We here at Golf Business Monitor do our best to stay on top of all things Golf, all things Media, and all things Technology, but sometimes even internally things slip through the cracks, and we put off updating or doing a self-examination until it’s too late.
That got us thinking that it probably happens to all the facility operators in our audience too, so we sat down with Ian Brigmann, COO of Club Caddie, and took a deep dive into why facility owners need to NOT procrastinate when it comes to their technology solutions.
Ian, you speak with a lot of operators, and when it comes to facility technology operations, are there 2 or 3 things they all have on their wish list?
We definitely do! Across all of our teams, we are talking to operators on the ground day in and day out, onboarding brand new partners & talking to our partners who have been with us since day 1.
While they all have individual wish lists, the three things I typically hear the need for are
- integrated data,
- expanding the capabilities of the business’s digital footprint with web portals, and
- providing mobile-first solutions.
All of which contribute to personalizing customer experiences at scale.
Integrated Data, huh? We all know that Data is king, and its value is exponential, so why do you think a better system hasn’t been developed yet OR made easily attainable yet?
Operators today are getting more comfortable making data-driven decisions and understanding how much valuable data they are collecting today.
It is on us at Club Caddie to ensure that we are able to deliver easily accessible and digestible data for their operations.
We recognized a real need in the industry for a tool that is built on a unified customer database that can provide clubs with a 360-degree view of their customers.
Our partners are provided with a customer profile view that centralizes data from
- retail, restaurant,
- golf,
- outings or leagues,
- activities, and
- more so that they can truly understand a customer’s habits.
Talk to me about “truly integrated”!
Sure, I say truly integrated because until now, many facilities have been relying on disparate systems which require them to manually merge individual silos of data to create a picture of their customers.
When reporting and data come up in conversations we have with operators, they are refreshed and very excited to learn that we have solved that by building a series of systems that act cohesively and generate insightful output.
Interestingly, it sounds like the rest of the golf course industry, the operations and logistics vertical is in a period of rapid flux. Who do you think is going to have a hard time surviving this golf industry metamorphosis?
Organizations that begin to feel a strain will be because they lag behind in facilitating the collection of customer feedback and being agile enough internally to action that feedback in a meaningful way.
It is incredibly important to have a deep-rooted and operationalized focus on collecting customer feedback.
Nowadays, it is very easy for the volume, velocity, and sheer variety of customer feedback to overwhelm organizations into a decision paralysis on what features to develop and how to best implement them.
More often than not you find organizations describe their internal department focuses as being product-focused or sales-driven and customer centricity is often only considered a focus for roles like marketing.
The need to establish and reinforce this customer-centric mindset across every role & function in an organization was a lesson we learned very early on. In fact, we learned it well before we even began building our course management suite.
Our entire leadership team has extensive green grass experience working at, operating, and owning golf course facilities.
It was a truly invaluable insight into the challenges operators face day-to-day, what existing tools in the industry are lacking, and what tools we as an organization absolutely needed to build to deliver an industry-leading solution for our partners.
Golf course partners today are becoming more comfortable with evaluating their business processes top-to-bottom. From reenvisioning internal workflows to reinventing their interactions with their golfers to provide personalized experiences at scale.
They are rightfully demanding that the market provide tailored and flexible solutions to fit their changing business needs. We are here to work with operators, as partners, to provide that.
You play an integral role with Club Caddie who many consider being a progressive leader in the club management software space. How and why has Club Caddie navigated these waters so well and what advice would you give other organizations trying to navigate the market?
It all starts with an organization’s culture and guiding principles. Going back to the early days here at Club Caddie, our team collaborated on a culture guide that outlined four core principles to serve as commitments not only to each other but also to our golf course partners.
The foremost pillar being a promise to establish and promote a customer-centric mindset across all of our teams, from product development to marketing, to customer service.
We know that partner feedback is not always naturally accessible, and it is important to make a coordinated effort to collect it to remain agile in a changing market.
From our partners, this is about ensuring that feedback mechanisms are easy to use and frequently brought to the forefront of their experience with us.
We want our partners to be exactly that, partners, and share in the development & success of our management platform.
Internally, feedback from our team members is about ensuring everyone feels that their voice, suggestions, and feedback are heard and taken into consideration.
I can’t stress how impactful this second part is, it ensures our team operates in a culture rooted in trust, it encourages them to expand their knowledge and skills, and operationalizes empathy and connection with our partners.
Together with them, we built a comprehensive, easy-to-use, all-in-one golf course management solution, and are doing it the right way. I really can’t tell you enough how incredibly proud and appreciative I am of the whole team and our partners.
It sounds like what I am hearing is that teamwork, transparency, and accountability are the keys for operators to stay relevant in the technology space, so it makes sense that it’s also what’s been at the core of Club Caddie‘s success.
This interview is brought to you by Club Caddie.