Harry's Blog - Don't Leave Your Customers in the Dark - October 2011
Posted in Harry's Blog - Archives
I was making phone calls to a number of our courses last week and a consistent pattern emerged. Many times when calling the golf shop I was placed into a holding queue. The holding queue itself wasn’t what caught my attention; many businesses utilize a queue to field incoming calls, rather it was the lack of information provided to me as a potential customer calling the golf course.
Considering that the majority of a course’s phone calls are most likely golfers looking to book a tee time, it struck me that while on hold all I heard was music and no one telling me I could book my tee time online at the course’s website. By simply promoting your site you can reduce the number of customers on hold, improve customer service and increase your tee time reservation capacity all while driving more visits to your website (which we know comes with a multitude of benefits).
This is a simple improvement you can make in very little time at no cost. Try calling your course as if you were a customer; you might find there are changes you can make that will enhance your customers’ calling experience and drive more business to your website.Just one more note on answering calls and taking tee times over the phone. I can’t stress enough the importance of collecting customer information when booking reservations. If you aren’t directing golfers to your website where information is always collected, your staff has to do so over the phone. This past summer we secret shopped all Fore! Reservations courses to learn which data fields were being collected when making a tee time, and only 7% of golf courses asked for an email address. Email collection is critical to your success, and by making a concerted effort to do better in this area, you only stand to benefit your business.
Harry Ipema
CEO, Fore! Reservations
