The nominees of the 59club Service Excellence Awards are…


By: March 11, 2019


The very first step of improving customer experience in our golf clubs is the measurement of CX. This is why I am happy to see so much nominees at the latest 59club Service Excellence Awards.

Today, customer experience is the main differentiating factor between outstanding golf clubs and the others.

A key finding of an American Express study in 2011 was that 78% of customers have opted to cancel a transaction or did not complete an intended purchase because of poor customer experience.

The very same study found that we are ready to pay more for outstanding services and products that are in line with our expectations, needs, and goals.

59club Service Excellence Awards’ 2017-18 award winners

To be able to maximize customer experience measurement and create value we should bear in mind:

  1. Let’s measure customer experience on the customer journey level!
  2. Invest in such technology solutions that can capture customer feedback on a daily basis from multiple channels and integrate survey results, social-media posts, and operational data into comprehensive, role-specific dashboards. 
  3. Create mechanisms that enable to change the design and execution of the customer-experience process.
  4. Don’t use single customer experience metrics! It will not provide the kind of insight that golf clubs (and other business as well) need to deliver consistent, memorable and differentiated customer experiences.
  5. Let’s give emotional and personal context to our customer experience metrics. For instance, let’s create guest/customer/member personas.

Nominees of for the 59club Service Excellence Awards

This year the 59club Service Excellence Awards will be staged at The Old Course Hotel, St Andrews (see photo below).

For 2019, an ‘overseas’ category has been introduced to no fewer than 7 awards:

  1. Golf Membership Sales Team of the Year,
  2. Leading Individual Golf Membership Performance,
  3. Golf Operation Team of the Year,
  4. Golf Retail Manager of the Year,
  5. Food and Beverage Manager of the Year,
  6. Greenkeeper of the Year and
  7. Golf Manager of the Year.
The Old Course Hotel, venue for this year’s 59club Service Excellence Awards

The Belfry and Dubai Creek are the frontrunners among this year’s nominees, each of which is up for 11 nominations.

This is not the first time that they participate in the 59club Service Excellence Awards:

The Belfry won in these categories so far:

  • 2013/2014 – The Ultimate Golf Resort;
  • 2014, 2015, 2016 – Golf Flag Awards – Golf Resort;
  • 2011, 2012 – Golf Operation Team of the Year;
  • 2011 – The Best Conditioned and Presented Golf Course;
  • 2011, 2012 – Leading Individual Golf Operations Performance;
  • 2010 – Best Food & Beverage Experience;
  • 2010 – 18th – The Most Memorable Hole.

The Dubai Creek won in these categories so far:

  • 2015/2016 – The Ultimate Golf Members’ Club;
  • 2014, 2015, 2016 – Golf Flag Awards – Members’Club;
  • 2014 – Golf Manager of the Year – Alan MacKenzie.

Emirates Golf Club follows closely behind on 10 nominations, including the potential for collective glory in two categories:

  1. Golf Membership Sales Team of the Year;
  2. Overseas and Leisure Membership Sales Team of the Year.

Forest of Arden is a short way further back with the potential for success in 8 categories, which include a return to contention for 2-time winner and reigning champion, Simon Howell, for the Golf Retail Manager of the year – Over £75 green fee category.

Other globally-recognized venues to receive multiple nominations include:

59club will recognize 19 venues for their commitment to engage, analyze and enrich their member and guest experience, utilizing collateral of survey tools across the my59 software platform:

  1. Colchester Golf Club,
  2. Dunscar Golf Club,
  3. Ferndown Golf Club,
  4. Gog Magog Golf Club,
  5. King’s Lynn Golf Club,
  6. Langland Bay Golf Club,
  7. Maxstoke Park Golf Club,
  8. Orsett Golf Club,
  9. Radyr Golf Club,
  10. Sherbourne Golf Club,
  11. St Ives (Hunts) Golf Club,
  12. The Scandinavian (Denmark) and
  13. The Vale Resort.