Why should reviews matter to your golf club?


By: Anthony Douglas February 25, 2016


Just like many other areas of tourism that have greatly benefited by coming online, the golf industry is no exception.

In the past decade, we’ve notably seen how the hotel industry was revolutionized by the appearance of OTA’s (Online Travel Agencies), and we’ve all used one (Booking.com is a good example), with many hotels obtaining a large amount of their business from these portals.

Even something like TripAdvisor or Facebook can go a great way in giving clients a voice, and letting other customers know which places they should visit, and which ones they shouldn’t. A recent study about TripAdvisor revealed that on average, guests will read at least 6 reviews before making a booking decision. This is extremely powerful.

The voice of your customer

Paying attention to what your customers are saying about your establishment is the first step in understanding how to deliver and develop premium experiences for your customers. Taking pointers from the hotel & food industries again, we see some interesting facts:

  • 53% of TripAdvisor users say they won’t book a hotel if it has zero reviews;
  • More than 30% of consumers will read reviews first before booking a room;
  • 90% of consumers online trust recommendations;
  • A 0.5-point increase in online reviews for a restaurant causes its 7pm bookings to sell out up to 49% of the evenings the restaurant is open for business

Sources:

Independently of these services bringing direct bookings, or letting more customers know about the existence of a particular business, the truth is that no one can afford to ignore the strength that they have. And the smartest business managers are the ones that are able to leverage the power that these services provide in order to be able to reach more customers, and generate more revenue.

Hole19 Course Profiles Blog Post

How does this relate to the golf industry?

Imagine you could see how golfers feel about the experience they have had at your course, immediately after they have played a round? What about understanding if the golfer that has visited your golf course for the first time, birdied hole 17 and shot the best score of his life – and you being able to take action and inviting that golfer for a beer?

It is these personal experiences that will set you apart from the competition and truly deliver a customized customer experience.

And now, Hole19 is bringing to the market a solution that they believe will allow golf courses to do exactly that: attract more golfers and increase your revenue by helping you reach your customers.

You may be a user, or may have heard of Hole19 as an on-course golf tool, providing golfers with precise GPS distances from tee to green, wherever they are on the course. We already connect golfers to the on-course experience, and now we want to help them connect with golf courses in a brand new way.

With almost 1 million golfers worldwide amongst its user base that have played over 3,000,000 rounds of golf in just 20 months, we are seeing tremendous growth and want golf courses to be discovered by our golfing community.

Hole19’s Course Profiles will allow golfers to discover new courses, find other golfers that also play at the same courses they do, leave a review (only) after they’ve completed a round of golf at the course, get live weather predictions, ask for directions or get in touch directly with the golf course for bookings and queries. In just 1 month, over 10,000 golf course ratings have been submitted by Hole19 golfers and the forecast for the official kick-off of golf season are off the charts.

On the flip side, golf course directors will be able to collect relevant feedback from golfers who’ve played at the course, display a leaderboard for the top players, update contact information and have a relevant channel to get to know their golfers better, and to be able to communicate with them and help course directors manage their yield in a more direct way.

All in all, Hole19 believes that it’s time that the golf industry gained access to the wealth of consumers who are using mobile services to find their next hotel, their next meal or their next golf experience.

Curious about how you can start taking advantage of these Course Profiles? Head on to www.hole19golf.com/course-profiles, where you’ll be able to find out more and sign up for free.