Miklós Breitner is the author of Golf Business Monitor, the world #1 B2B golf business blog since 2009 which covers the latest business challenges and initiatives of the golf industry focusing on golf club management and marketing, golf tourism and golf equipment. In addition to this Miklós is providing golf club marketing consultancy.
Golf Business Monitor is an official media partner of IAGTO, the PGAs of Europe and the European Golf Course Owners Association.
He is contributing to leading golf business magazines like the Golf Inc. Magazine, Golf Management Europe, and Golf Retailing.
Since the foundation, some of the leading golf industry players recognized his blog, among them Troon, IMG, European Tour Properties, Global Golf Advisors, Zala Springs Golf Resort (Robert Trent Jones Jr. design, member of IMG Prestige and the World of Leading Golf), Callaway Golf, ChronoGolf, EZLinks.com, 59Club, Club Car, KPMG, IAGTO, Syngenta, Rain Bird.
Session details
As competitive pressure increases, golf clubs need to set themselves apart — and exceptional customer experience will do the trick. I might say that customer experience is the only factor differentiating successful golf clubs from others. We tend to say how important customer centricity is, but being customer committed is even more important.
Today various customer experiences are competing for their customers. Customer experience is dynamic, and our customers’ need vary depending on time and context.
We cannot afford to neglect that our customers care intensely about their own needs, desires, and goals. People are instinctively self-centred! Every customer is uniqueby expectations, needs, what he likes or hatesetc. They want one-on-one customer relationship and communication.
Nowadays, customers don’t revolve around our golf clubs, rather, the golf clubs must figure out how they fit into the lives of their customers. People expect some benefit (e.g. money, time, attention) when they use the services of a golf club.
By taking the time to truly understand how your customers view their experience, you can discover the moments that matter to create customers who love your brand (=golf club/resort).
Today people are becoming more demanding and impatient since they are moving faster. Just think about scrolling and swiping and tapping.
To be able to provide exceptional customer experience we must first understand who our potential customers are. We should understand our customers’ journeys and not just their interactions.
Customer journey maps are foundational to a customer experience program.
In the past we used funnel concept. However today they fail to capture all the touch points and key buying factors resulting from the service & product choices, digital channels coupled with the emergence of the empowered customer.
As we are moving towards two-way communication (e.g. chatbots), golf clubs need a more systematic way to satisfy their members’ and guests’ demands and manage word of mouth.
The dynamic customer journey is strongly influenced by social technology, mobile technology, and the role of the connected customers (aka Generation C). Today’s customers are interacting with brands and golf clubs through an omnichannel and always-on approach. Just think about how they use your Facebook page for instance for customer service or even tee time booking purposes.
We should organize our efforts around the end-to-end customer journeys. This means identifying the critical customer journeys and providing the perspective on the customer journey end-to-end and where the value is.
All I mentioned above must come from the top management of a golf club/resort, because it touches so many parts of the organization of a golf club. This is core to the business, and it will touch IT, HR, supply chain, marketing, everything as a matter of fact.
Are you ready for the JOURNEY?
Learning Outcomes:
- To be able to provide exceptional customer experience we must first understand who our potential customers are.
- We should understand our customers’ journeys and NOT just their interactions.
- Customer journey maps are foundational to a customer experience program.
- The top management of the golf club/resort should give a full support to customer experience development since it touches so many parts of the organization of a golf club (e.g. IT, HR, supply chain, marketing etc.).
