Month: September 2024

59club’s commitment to elevate Sales & Customer Service across the entire golf & leisure industry, has seen the Customer Experience Management Specialist launch the industry’s first independent B2B magazine, concentrated solely on excelling standards, service optimization and elevating club profitability.

With operations spanning the UK & Europe, Middle East & Africa, Asia, the USA, Canada, Australia & New Zealand and Korea, 59club are perfectly positioned to become the authentic voice of the global golf business, something their clients, associates and those on the inside have been championing for decades. 

Thousands of affiliate properties have benefited from the customer service insights and data collected through 59club’s extensive mystery shopping program and real-time customer satisfaction surveys. And now, the eagerly anticipated Insights Magazine will act as a platform to share that wisdom and education with a wider audience, as the new publication fills the void and counteracts any misinformation that the industry has suffered. 

Simon Wordsworth, 59club founder & CEO, said; “With opening rates of digital magazines falling, engagement in that digital space can be very difficult and in general any interaction is short lived. We don’t want to be ‘read today, forgot tomorrow’, we’ve just got too much to share for that.

“I wanted us to produce a high quality and informative piece of work that simply ‘lingers longer’in a venue, to remain open at point of interest with the reader, affording them the time and perspective to make positive changes within their business based on fact and understanding. In addition, there are more people within the club/organisation to educate and stimulate discussion. For that reason, digital alone just wouldn’t do for us. 

“We can see from our Club Study results what is on our managers minds and the Insights Magazine will allow us to discuss these topics with the trade and other influencing factors.”

The global edition of the aptly named ‘Insights’ magazine will be hard mailed four times per year to club’s within 59club’s immediate and growing network, a digital counterpart is also available to download on mass. 

The first edition celebrates the best operators in the world having achieved 59club flag status for excelling Customer Service standards and also features the elite Leaders and Properties within 59club’s Eminent Collection – the list to end all debates, as those included truly are the industries finest service providers.  

Subsequent issues are driven by live industry data, as 59club’s universal intel uncovers the truth behind visitor perception, member satisfaction, onboarding processes, attrition behaviours, and event management, right the way through to the Club Study survey results that are posted every two weeks. 

The magazine will also delve into the success and life-lessons shared by some of the greatest operators and most celebrated properties in the world of golf & hospitality. The final publication of the year, will always review the annual customer experience wins & losses, seeking predictions and forecasting for the future. 

Each edition will be informative, educational and focus on insights that you can’t find anywhere else, it’s a guard-down approach to excel.  

Read the Insights Magazine now, and for more information about 59club and the lasting change they can bring to the overall success and profitability of your club, simply visit 59club.com and reach out to your regional 59club Manager.

What does it take to go from a handshake to a hug?

…Time? …Personality? …Trauma? …Jubilation?

It’s certainly not a linear path. Even using the word linear when referring to a hug doesn’t seem right. Hugs are not strategic, they aren’t measured, they are pure feeling. No one is immune to a well-timed hug.

Of course, we all know those people that are naturally compassionate and come by them honestly, hugging all the people, in all the places, all the time, without it feeling awkward or uncomfortable (for the record, I think this is a magical quality). But we must keep in mind, for as many of these people that are out there, there are equally as many that have only given out a handful of hugs, outside of their immediate family, in their entire lives. Not wrong by any means, it’s just not part of their DNA.

Do hugs belong in business? Interesting question. More often than not only for extraordinary circumstances or extraordinary individuals. Do they belong in hospitality? Probably more so than business in general but are still generally uncommon.

We (59club) measure performance in hospitality. At least, this is the answer I usually give when asked “What do you do?”. An answer that I’ve fine-tuned after a few years leading 59club in Canada, but quite honestly I don’t like it. Not that it’s inaccurate, after all it’s “business-ee”, but it’s cold and frankly uninspiring.

So I’m taking a new approach… We help companies go from handshake to hug.

I think it’s going to take some courage on my behalf as I naturally lean to the – have only given out a handful of hugs – side but I’ve been working on that 🙂 I’m kind of looking forward to the looks that I’ll receive with this statement, not to mention the follow up questions.

“How do you do that?”

I guess this is the real question anyways. And, trying my best to keep it simple, I would have to say that we help people care. This is a tricky solution to sell. There is an art to get decision makers to think about tactically putting caring and feelings into operations but quite honestly, and with bias, I feel like we’re getting closer to doing this every day. It’s not as much of a radical change as one might think, ultimately it’s a million little things that will curate the journey from handshake to hug.

A smile, eye contact, an engaging/genuine question…

How are you today? nope, how about —> How are you feeling today?
Can I help you? nu uh, try this —> What brought you in today?
No problem? trash that and use —> My pleasure

Recruitment has to be a big part of the journey in trying to achieve going from handshake to hug but I’m not sure it’s entirely possible to have 100% of your staff made up of natural-born-huggers.

I find myself thinking of some of the Social KPI’s the legendary Gregg Patterson has laid out for us time and again in his sessions. In fact, we’ve thrown these in to Club Study questions in the past…

“How many members funerals have you attended this year?”
“How often do you write a hand-written thank you note for members or staff?”
“# of Manager’s Office visits by children.”
“# of hand-written birthday cards to members.”

These actions have to be fleeting, right? Maybe they didn’t happen too often in the good ‘ol days either. I can’t say I have any data to say one way or the other. It just feels like even though collaboration in business is on the rise, connection and community have never been lower.

I realize we offer a utopian style of thinking at 59club. Sometimes when I look at the service data from our mystery shopping visits and test, I think we have a long uphill climb ahead of us. But we’re up for the challenge. One smile at a time, one engaging question after another, we’ll get there together.

At the end of the day… “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” – Norman Vincent Peale.