Month: January 2022

Opportunities to Reinvent Club Service Standards

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The club industry is facing one of the most challenging labour markets in years. In addition to labour issues, most clubs have had to adjust their service levels to protect the health of their employees, members, and guests, as well as adhere to constantly changing public health guidelines within their regions. Added to this is the reduction in revenue associated with a decline in event business. The net result presents a challenging environment for clubs, but with challenge also comes opportunity. Clubs are provided with the opportunity to refine their service standards to meet the expectations of todays’ world and avoid allocating resources based on standards that are no longer relevant.

Changing Service Expectations

Over the last two years, service expectations have shifted. Some clubs have taken advantage of this transitionary period to redefine their future service models , with the goal of increasing operational efficiency while delivering a level of service expected by their members and guests. Utilizing member/guest focus groups and listening sessions, as well as well-constructed surveys, clubs have learned that service expectations have changed over the past two years. Some services that were once considered standard are no longer priorities for members. Valet parking, staffing a bag drop and driving range attendants are just a few examples of services that some clubs are moving away from. These clubs have also learned that the use of technology is far more accepted than it was two years ago and represents an opportunity to reduce labour costs. Moving all tee time booking online or to the club app rather than having a staff member answer phone calls is a common example.

Defining Service Standards

“Service Standards are clearly defined descriptions of the service experience that customers can expect to receive consistently with every interaction they have with your club”

On the surface, the above description is straight forward, but when it is applied to defining these standards, it can become a bit challenging. In particular, the four words, “…consistently with every interaction…” is what sets well-defined service standards apart from aspirational service delivery. For something to become a standard, it must be something that your team has the talent, training, and resources necessary to achieve the standard every time. If one of those factors is missing, it cannot be a standard. For example, it might be a service goal to answer the phone within two rings with a live individual. If you do not have the resources to achieve this every time, even during busy periods, it cannot be viewed as a service standard.

Written from the Customers Perspective

Our organization has assisted both small teams and large organizations in the hospitality industry to develop service standards. One common theme that we encounter with service organizations is a lack of clarity between operating standards and service standards. To put it simply, service standards is the service that a customer can expect to receive every time they have an encounter with your business. Operating standards are the internal processes that are in place to ensure that your organization achieves the service standards. For example, a service standard in a restaurant might be that all customers will be greeted at the host desk immediately upon entering the restaurant. The operating standard that would support this might be that during restaurant hours, the host desk will always be staffed. The difference is minor but important.

Train and Support

Once you have clearly defined your service standards across every touch point with customers, the challenge becomes ensuring that your team is consistently delivering. This requires that all employees clearly understand what is expected of them and that they have the necessary training and resources. Employees also require ongoing support and coaching from their supervisors.

Measure, Coach and Reward

The final step in a successful service standards program is measuring success. A consistent measurement process involves the creation of a scorecard and utilizing mystery shoppers who can objectively measure your team’s delivery of service standards. The scorecards help to identify areas where standards are not being met, and help management understand where additional training and resources might be needed. Scorecards also provide a benchmark score that provides a snapshot of how you are doing overall and a measurement that can be considered in your senior team’s annual goals and objectives.

Clearly defined and measured service standards have become a standard in the hospitality and club industry. If your club does not yet have a service standards program in place, we encourage you to develop one. If you already have a service standards program in place, it may be time to review it and determine if it is right for today’s service environment and evolving customer expectations.

Contact a GGA Partners professional today for more information.

Putting your data to work: 3 strategies to optimize your private club data

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In the ever-changing private club industry, organizations must continually ask themselves, “Are we managing operations to the best of our ability?” Peter Drucker, widely recognized as the founder of modern management said, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” Drucker’s words hold true today as the field of data science evolves at an increasingly fast pace. While the club industry has generally adopted data-driven approaches, our experience at GGA Partners highlights three common metrics that, when utilized effectively, are powerful contributors to success:

Revisiting member resignations

Clubs should aim to take an integrated view of their membership and while many have made great efforts to better track active membership profiles, there are significant opportunities in evaluating thorough data on resigned members. Clubs interested in reducing membership attrition are well-served to obtain a clear picture of resigned members. Collecting information on resigned members actually begins with appropriately tracking the members’ joining date and demographic information. With this, clubs are not only able to analyze what the typical lifecycle of membership is, but also how this lifecycle may differ across a variety of demographics. With this method, a club will obtain more insightful findings than a general resignation metric. For example, a club could determine when female members resign and whether this differs to male members, the conversion rates of intermediate category members to full, or whether members within certain geographic areas showcase distinct resignation patterns. Utilizing this lifecycle analysis, clubs can subsequently evaluate current active memberships and analyze who may be nearing the historical “end of membership” timeline. Digging deeper, if a club tracks the historical spend and usage habits of members leading up to their resignation, there comes an opportunity to utilize analytics to observe active members who display similar spend and usage patterns exhibited by resigned members (i.e., reductions in spend and usage).

Diving into usage details

Another area of opportunity is increased tracking of detailed amenity utilization statistics, such as rounds played, fitness check-ins, tennis court bookings, and food and beverage covers. As an effect of the COVID-19 pandemic, many clubs adapted their booking technology to meet both safety regulations (where necessary) and membership demand.

Numerous clubs currently track this information on an aggregate basis (which is a great start) but incredible value comes from tracking the data on a per-member and time-associated basis. For example, for a private golf club, knowing how many rounds of golf your club saw in a year is valuable, but being able to assess which groups of membership played more than others during certain time frames offers a much more focused and actionable scope (particularly if utilization concerns continue to impact membership dissatisfaction across private clubs globally). The same impact could be had for a private multi-sport facility with tennis or fitness bookings. To generate this level of insight, clubs must track any sort of booking to the given member and attach a time with said booking. For example, if a specific member is playing a tennis match at 9:30am on a Saturday, this would be tracked within the club’s internal systems. At the end of the month, the club could export all match data and run various analyses, such as which members played the most, what are the busiest days and times, were there days of the week that would benefit from having additional programming to reduce higher-capacity times, and so on.

Managing membership movements

At a basic level, clubs should be confident in their knowledge of year-end membership category counts. With this information, assessments can be made on how certain categories have changed within a year, and then further investigated. Delving beyond the basics are those who have accurately tracked new sales, resignations and transfers within each category. Clubs should consider collecting and reporting data according to membership categories. Looking at the table below, including the previous year-end count to act as the baseline moving forward and the most recent year-end count provides context on increases and decreases. New sales, resignations, and transfers in and out for each membership category are also included, and updated throughout the year for easy input.

This comprehensive analysis allows clubs a detailed look at how membership is truly moving throughout any given year. For example, a category may appear steady from a year-over-year perspective, but upon further analysis, the reality showcases an incredible amount of pressure on new membership sales due to increased member transfers or resignations. With this level of insight, the club can then investigate why there are so many members moving out of this category and take actionable steps to stabilize its membership.

Improving and sustaining business performance is always top of mind for club leaders. A deeper approach to data and analytics plays a critical role in maximizing performance across club operations. Increased awareness into trends emerging from resigned members, the usage patterns of specific membership groups, and how members are migrating will lead to better understanding of the membership, and more effective actions taken by the club.

How our research & analytics professionals can help

Research and analytics are fundamental to GGA Partners’ proven approach to analyzing club performance and to continually improving the tools and solutions we offer our clients. With a team of professionals that carry over 28 years of experience in the golf, private club, and leisure industries, we can show your club how to leverage data and analytics to drive success.

Contact a GGA Partners professional today for more information.

 

Whitepaper: Unlocking the Strategic Power of Member Feedback

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This GGA Partners whitepaper discusses new approaches to understanding private club members. By re-imagining the potential of member feedback and charting a path towards maximizing feedback in strategic planning, private clubs can increase their attractiveness and competitiveness further.

This whitepaper reviews how Medinah Country Club strengthened its position in an increasingly competitive environment and uncertain economic time. By supplementing its understanding of member satisfaction to identify how to allocate limited resources, the Club was able to significantly impact member satisfaction and identify the greatest areas of opportunity.

Key topics and actions that are highlighted in this whitepaper include:

  • Advanced data analytics, including the Member Feedback Loop
  • Approaching data differently to pivot towards feedback opportunities
  • Unlocking the true potential of member surveys
  • Leveraging Satisfaction Impact Assessments to support club strategy
  • Delivering on the promise of data-informed decision-making

Download the whitepaper

For more information, please contact us.

Building the Membership Models of the Future

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Pandemic-driven changes to member usage has thrown off the balance of membership numbers and access privileges at private clubs around the world. What trends are being observed, and more importantly, what does the new normal look like for re-balancing membership capacities and usage patterns?

The impact that the pandemic era has had on private club member usage has not been subtle. Usage rates across private clubs for golf and racquet sports observed double digit usage growth. Among GGA clients, a 25-30% increase in total rounds played from 2019 to 2020 was not uncommon. On a per member basis, the average private club member increased their annual number of rounds played by 5-9 rounds. And while we predict there will likely be a slow regression in the years to come as other leisure alternatives become available, we still expect that the new ‘norm’ for private club member usage levels will be elevated from pre-pandemic experiences.

Why is that?

The flexible work-from-home trend brought on by public health measures brings with it two key benefits. Firstly, the saved time from commuting can now be dedicated to leisure pursuits and more time spent at the Club. The second is the flexibility of leisure usage. Traditional tee-sheet compaction on weekends is partly a function of this being the only time that many members can play, for those with rigid weekly work schedules and/or long commutes from the office. Flexible work hours offer members the option to use the Club at unconventional times, especially on weekday afternoons/evenings. If we think of the end result in terms of ‘occupancy rates’ for amenities at the Club, we expect higher levels as a function of more balanced demand.

As you plan for the upcoming season and work to identify the optimal structure for balancing members and access, consider the following practices that we have observed to be successful for managing a changing membership model:

Ensure member capacities are based on current usage patterns – This may seem obvious at first glance, but we continue to observe clubs focusing on their existing by-law capacity for members, a capacity that may have been calculated decades ago. Usage patterns may not always change as drastically as they have in the past two years, but there will never be a time where they are not evolving in one way or another. Member capacities should be calculated based on an ongoing monitoring of utilization levels, even if that means adjusting internal capacities annually.

Waitlists with Flexible Usage – As more and more clubs approach waitlists as a result of the demand increase over the past two seasons, consider a ‘soft’ waitlist category that still provides limited usage of the Club, at the discretion of the Board of Directors. This typically involves a deposit that can be applied to the entrance fee, and dues/access that likely resembles a sports/social category. The goal would be to steer all access towards non-peak times while still allowing new members to experience the Club and keep them ‘hooked’ until room opens up for a full membership.

Avoid the temptation to restrict the young member pipeline – Five years ago, many clubs were clamoring for members under the age of 40 and rolling out incentive programs to capture the new millennial generation of private club members. Naturally, when a club approaches capacity, it makes sense, in the short-term view, to cap the number of young members joining the club because they often receive discounted dues and/or joining fees. However, it is important to remember that the demand surge from this audience is likely to dry up again in the future, and the long-term value of a strong pipeline of millennial members (with the potential to pay dues at the Club for the next 40+ years) should be a higher strategic priority than the small incremental gain in dues revenue in the short-term. Due to the flexible nature of working from home, under 40’s have been playing considerably more golf, on average, and as a result, there may be an opportunity to reduce the intermediate discount (rather than turn them away) to match usage and their improved perception of value received.

Looking ahead, clubs must get comfortable with ‘change’, and the ability to monitor and react on a continuous basis. Do not assume that members will revert to the same patterns and preferences as they exhibited pre-Covid. Those who can react and adapt to the ever-evolving member trends will be positioned for success

How our Membership Strategy and Planning professionals can help

GGA Partners specializes in developing the most appropriate membership, lifestyle and amenity solutions that will position a club or project for long-term success in the context of its financial circumstances and competitive landscape. We invest heavily in tracking and understanding global trends and best practices specific to club membership.

Contact a GGA Partners professional today for more information.

 

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