Bob Young, a Northern California PGA Section past president, is the PGA general manager of Stockton (California) Golf & Country Club.

Bob Young on the importance of adding auto phone messages to promote events:
We’ve been using phone ads, robo-calls if you will, several times a year as another avenue to communicate with our private membership about events or promotions. The company we use, Voice Broadcasting, charges us approximately six cents per message, and we only get charged when the call is answered or it kicks into voicemail. If you give the service a script, they’ll do the call for you, but I thought if members are already used to my voice and seeing me at the club, why wouldn’t they want to hear my voice or hear the golf professional’s voice? Not only is it the message coming from the club, but it’s also the voice that they recognize. It’s a more personal touch and less expensive than a mailing. And the other thing is that when you call, it comes up with your club number. So when the caller ID comes up, it shows that the country club’s calling them. It think that helps get a few more calls answered personally rather than kicked to voice mail. It has definitely been positive, but we don’t put it out there too much. We’ve found that we use it about four to five times per year for special messages or events.

Bob Young on the business impact of adding auto phone messages to promote events:
The feedback from the members is always positive and it creates awareness and eventually more sign-ups. It’s also an opportunity to thank our members and wish them a safe, happy holiday season during the month of December. I try to keep the messages cute and catchy to get their attention. Members will see me in the clubhouse and say, “Hey, Bob, I got your message last night. Boy, that was cool. Thanks for letting us know what’s going on at the club.” When we do it for a function, we find that it increases participation: One time we had 15 extra people sign up for a concert out on the practice range. At a fee of $75 per person, that adds up in a hurry. In that regard, it helped tremendously, but it’s more of an awareness and PR thing, as well as a sales tool. We’ve been using it for two years now, and we plan to use it for a couple of events for our centennial celebration this year.

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