The A, B, C's of Service

No one argues with stressing the importance of "exemplary customer service", in fact everyone I speak with in the industry believes they have it at their facility. This aspect of the business has been described at this site as cultural, Salesmanship, mandatory to success and the great differentiator. It has been discussed with PGA professionals such as Phil Owenby, John Marino, Gene Mattare and Scott Nye. It is the subject of "The Winning Golf Culture" which I consider to be the best thing I have written about our industry and so it is pretty obvious that it is something I feel strongly about. It is however like so many other factors involved in the business of managing golf facilities not cookie-cutter.

Below are descriptions and evaluations of four different clubs, all providing a terrific product but clearly not in the same manner.

Club A has a low handicap, die-hard membership that enjoy the challenge and comraderie commiserate with their high-slope course. They like and respect the head pro and his staff but there is not necessarily much contact as the member can park and walk to the first tee. Tee times not being required is part of the exclusivity and attraction to this avid and affluent member. The staff is always available, friendly and professional but seem to be needed only on special occassions. The shop is well-merchandised and the logo is recognized and desirable, but visiting the shop often is not part of the day's round.

Club B also has a quality staff and shop as well as a well maintained golf course. There are a lot of national members and cottage accomodations. Tee times are quite often booked well in advance for business golf and members are proud of the attention paid to their guests. Staff interaction focuses on this aspect of the experience and it starts with inquiring early on as to special needs, guest names and affiliations. The head pro and key staff see to it that all guests are welcomed and thanked for spending the day. Great service is often described as anticipating needs. The head pro at this club will tell you this is not magic. The shop does considerably more than the national average in dollars per round.

Club C is more family oriented, has a competitive ladie's group and a huge junior program. The head pro not only adheres to the 10 foot rule of acknowledgement but mandates that his staff is capable of doing this on a first name basis. Invitational guests names and club memberships are memorized and at the end of any event all guests have been introduced to the entire staff at some point. Birthday cards are sent daily by the staff as well as appropriate congratulations for graduations, etc. Tee times can be made on-line but most members prefer to call as they enjoy the baqnter with the staff.

Club D has a small local membership but the vast majority of its 30,000 rounds are destination clientel.
Outside staff greet the arriving players at the bag drop and courteously ask names and tee times. The focus of the greeting has recently been changed by new management to more of a welcoming and less of a listing of the rules. Once the group and carts are organized a member of the staff introduces himself by name and accompanies the group to the shop where they are introduced to an inside staff member by name who helps them settle up the day's rate and inquire as to the day's needs. The starter at the first tee shakes everyone's hand. Carts are equipped with range finders, the rules and suggestions per hole as well as the ability to take lunch orders. They display shop promos and offer a discount after the round for anyone opting in to recieve email notifications about booking and ecommerce specials; you can also email yourself your score. The bartender at the 19th hole is informed as groups finish their round and the names of the guests that will be entering his domain.

All of these facilities provide their brand of service and culture in an incredibly informal and friendly manner such that any golfer whether he or she be a frequenter of an A,B,C or D type of facility will speak highly  and often of their experience with any of the above descibed staffs. While the term "exemplary customer service" is nebulous and diverse there is no mistaking good from bad and I still believe it to be the great differentiator, instituted and nurtured by a true leader and followed through with by a quality staff that is always only as good as its weakest link.

What’s Not in Stock

 Tan Parsons, the news editor for betterretailing.com, recently wrote an article “What’s in Stock” where he posts this picture and makes the following point.
It seems like an obvious part of retailing – making sure you don’t run out of the things you sell so that your customers are happy and can get what they want when they visit your shop. But a news item on Marks and Spencer this week illustrated that even the big boys can get it wrong. Marc Bolland, the chief executive said some best-selling lines like blouses and tops, especially knitwear, sold out far quicker than expected, leaving the retailer “short of stock in best-selling lines”. What’s your approach to getting your availability right in your store? And have you ever been caught short by a freakish demand for a particular product?

I recently spent a day at a shop that I have been working with for a couple of years that increased its retail revenue about 50% last year and is on pace to repeat that feat this year. The shop has about 800 square foot of selling space and is not going to get any bigger. The two categories that are accounting for the majority of growth are men’s shirts and head-wear. It is easy to increase the exposure of head-wear, but not so easy to do the same with men's shirts. 

 In the case of our hypothetical shop we needed to do both and we accomplished this with 2-ways which increased our capacity to hang shirts by approximately the 100 units we needed and the extra turn we needed will be summer fill-in of off-price which will drive the margin as well as the volume.

One of the things I find myself saying often to shop managers and head pros that I work with is that “we don’t need to increase the capacity; we need to increase the turn”.  Obviously the point here is the exposure is fine – it needs to be filled more often; you can’t sell from empty shelves and great display of the right capacity of goods is the formula for success.

 Basics (solid shirts, rain-wear, peds, etc.) need to have par-levels that keep you in stock. The best way to establish these levels is to understand the fill-in time and add a week’s worth of sales to that. If for example you average sales on basic white logoed knits of 12 units per week and the vendor you buy them from says it will never take longer than two weeks to fulfill your re-order  - your par level should be 24 units. If the basics are filled-in religiously once a week and the turn of fashion is planned well for so that the shop always looks like you want to do business you will have gone a long way to answering Tan Parsons’s question  -  What’s your approach to getting your availability right in your store? 

The Wow Factor Continued

The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.       - Oliver Wendell Holmes

The result of adopting a plan to become as customer-centric as possible is that your facility will become more competitive, more profitable and will have a better chance of surviving these turbulent times. The result for businesses that do not operate with this philosophy at its core is that they are not going to retain the customer base they have.  Consider the results of the following study done by the American Society for Quality and Productivity Center -

Why Companies lose Customers:


Customers die - 1%
Customers move away - 3%
Customers influenced by friends - 5%
Customers lured away by competition - 9%
Customers dissatisfied with product - 14%

Customers turned away by indifference on the part of the service provider - 68%

Satisfied customers tell 4 to 5 people of their positive experience and dissatisfied customers tell 9 to 12.

Customers that are wowed by their experience, on the other hand, tell everyone they speak with their story for days and any time the subject of service at a golf facility comes up for the rest of their lives.

What makes these numbers frightening is that you typically don’t know that your business is leaving until it is too late. It is much more difficult to attract new customers than to retain existing ones.

Club members can join other clubs.

Daily fee players have many courses to choose from.

You can buy clubs, balls, hats and golf knits on the internet.

You can get a burger and a beer after the round down the street.

How many hair salons do you drive by to get your haircut?

How many dentists do you pass to get your teeth cleaned?

How many restaurants exist between home and where we’re going to eat tonight?

If profitability in the pro shop is not something that motivates you, think about your resume and the next job you interview for where there will be applicants from facilities with wow reputations. If you are at the job you will retire from I applaud you and your security and suggest that you use the wow factor resume point at your next staff meeting or in one-on-ones, particularly with assistant pros who aspire to be head pros.

In summary, we want the golf experience at our facility to be so outstanding that members/customers want to patronize the shop whenever possible and tell all the golfers they know how wonderful we are.  In order to accomplish the big picture specific actions taken will should be:

Create a mission statement for the staff that declares this intention. This is not necessarily the mission statement of the club or facility.

Create an orientation program for new employees that focuses on customer service, the Wow factor and sales skills instead of the typical tour of the grounds and primer on running the register.

Make every employee accountable to creating the culture that will accomplish this mission.

Promote the associates that best exemplify the culture.

When possible incentivize associates that best exemplify the culture.

Hire only candidates who you are convinced will enhance the culture.

Make every day’s priority to be better at serving the customer than we were yesterday. 

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Hiring to the Culture

             Although your customers won’t love you if you give bad service, your competitors will.
                                                                            -     Kate Zabriskie

To quote Jack Mitchell, author of “Hug Your Customer” and one of the owners of a 65 million dollar retail clothing business in a Connecticut town of 28,000 people, hiring to the culture is “the big secret.” Hire well; surround yourself with good people who take ownership and everything else becomes incredibly easier. The attributes they look for at Mitchells and Richards in prospective employees are the following:

    Competence

2         Confidence

3        Positive attitude

4         Passion to be the best

5        Integrity

Another company known for its service and hiring practices is Enterprise Car Rental. There are some similarities between Enterprise offices and golf facilities in that Enterprise keeps their management pipeline, as well as their counters, manned by hiring college interns who are then, when deemed qualified, offered positions with the company as seniors. Many of these offers are accepted because the Enterprise entry on a resume says all the right things about customer care. They ask open –ended questions at the interview that require applicants to directly relate examples of how they have helped people in the past. They look for the following skills:

1. A passion for taking care of customers.
2. A willingness to be flexible. (Taking care of customers isn’t about reciting policy, it requires listening.)
3. A work ethic based on dedication to the company and it’s mission.
4. An eagerness to learn and work their way up.
5. Self- motivation and goal orientation.
6. Persuasive sales skills.
7. Excellent communication skills.
8. Leadership ability.

 The attributes I feel are most important to gauge during the hiring, interviewing process are the following:

-          ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE, ATTITUDE – Is it crystal clear that this candidate is bursting at the seams to get this job? Body language is sometimes as revealing as their answer in that everyone is trying to land the job or they wouldn’t be there. If they are not super enthusiastic now they may be totally disinterested six months from now. Do they look the part and seem like someone your customers will enjoy getting to know? Most importantly, does their personality seem as though it will mesh with and not perch itself above or fall below the culture. If the prospective employee does not get along with the rest of the team they will produce contention that will eventually become a priority that you as a Leader do not need. The candidate will only improve your team by becoming an accepted part of it.

-          ABILITY TO THINK ON YOUR FEET – This is easy to determine if you include one or two open-ended questions in the interview that can only be answered with a story that couldn’t be rehearsed. When I first interviewed to be a golf rep 100 years ago I was asked “What have you done in your life that you are most proud of.” That was it, one question. I guess they liked my answer. I still use that question and at times other than interviews. Another one I like is to ask the candidate to sell me the pad I’m using to take notes. 

EMPATHY – Empathy is an important team value but more importantly if you believe in the maxim that “people do business with people they like” then the genuinely empathetic candidate is the only one to consider. Empathetic people are curious and good listeners. They look you in the eye when speaking to you. They are creative because it is part of their nature to put themselves in the customer’s shoes and direct the conversation accordingly instead of reciting the script. Those candidates who don’t convey this quality are usually doomed to shallow relationships and are complainers and blamers rather than problem solvers. During the interview ask them to describe the most empathetic thing they have done lately either at the last job or with family or friends. If they don’t know the definition of empathy help them with a synonym they understand but if, at that point, they are still stuck for an answer – move on.

Any golf facility can hire a great staff with some hard work, patience and a little luck doesn’t hurt. Set the bar high from the first meeting not only about the service culture but what will be expected from them as they fit themselves into the team. Educate often, evaluate those sessions and empower when the time is right.

Reward employees for good service and for salesmanship. Cash incentives and spiffs work well but are not the only way to say “job well done”. Awards, time-off and recognition in a 

newsletter or at staff meetings are powerful culture builders. Treat your salesman of the month to dinner and a movie for them and a significant other.

In order for a culture dedicated to customer service excellence to thrive and survive the Leader must have a burning desire that spreads to all staff members on a daily basis. Everyone from day one needs to understand that they work for the customer. You cannot have a great golf facility without having a great staff.

 In Summary, hiring good people is the most important part of creating a winning culture.

Specific actions to improve the hiring process:

• Realize that resumes and references alone do not make all-stars and an all-star team is our goal.
• Structure the interview process to include the following:

1.      More than one interview. We are not in a hurry. Think of it more as due diligence.

2.      Have sessions with key staff present as well as yourself.

3.      Ask open-ended questions that allow you to determine the customer friendliness and team spirit of the candidate.

4.      Lay the groundwork of an understanding of what will be expected in terms of service and sales effort.

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