Troon Privé has been selected to manage The Standard Club, a private club located in Johns Creek, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta.
The Standard Club, the oldest social club in Atlanta, is the outgrowth of the old Concordia Club, which was founded in 1867.
The club was relocated in 1987 to its current north-Atlanta address in Johns Creek. The full-service country club is located on 300-plus acres of Audubon-designated natural habitat.
The Standard Club’s golf course was originally designed by Arthur Hills and opened for member play in 1987. In 2005, it was redesigned by Mike Riley.
The Standard Club has got:
- 125,000 square-foot clubhouse includes both formal and casual dining rooms, a private dining room, a banquet ballroom and patio dining overlooking the course.
- the swimming pool complex was recently renovated and features a pool, waterslide and kids water mushroom.
- 4 indoor air-conditioned tennis courts, 8 outdoor clay courts, 4 outdoor hard courts, a state-of-the-art fitness center, as well as racquetball and basketball courts.
The Standard Club – private golf club challenges
Probably you have already noticed that private golf clubs like The Standard Club are offering very similar services and amenities like their competitors.
What worries me that they are easy to reproduce directly and indirectly by the competitors. Thus, it can easily lead to commoditization.
Just think about offering free WiFi in hotels, golf clubs, country clubs, etc. In the beginning, golf club members and guests were surprised and delighted to be able to use free WiFi. However, today, such a service is an elementary one.
I think private golf clubs and public golf clubs should use service design to differentiate themselves from their competitors and improve their current services.
It will help them to develop whole new value propositions. This can be done based on new technology or new market development.
The challenge is how to improve the relevance and attractiveness of our private golf clubs.
I am sure you have already heard of the virtual concierge service of Pebble Beach (developed in cooperation with IBM Watson). It is a great example of how to use technology (in this case Artificial Intelligence) to provide on-demand personalized service.
I believe the way to achieve relevance and providing engaging experiences go through personalization.
Angie Hospitality says 36% of people are ready to pay extra money for personalized services.
By offering personalized services it is also a great opportunity to demonstrate the value your members get from using their private data.
Offering personalization might require rethinking our private golf clubs’ operations (e.g. core processes). It can help you to improve your golf club’s efficiency and lower costs as well. Thus, making your golf club business more sustainable.
We have to learn how to use our members’ data (e.g. purchase history and behavior, etc.) to personalize our services and offers.
Today, experiences are their main motivator for spending money.