We get asked a variety of questions from golf club operators about implementing Flexible Membership at their club.
This may well be the case for your club as flexible membership is not for every club. However, if the membership strategy for your club is to grow membership, to increase the utilisation of your tee sheet at quiet times, to attract a different type of golfer to your club, and to provide a stepping stone for future 5&7 day members, then a new flexible approach could be just the thing.
Yes you could, as we are not the only provider of flexible membership software solutions. We are though the only provider that offers the end-to-end solution to FIND, JOIN, MANAGE, RETAIN flexible members on your behalf. Whist you will generate a little more revenue by running the scheme yourself. The cost to run this scheme would be 4 times higher than your cost to partner with PlayMoreGolf. The result being your level of profit to run your own scheme would be significantly lower than with PlayMoreGolf. We have a simulator that can show you how.
Our view has always been that when we explain to our members what we are doing and why we are doing it. This helps to educate your current members to the benefits of introducing this new flexible approach. Most importantly, we recommend distinct differences between the benefits that a club 5&7 day member receives versus what a flexible member receives. Shorter booking window, limited competition access and protecting peak tee times. This results in more flexible members playing at off-peak times.
Just because the selling price of the flexible membership is cheaper than more traditional categories does not mean it is cheap golf. Flexible membership generally deliver a value 3-4 times higher than traditional members because they play less golf. The key difference being that as a club you control the value of the points matrix and when flexible members can play. Therefore, you can control the true value a flexible member offers.
There may be some of your current members that might move into this category. Our data shows this number is very small. We should ask ourselves if these members would be leaving anyway as their current category does not work for them. Keeping them attached to your club because you have a flexible approach to membership means you could move them back to 5&7 day membership in the future.
Current members who move into a flexible membership will also play their golf differently. They will move to quieter times of the day. This means you open a slot to bring a new member in. We tend to see on average 20% of flexible members will upgrade into full club membership.
By setting different entitlements, shorter booking window and by protecting peak tee times with a higher points value results in this not happening.