based on his
personal experience
with…
the ROLLS of MONMOUTH Golf Club
a Top 50 Welsh Golf Venue
Once a year I join a golfing society weekend just to make all the
other golfers feel better about their own games!
Edinburgh, Bristol, and Stratford-upon-Avon have all been recent
venues for our two rounds of golf either side of curry night, and
curry night for 2020 was in the English/Welsh border town of
Monmouth, followed by our first visit to the Rolls of Monmouth
Golf Club.
Located 5 miles outside Monmouth, deeper into Welsh bandit
country and literally in the middle of nowhere, Rolls [once the home
of Mr Charles Rolls and co-founder of Rolls Royce fame] is a
stunning location and a forgiving course with welcoming wide
fairways for players of my ability.
My beef with the Rolls of Monmouth is not so much about poor
customer service, but the missed opportunity to provide a great
customer experience - which is sort of the same thing but not
quite.
Congregating in mid-September 2020 from as far afield as London
and Bury, it was the first time that any of us had played this
course, and as a society we had booked visitors’ green fees. So, not
recognising any of us [because we hadn’t been there before] and
paying a visitors fee for a reserved tee-off time, the operative in
the Pro Shop - a separate building between the car park and the
main building - might have been more welcoming than just
transacting our contactless money. Yes we got a ‘good morning
gents,’ but wouldn’t the welcome to such a beautiful place have
been so much better if, as visitors, there had been an enquiry as to
whether we had been to the Rolls before? This wasn’t a wet-
behind-the-ears teenager on minimum wage, this was a middle-aged
chap attired with golfing trousers and a club polo shirt. And if he
had got a ‘no, we haven’t been here before,’ ’ to his question, with
almost an hour until our start time, he could have quickly pointed us
in the direction of toilets, breakfast, changing, etc. He could have
asked if we wanted to hire a buggy, or told us about any special
offers in his Pro Shop.
But he didn’t. He took our money and we left to sniff out the
facilities ourselves.
Ironically, it wasn’t me that strongly voiced their opinion about the
half-hearted welcome as we set about our bacon and sausage baps
on an outdoor COVID-secure terrace.
Renowned for the manufacturing quality and customer service of
owning a Rolls Royce, Charles Rolls might be looking down with
frustration of a customer experience opportunity missed.