Booking systems specific to golf

[turkish]

Our club use BRS as a booking system. For the pleasure we give them a free “hot deal” tee time per day plus 20% commission on any other bookings so they do quite well out of it.

My main bugbear though is that to use their booking system they put a link on our website “click here for special golf now deal” which basically redirects them to teeofftimes whereby the website visitor(IE who came to our website first) will pick either a “hot deal” where the club gets no revenue or if they click a non hot deal still lose 20% commission on the deal.

I see teeofftimes as a necessary evil for the business the bring but it’s frustrating that for people who visit our website initially then get redirected. If we want to remove the hot deal it’s £1200 + VAT per annum but they will not remove the redirect special offer link.

Ideally we’d have teeofftimes setup so any bookings direct to their website get the 20%. But any bookings through our website is our income.... just trying to figure out how to do it, is possible.

 

[Grant85]

I agree this is an issue. As well as the club losing a bit of revenue, they are also devaluing the product by having it available online heavily discounted.

Would it be worth the club having their own booking system on the website (i.e. paying for a plugin or a web designer) and not using BRS. Appreciate I don't know the cost for this, or the limitations of keeping track of diary events and telephone bookings.

In my view, if they did this, it's also a good piece of marketing to state on the website that 'we don't have any tee times available via online parties and these are the only prices to play the course'.

Maybe have a slightly different pricing structure with peak times / off peak times as well to maybe encourage more midweek play.

 

[abjectplop]

Don't know too much about it, but the new club management software that the SGU are offering to Scottish clubs for free is potentially a way for clubs to take control back of booking without paying commission, etc.

 

[jim8flog]

We use Intelligent Golf for all club admin systems.

We used to use Cobra with BRS as a plug in.

 

[virtuocity]

I guess it's a necessary evil as you need to compete with other clubs in the locality for members who are looking for a casual round.

What you then need to do when these golfers visit is make sure that they know if future that they would be better off booking a round via the pro shop, and could throw in a free bacon roll as an incentive to do so (not expensive for the club, and it's likely that they'll pay for a tea/coffee out their own wallet). The pro shop need to make sure that they are capturing their email address (Bonnyton do this) and get permission to send monthly offers, which would be another way of ensuring those who use teeofftimes once think about booking direct next time.

 

[turkish]

We use Intelligent Golf for all club admin systems.

We used to use Cobra with BRS as a plug in.

How do you find it. Does the booking terminal break down/freeze like how did I do software? Or is it all done online?

 

[turkish]

Don't know too much about it, but the new club management software that the SGU are offering to Scottish clubs for free is potentially a way for clubs to take control back of booking without paying commission, etc.

They seem to be as quick as mud getting this out to market for the clubs. Also it looks like it’s just going to be an app so unsure clubs can integrate that into their own website booking

 

[jim8flog]

How do you find it. Does the booking terminal break down/freeze like how did I do software? Or is it all done online?

It is all online or via a dedicated computer terminal in our lounge plus a PSI computer terminal.

I find IG in general very good

The only thing I miss from BRS was the year to view. It was easy to spot which days were already booked for societies etc with BRS with IG you have to go to the soecific day you are interested in to find out unbooked tee times.

To give you an idea of responsiveness we have to now book for Saturdays as well as other comp days, within one minute virtually every slot has been booked.

Visitors can book tee times via our website and pay at the same time.

 

[Garush34]

They seem to be as quick as mud getting this out to market for the clubs. Also it looks like it’s just going to be an app so unsure clubs can integrate that into their own website booking

Part of the deal was a new website with free hosting was it not? So presumably the app would link into that. We have registered interest but like you say it doesn't seem like it will be here anytime soon.