With golfers becoming increasingly mobile, it is obvious that PGA Pros need to catch up with this situation. UK adults in 2015 spent their time with mobile nonvoice media more than ever before (source: ComScore Mobile Metrix). The vast majority of that time—1 hour 55 minutes per day — they spent with apps.
Today there are over 40 million app users in the UK. This means mobile presence is unavoidable even for PGA Pros who are in many cases still using the old-school method: the hard copy diary & pen or in good case Excel sheets or mobile diaries.
I don’t think that any of the above mentioned time management solutions are good for the business of a PGA Pro or for the golfers who would like to book their next lesson.
This is why good to hear about a full-service sports lesson booking mobile application: Fibodo (‘FInd, BOok and DO’). Fibodo is not a golf specific mobile application. So far the advanced golf clubs and country clubs offered online tee time booking as a digital service. Online tee time booking in 2017 means that you select your tee time and pay for it online.
Fibodo is currently used by over 1,000 UK golf professionals and is the technology backbone of the UK’s National Golf Month, the UK’s largest campaign designed to attract new players to the game of golf. National Golf Month is supported by the British Golf Industry Association and runs each year in May.
Now it is the turn on PGA Pros to modernize their golf lesson sales management. Fibodo enables PGA Pros to manage effectively their time (as you can see it in the picture below) and the whole golf lesson sales process. Depending on the business relationship between the golf club and the PGA Pro, it can be also useful for golf clubs for the same reason.
Fibodo can be a useful communication channel between the PGA Pro and the golfer. However, I can imagine that in the future there will be tee time booking softwares that also help to sell golf lessons. The ‘mobile first’ approach is not only true for websites but how we contact golf club members and potential golfers.
All these solutions have got affect on the overall customer experience. We should strive to provide the best-integrated customer experience where the golf lesson sale is one of the components.
Along with this, PGA Pros should not stop at mobile applications. They should look beyond mobile and start to think how they could utilize the Internet of Things (IoT; see the example of Arccos Golf), augmented reality and virtual reality to provide more effective golf lessons.
