Maximizing Retention of New Golfers-Getting to 95% Data Capture

We have just experienced one of the largest periods of new golfer growth in the industry, with more newcomers trying out the sport than at any other time in the last 10 years.  Acting now to create a plan for maximum retention is critical to successfully getting these customers to return to your facility!

Have you heard “can we have your e-mail address?” at the check-out counter? Chances are, you have, and several times at several different sophisticated retailers. This is an example of the data collection trend in retail. Retailers want to build a profile of you, including your demographics, purchase history and preferences. You might be asking “why would retailers want to collect this data?” 

You should collect data because it is the most important factor for customer relationship management – it can help businesses understand their customers, build marketing initiatives, tailor communications, and evaluate their business performance. In short, by collecting data on your customers you can grow your business. Therefore, the question isn’t “why should we collect data?” but rather, “what are we willing to do to get the data!” This blog article will explore what data we should capture, how best to collect data, and how to get to 95% data capture – all with a golf industry focus.

What Data Should You Capture?

First and foremost you must determine the data elements you’d like to collect. Typically clubs focus on the general contact elements: first name, last name, e-mail address, phone number and zip/postal code. 

Transactional Activity is another useful data element to track at your facility. Transactional activities include tracking a customer’s actions, such as: Golfing – how much is a specific person golfing and when? Food & Beverage – what is a specific person eating and drinking? Events – what tournaments or leagues is a specific person participating in? Why is transactional activity information useful at a golf club? Say for example you have 90 contacts who play weekday afternoons and typically order a pint of domestic beer at your restaurant with their meal. You could market a weekly “Nine & Dine” event which includes $1 off domestic beers to participants. By understanding your customer’s purchasing habits, you can fill your tee sheet more often.

You can also collect preference information- what is your favorite apparel brand, golf ball, wine, etc.? Engage with your customers to understand what they like. By recording this information and having it readily available to associates, you can tailor the golfing experience and marketing communications for this customer. You can also track the satisfaction of your customers – how happy are they with their experience? This is a great opportunity to service your customer at a very high level and show them that you appreciate them. 

Total e Integrated customers can use our Advance Filters tool to reap the rewards of collecting master record, transactional activity, preference and satisfaction data. The Advance Filters tool allows you to truly filter your data – even by golf rounds. For example, you may want to market golfers who played on a specific day, purchased a beer, and noted that they preferred Titleist golf balls. You could use Advance Filters to query the specific day, food item, and preference and the system will show you how many (and who) completed those activities.

How to Capture Data

Step 1 – Make a Commitment

The entire organization must commit to capturing and leveraging customer data. The commitment must start from the top but permeate throughout the entire organization to the bottom. This is the most important step to successful data capture. While it may take some convincing, it is imperative that you go through the cycle of getting everyone on-board with the initiative. Consider completing an internal presentation explaining the importance of data collection to the club’s strategy and goals. You should also consider making data capture a company policy. Once you get a commitment, it’s certainly possible to reach 95% data capture. The challenge then becomes maintaining 95% - it’s an ongoing battle that requires continuous engagement.

Step 2 – Set Your Goals

The next step is to analyze and understand where you’re organization’s data capture is at and set goals for where you want to get to. You must have base-line numbers for evaluation and monitoring purposes – only then can you set realistic targets. Key considerations during this stage include:

• Contact Records (name, e-mail, address, phone, etc.) – Determine your current number of contact records and set a target number for the next twelve months.
• Transactional Activity – Determine the current percentage of transactions which are linked with a contact record and set a target percentage for the next twelve months.
• Social Media – number of likes, follows, views, subscribers, along with a target number for the next twelve months.
• Customer Segmentations – Determine some key segmentations to capture in your market and set a goal percentage. For example, perhaps “gender” was an important segmentation in your opinion, you would set a goal percentage for contact records with a completed gender field, allowing you to send ladies instruction and clinics only to women in your database.

Step 3 – Define Strategy

With company commitment and clear goals in place, the next step is to create a strategy for getting to 95%. Determine who will be involved, as well as where and how the data will be captured. For who will be involved, we suggest taking the approach that everyone is involved. 

A key consideration clubs must make is which database will be used for data collection. If data capture is important to your organization, you cannot use a tee time distribution network as your booking engine. It’s important that the data is linked directly into your main database so that transactions and actions are linked with a specific contact record. A distribution network will not automatically associate this data to your database. You can still leverage the distribution network to sell more rounds but not on your own website. 

Once you have settled who is involved and the database to be used, you can determine where and how data will be captured. Below are some suggestions for golf club operators:

• Point of Sale – Ask for customer information at the point of sale – utilize both retail and food & beverage terminals. Total e Integrated provides you with tools to collect contact record information and complete quick surveys directly through the point of sale.
• Tee Time Check-In – Collect customer data at golf check-in. To handle objections of lack of time, you could try any of the following: a paper sign-in sheet, signage promoting pre-registration, a self-service tablet for customer data entry.
• Phone Reservations – Ask the customer if they have ever booked at the club before? If yes, associate the transaction to their account. If not, create a new contact record. The challenge is going to be getting the other three golfer’s information – try explaining that the club has special offers or that you require their contact information to send an e-mail confirmation and/or terms and conditions. 
• Web Profile – Use your online reservations/portal to collect data on your customers. Adding more required fields to the web profile is a great way to collect more data about your customers. With Total e Integrated, web profile information can be synced automatically to your contact record database.
• Events – Collect data from event attendees, as these can be great targets for your future in-house events.
• Transactions – Link transactions completed through your retail and food & beverage point of sale to contact records when possible. 
• Starter/Finisher – Armed with a tablet or pen & paper surveys, your starters and finishers can collect an abundance of information from golfers on the course. 
• Loyalty – Want to eliminate the burden of getting staff members to proactively ask for data capture?  Implement a loyalty program and engage your customers to demand they get recognition and credit for their purchases and visits by giving their information to you staff during their transactions.  A loyalty card will immediately increase data capture at the golf shop counter through enrollment of every customer.
• Activity Tracking – Track the utilization of club amenities to specific customer accounts in your system – including the pool, gym, spa, or whatever it may be. By tracking activity to a customer, you can learn how active/often a customer is at your club and whether or not they are spending money? Once you understand a customer’s activity history, you can strategize on how to encourage greater spend from the customer.
• Lessons – Instructors are so engaged and connected with customers that, when utilized properly, they can be an invaluable source of data capture. A fantastic example of this would be capturing data on specific areas where the golfer needs work and entering that information into your system. Say you had a large number of golfers that needed bunker work, you could create a league or one-day event for these golfers. 
• Driving Range – Just like the lessons example above, the driving range can be used to track people that need work on a specific area of their game.
• Social Media – Use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other outlets to collect data. Say for example a customer complained about their experience on Twitter, you could use it as an opportunity to improve your business (and capture some data). 
• Club Fitting – Clubs which perform club fitting services have a great opportunity to capture very specific information. Tracking a customer’s length, lie, head, shaft and grip size into your user defined fields can be utilized for greater targeted marketing in the future.
• Customer referral programs – this creates an incentive for customers to refer and populate your database for you.

Dealing with “Push Back” from Customers

Acclimatizing your customers to this new data capture mindset can absolutely be a challenge. They might be used to the previous way of checking in. There will naturally be concerns that they will take their business elsewhere. It’s key that you emphasize that it’s a one-time change – once the info is collected and entered, you can start making their experience better. Faster check-in, better service, specials, invitations and being part of the club community are all benefits the customer will experience. Position data capture as an improvement for the organization but also a benefit for the customer. Some strategies for dealing with customers include:

• The give to get principle – people are accustomed to receiving something for doing something. Thus, some things you can give include: specials, newsletters, confirmation e-mails, access to the facility, better service, a bucket of balls, and/or loyalty points. 
• Communicate the customer benefits – Repeat customers will be checked in faster, receive speedier and better service, incentives, specials, and even targeted invites to events.
• Legal – a legal requirement that use of the facility is restricted to those who are entered into the system and received a cart contract in their e-mail.

Dealing with “Push Back” from Employees

Employees will likely have some objections – comments like” I can’t capture that information, I’m just too busy” may occur. While this is one of the toughest things to consider, you simply cannot afford to put yourself into a position where you won’t achieve your goals because of the staff. Once you have staff with initiative and buy-in, you can start training your team to be successful:

• Create a script for each touch point – reservations, check-ins, starting tee, finishing, and follow-up calls will each have different scripts. Scripts do not need to be followed to a tee, but they are a great way to ensure consistency in data capture.
• Handle objections – explain that this is “short-term pain for long term gain”. After the first visit, repeat customers will be checked in with ease because their info is already populated.  
• Employee incentive programs – not a stand-alone motivator but certainly a potential contributor to long-term success. Incentives could include a bonus for hitting a specific target, and can be individual or department/team based. It’s key to remember that incentives must be both desired and attainable to modify behavior. 
• Audits – Audit the data capture activities of your team on a weekly or daily basis. Review the tee sheet, POS transactions by department, and/or segment growth to determine a percentage of data capture. 
• Data Capture Reporting- Use a report illustrating the percentage of data capture each week, tracking toward your goal for the property. You can even publish the results to maintain accountability throughout the team. 

Conclusions

With the right strategies in place, you can achieve a 95% data capture. To maintain 95%, it’s key that you remember some key success factors:

1.    Obtain complete commitment throughout your organization.
2.    Have a highly detailed plan on your required data elements and the specific tactics to harvest them.
3.    Provide training throughout the company and to the customer.
4.    Consistent management of your data capture goals over time.
5.    Evaluate your performance periodically.

For more information, please contact:
 

About Total e Integrated

Total e Integrated is a leading provider of end-to-end business management solutions for recreation, retail, hospitality and community organizations. For over 20 years Total e Integrated has helped organizations to integrate departments, automate marketing, streamline operations and boost revenues with our innovative solutions and expert consulting services team.

Lance Merrihew
707-779-2592

Lance@totaleintegrated.com

www.totaleintegrated.com

If you need help with developing your strategy, please contact us at info@totaleintegrated.com or speak with at 1-888-660-6131.