Let’s hop into our time machine, turn back the clock 10 years and visit the “Golf Course Management 101” class at Chip-n-Putt University. It appears the instructor is reviewing the industry standard checklist used to ensure the success of a new course. Let’s listen in.
Select a gorgeous piece of real estate. Check.
Enlist well-known course architect. Check.
Build a lavish clubhouse with first-class amenities. Check.
Pick a design gimmick – links … dunes … sand … water. Check.
Keep the fairways lush, the greens more lush and man the phones appropriately to handle the rush of incoming calls. Check, check, check.
Once you’ve made sure your starter has had a good night’s sleep to handle the throngs on the first tee, your job is simple – open the gates and let the golfers fight for tee times.
Needless to say, times have changed quite a bit. After years of flat player growth and course overbuilding, the “build it and they will come” era of golf course development and management is gone. It has been replaced by the “greet them and they will come back” era, which is defined by the importance of delivering exceptional, memorable and consistent member and guest experiences once you’ve lured the golfer to your bag drop.
Savvy course managers long have realized someone is always going to be able to build a better golf course. The key to long-term success isn’t having the latest and greatest in course or clubhouse design. Sustained success stems from knowing your members’ and guests’ expectations and delivering that experience every time. The successful course doesn’t deliver a hole-in-one on Tuesday and a double-bogey on Wednesday – it delivers birdies, every day of the week.
Jim Dewling, president of Michigan-based course owner/manager Total Golf, says course managers have to exceed golfers’ expectations to get them back. The key question that course managers must ask themselves is: “What expectations are we to exceed?” For many long-time operators, the answers are surprising. Old expectations of course conditions, layout and amenities aren’t as important in relation to newer expectations of service quality and an exceptional, well-rounded golfing experience, from driveway to 19th hole. A recent study about the subject revealed that the old standbys – fairway grooming, hazard maintenance, clubhouse amenities – while still highly relevant, have given way to staff friendliness and an easy booking process as some of the key drivers of post-round golfer satisfaction.
While most surveys indicated length of round is important, the sentiment was statistically negated as a driver of satisfaction if all service elements tested met or exceeded expectations. In other words, golfers were willing to put up with a five-hour round if the representative at the bag drop would smile, greet guests by name and make friendly small talk.
Note to owners/managers: Don’t rush out at once to replace your course superintendent with a miss manners disciple – the quality of the greens still ranks as the No. 1 driver of golfer satisfaction.
So how do these findings play out in the real world? How about in hiring practices, for one. Let’s look at the bag drop again. Think of the typical employee profile of the kid who would get posted at the bag drop: just completed his sophomore year of college, 19-years-old, member of the golf team, cap brim bent so that the sides are touching and his eyes are hidden. His job description: unload the bags, strap them on the cart, head down and keep moving.
How do these behaviors change if the survey results indicate the greeting and engagement in the bag drop area – often the first interaction of the golfer’s day – is a key driver of overall satisfaction? If you’re truly concerned about the experience at your course, then you’re making sure the person at the bag drop area has a defined set of standards for each customer interaction and the right “player” is in position to deliver that experience. So if members and guests crave a warm, personal greeting, a tip on how the 10th is playing today, and a quick joke, then you better be prepared to give the people what they want, every time.
“At the TPC, we’ve completely re-engineered the way our guests experience our courses, based on our research of what matters to them,” says David Pillsbury, the c.o.o. of the PGA Tour’s Tournament Players Clubs, where general managers and directors of golf receive a portion of their compensation based on member and guest satisfaction scores. “A crucial component of our effort is putting the right people in the right positions to provide that consistent, desired experience at any TPC facility.”
Make no mistake, providing that consistency of experience is crucial, not just in the golf industry, but in any industry with customers.
Troon Golf is an example of putting these concepts into practice. With 140 courses in 14 countries, Troon’s challenge is to supply that consistent experience across borders, oceans and languages. It has embraced that challenge as a key component of its value proposition to potential customers. It’s almost impossible to navigate the Troon Web site without being inundated by the concept of a superior experience outside of the traditional tee to green framework.
“We still take great pride in the physical attributes of our courses and facilities,” says Hud Hinton, the president and c.o.o. of Troon Golf. “But promoting the ‘Troon Golf Experience’ is prominently featured in our external marketing materials, and properly executing the ‘Troon Golf Experience’ is given a similar position of importance in our internal operational and service standards.”
So before you step out of that time machine, feel free to interrupt the class at Chip-n-Putt U. Fill them in on some of the tough lessons learned as the projected golf boom turned into more of distant peal. Clue them in on the burgeoning experience economy, where a superior product is only a part of what successful companies and brands are offering consumers … and how that will apply to the golf industry. Tell them to mind their greens and fairways, but also their greetings and farewells. Remind them that their guests will be purchasing an experience, not a product.
Rob Rush is c.e.o. of LRA Worldwide, a consulting and research company specializing in Customer Experience Management. You can visit the LRA Web site at www.lraworldwide.com or contact Rob directly at rob.rush@lraworldwide.com.