitness points are:

  • By taking part in any timed and verified race event locally or internationally in the disciplines of cycling, walking/running, swimming and major multisport events;
  • The popular 50 points category for tracking 5 000 steps a day is being re-introduced for those just starting out;
  • There will be a new heart rate points category for workouts between 60 – 69% and 70 – 79% of age-related maximum heart rate targets;
  • Endurance and High Performance athletes can apply to be part of a new category to earn points for longer duration workouts;
  • For all Vitality Active Rewards members (excluding those in the new Endurance and High Performance category), the weekly maximum goal will be lowered to 900 points (from 1 200). The weekly maximum goal will remain 600 points for at-risk members with certain chronic conditions, health concerns during pregnancy or members aged 65+ with risk factors.

Nossel explained that some of the changes were definitely spurred on from complaints in the community.

Discovery Community complaints

The complaints Nossel refers have been flooding in steadily since April this year, when the company made some sweeping changes in the way that members earned rewards and how the points were accumulated.

That didn’t sit well with a big portion of members – enough for Discovery to re-think the way points were earned.

At the time, the firm said it was changing its policy in order to help people get fitter, and also because its current system was open to abuse by users who were recording non-exercise movements on their fitness trackers.

“Our focus is to get people healthy, and balancing the science of what people should be doing from an exercise point-of-view with the psychology and the behaviour change, there is often a bit of art in that,” Nossel said. “And in some segments of the exercising population, we didn’t deal with how they exercise and how they behave, and we in some ways maybe demotivated them – which is far from our intention.”

“We obviously went back and looked at our data and made the changes on the back of a variety of things. But a key area is the unhappiness around some of our clients and I think we are happy to concede that we did make people unhappy and we don’t want that. We want them to be happy and healthy.”

He detailed that the biggest changes in how people are earning rewards are in the re-introduction of the 50 points category for tracking 5 000 steps a day, as well as people being able to earn 100 points for exercise at 60% heart rate – which was taken away in the April update.

The biggest change, according to Nossel, is the introduction of the High Performance and Endurance category.

“We treated everybody the same, and the people that we have upset the most were the high-performance athletes. It wasn’t intentional, but it came across that we wanted to change the way they exercise – and that was the wrong thing to do. So what we are doing now, instead of upsetting them, we want to reward their exercise and reward their behaviour – and not that they feel being penalised for being active and healthy.”

Discovery’s Apple Watch – more achievable

Discovery also ran a promotion in which members could get an Apple Watch at a steep discount if they hit certain goals per month – to the point where it would become a free product for those that exercised regularly. More than 23 000 Discovery members took the offer up.

But with the update in April, some members complained that Discovery made it difficult for them to hit the goals in order to receive the discount on the Apple Watch.

“When people needed to pay in (for the Apple Watch), they have been upset, and that creates a negativity that we don’t want. For us, it has never been around the cost of the Watch. For us, it is about keeping people out of the hospital,” Nossel said.

He also conceded that maybe Discovery was too prescriptive.

“With the Apple Watch, there will be weeks in which people don’t achieve their goals, but I think with the changes that we have made it will make it very achievable for the majority of people. We are creating more flexibility with the points changes. Maybe we were too prescriptive in some of the things that we put out – and that created unhappiness, and once again we apologise for that.”

[Image – CC 2.0/Jerry Meaden]

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