Last week ended the 5th Annual Club Leadership Summit (4th-6th December 2016) at Lord’s, the Home of Cricket. More than 50 of the world’s top CEOs and general managers were among the participants from places like Valderamma, The Wisley, Queenwood, Royal Dornoch and Kingsbarns.
I found 4 really interesting presentations:
- Tom Reilly (Billy Casper Group) – Find and hire the best people
- Tom Critchley (Sprint 6 Golf), Christina Franco (South Kensington Club), Seb Gray (Sport Digital) – Engaging with customers
- John Colucci (Executive President & Founding Partner: Wheel Up) – Retaining members
- Tom Delozier (GM, Quail Hollow Golf Club) – Investment in infrastructure
However, I missed 2 very important topics from the agenda, customer experience, and how to attract more women to golf. We cannot afford to pass by these topics as futuristic topics and dubious trends. To be able to retain club members and attract newcomers we have to come up with a positive, relevant and shareable experiences.
This requires golf clubs to rethink the possible customer journeys and pre & during & post experience. They should not forget that the customer experience is owned by the golfers and golf club members and not by the golf club.
You should not forget also that you are competing in real-time and what matters are the shared experiences that prospects are finding.
Accordingly, the KPIs will also change from NPS, cost/engagement, time to resolve to:
- referrals,
- advocacy,
- positive endorsement,
- reviews,
- loyalty.
Golf clubs must accept that golf club business is also becoming more and more technology and data driven.
It is not hard to realize that the cost of reacting to negative experiences is more expensive than the cost of proactively created experience. Which one do you choose?
Do you prefer to manage your tee-time and membership and other golf club related activities in an Excel sheet or in a notebook or through a golf club management software?
The data and technology driven golf club will also be able to personalize its services. For this reason, I recommended in the past using:
- Wearables: in-store communication, payment solutions, navigation.
- Beacon technology in the pro shop for instance.
So the question now is:
What is the experience you want customers to have?