The CMAA World Conference is the industry’s largest gathering of club management professionals and allows industry leaders to immerse themselves in five days of educational programming.
This year’s event at the Gaylord Texan Hotel in Grapevine, Texas encourages its attendees to ‘focus forward and visualize success’. The organization leaders recognize that the pressures on private club leaders to deliver exceptional experiences, day in and day out to their members and their staff, requires the ability to see and anticipate future needs even before they’re requested. It’s an industry experiencing constant change where clubs must spot opportunities to pivot and evolve to remain relevant.
From understanding the needs of your members to improving your operations, personalizing the member experience and making data-driven decisions, it’s imperative that you develop the right programs supported by the right technology. We believe there will be some common themes in how leading clubs are tackling today’s competitive marketplace related to data intelligence, technology, and member engagement and retention. Here are some places to begin your forward-looking plan at CMAA.
See Through Their Eyes to Personalize the Member Experience
What do members want and how can you remove friction from experiences, delight members, empower staff, and make their time with you remarkable? Here are some ideas for starters.
- Deliver a personalized member experience from the course to the club
- Track member interest and experiences and use that data to drive meaningful interactions
- Empower your members with an app experience focused on their individual preferences and behaviors
Take an Accurate Picture of All Activities and Make Data-Driven Decisions
The Experience Economy is forcing clubs to look beyond the operational data (O-data) and also evaluate the experience data (X-data). This X-data provides the insight behind ‘why’ things happen. So how do you begin to collect, measure, and analyze these Xs and Os?
- Monitor utilization to better understand overall utilization trends, measure return on capital investments and evaluate how often each member is using the resources at the club
- Make smarter operational and member-focused decisions using a suite of integrated Accounting, Point of Sale, Reservations, and Member Management modules
- Evaluate the source of each reservation to measure the effectiveness of your online solutions and to adjust staffing needs
- Transform check-ins by utilizing more convenient areas to check-in and pay, like the bag drop, 1st tee, or wherever you choose
Imagine a Better Way to Improve Operations
While mobile devices have had an occasionally strained relationship on the course, they’re not leaving our lives anytime soon. Look for and consider these potential opportunities.
- Track member locations and send push notifications to encourage members to post a score, order food, or book a reservation
- Send push notifications to alert members of important information
- Create member and guest reservation restrictions by day, time of day, or season
Focus Forward to Find New Paths
Reaching success requires taking different paths. The ability to see that path requires stepping back and getting a new perspective. But that’s not enough: where you focus matters. As our company CFO related on a recent webinar, “are you looking down the hall or out the window?” If you’re stuck looking down the hall you’ll be mired in daily transactions, putting out operational fires, and other tactical-type activities and never achieve the success of your dreams. The CMAA World Conference is a fantastic opportunity to “look out the window” to imagine a better way, focus forward and visualize success. And with today’s technology and spirit, you’ll more than likely to find someone who has done it or is more than willing to help you achieve your goals, no matter how audacious. And odds are they’ll be at CMAA.
Visit us at CMAA booth #911 for sessions on improving your operations, data insight, and member-experience game.
Oh, and a Shameless Plug - Join me on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. at Clubhouse Live as I walk through the best practices of developing a Driveway-to-Driveway experience. Looking outside of the club industry is a great way to find inspiration and there’s a lot to be learned from the world of sports and entertainment. Come discover what and get ideas you can apply at your club! 