A recently-completed local golfer survey conducted by Pellucid Corp. on behalf of one of their multi-course operators turned up some surprises regarding the importance of value and what drives customer choice of local golf facilities. The survey, conducted in a major metro market to better understand how both customers and non-customers of their client’s facilities view the golf choices and select facilities, found that golfers feel $25-$29 is the right value point for a weekend round of golf with cart. Digging further, this low value equation might be driven by the prevalence of discounting evidenced by almost half the golfers responding they always look for a deal when making a tee time and that their first source for information on local golf courses and rates are 3rd party discount tee time websites.
While acknowledging that this is a very competitive local market and the results cannot be extrapolated to the golf industry in general, the findings underscore the continued need for the golf industry to ask customers for feedback vs. today’s approach of "we know what’s going on out there because we’ve been in the industry so long." Conducted using the names of 10,000 golfers in a major Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and using its Customer Franchise Analysis tool, Pellucid structured the survey as a balanced blend of known client course customers and a group of golfers who did not appear in the client databases in 2004 or 2005.
"As part of our monthly tracking of the customer base for one of our more progressive-thinking clients, we noticed retention rates slipping over the past 4-6 months", reports Jim Koppenhaver, President of Pellucid. "That began a dialogue with the client to better understand how and why golfers’ choices of local facilities were changing as well as the nagging question of how discounting was influencing the local market. We agreed that the answer to these questions were in the mind of the customer and, rather than guessing at it, let’s just ask them."
Koppenhaver continues, "While other industry entities have done solid work in existing customer satisfaction surveys, we felt a missing ingredient was also incorporating the feedback of non-customers to determine why they weren’t choosing our facilities as their favorite destination or not choosing us at all. The topline findings for customer preferences of price/value, location and tee time accessibility didn’t really surprise us. What did surprise us was the relatively low price assigned to a mid-tier golf experience ($25-$29 weekend rounds) and the fact that the most-cited area of improvement for our client’s facilities was course conditioning. This seems to reinforce that we’ve conditioned today’s golfer to expect great conditioning for no money." Another key finding in the survey was that golfers have also been trained in this market to actively seek out discounts (44% saying they always look for a discount) and the place to find the best price for a round of golf is not at the facility’s website but rather through 3rd party tee time websites (44% saying this is where they look first). These findings suggest that the golf industry is repeating rather than learning from the evolution of the hospitality industry which initially fostered random discounting before understanding the wisdom of training customers to always expect the best price on their product on the company’s website.
Koppenhaver concludes, "With the results of the survey and a clearer voice of the customer ringing in our ears, we can help our client make adjustments to current marketing practices as well as changes in the facility experience to draw more non-customers. What continues to amaze me in this industry is the fact that these types of initiatives and progressive thinking are more often the product of smaller, independent operators just grinding it out day-to-day as opposed to the larger, more sophisticated and recognized names in golf."
For more information and a sample summary report of the Local Golfer Survey service, interested parties should contact Pellucid (jimk@pellucidcorp.com). More information on the broad range of Pellucid’s information and insight services can be found at www.pellucidcorp.com.
Contact:
Jim Koppenhaver, President, Pellucid Corp.
jimk@pellucidcorp.com
www.pellucidcorp.com
