Joel Livingood, the general manager and COO at Interlachen Country Club in Edina, Minn., finds that the principal challenge in this modern era, especially for those in the private club industry, lands squarely on whether the club member’s experience is exceptional or merely ordinary. “The struggle on the service front,” explains Livingood, “is balancing technology’s promise with the value of having a place that truly delivers one-on-one personal service, which we believe is the real differentiator for us in the marketplace.”
Here’s how that balancing act gets worked out in the mind of the manager, as Livingood weighs the differential effectiveness of service, technology and experience:
“We’ve considered tableside ordering for iPads where there’s not a server. We’ve considered giving our servers iPads to enter the order when they’re at the table. We’ve considered the ability for members to place orders by using their mobile devices.
“We’ve assessed those things we’ve decided, yes, we’re going to let you place a mobile order from the golf course, but we’re not going to [encourage] you do it at the pool, because at the pool we value that human-to-human connection where that server is going to come up to you and greet you by name. They know you always like a sparkling water with a lime. In fact, they’re going to have it with them before they get to you. And they’re going to tell you about the ahi tuna salad special that day, because they know you really like ahi tuna.
“A self-serve tablet could not do that, and we think that outweighs the efficiency from a labor standpoint, or the cost savings, or even the immediate gratification the member might get. At the end of the day, that human-to-human connection is something that we think is integral for our brand.”
Genuine Hospitality Is Going to Win
As circumstances change and as new demands surface, a resourceful manager can make adjustments with staff, scheduling and technology to smooth and improve the member experience. For example, on a hot summer day when the club will serve more than 400 people poolside, a member pops out of the pool, wants a cold drink, then taps a button on the club’s Tablee system, and the server soon appears.
Likewise, on the golf course, the halfway house is open from Memorial Day to Labor Day to attend to the golfers’ every need, but for other times, the club is in the process of designing a self-serve model with “a really cool kiosk” available to fill the gap.
The rule-of-thumb at Interlachen seems to be that technology will get leveraged on the back side to enable the staff to deliver exceptional service, but on the membership side, Livingood will be more measured. “We’re trying not to overdo it, because there’s a lot of that in the world and sometimes the club is the place that you can get away from that and the club’s the place where genuine hospitality is going to win.”