- Karen Elsom, Marketing Manager, Bowood Golf & Country Club
 

Company Information	Key Benefits
Industry: Sport, Leisure & Hospitality Location: Calne, UK Product: Maximizer CRM 11 Enterprise Users: 15	• Information all stored in one central location • Tailored marketing promotions • Seamless integration into Bowood’s systems

Bowood Golf & Country Club: Golf Jewel of the South West

Built on 2,000 acres of stunning Capability Brown parkland in the heart of Wiltshire, Bowood Golf and Country Club is the leading proprietary golf development in the Southwest. The club offers golfing for society golfers, corporate parties and players who just want to use the green on a one-off basis. Over the years the club has added conference, wedding reception and corporate golf day facilities and offers a small amount of accommodation at its Queenswood golf lodge. Most recently, Bowood has won planning permission for a 120-bedroom hotel complete with health spa and conference rooms.

Managing growth

But with growth came challenges and Bowood quickly realised that to maximise on expansion opportunities it required a complete overview of its business. By having an incomplete understanding of who its customers were and exactly how and when they were interacting with the company, Bowood was powerless to embark on effectively targeted and growth enhancing crossselling promotions.

Tooled up

To rectify this the company tooled its six-strong sales, marketing and hospitality team up with Maximizer software (the company started with Maximizer 97 but has since upgraded to Maximizer 11). “It was very easy for us just to concentrate on golf,” explains marketing manager Karen Elsom. “Whereas with Maximizer we’ve really been able to analyse all our enquiries, segment our customers and deliver more diverse tailored offers.” By tagging every name on the company’s 20,000-strong database according to transaction history, Bowood was able to promptly reference the right people for the right offers, targeting, for instance, corporate users with conference packages.

Tailor made

Further, adds Karen, compared to previous CRM solutions used, the Maximizer software integrated seamlessly into the company’s systems. “The beauty of Maximizer is that you can really tailor it to your own business. You put in information relevant to your own business, rather than trying to shoehorn your business into it.”

Self-Explanatory

Supported by Maximizer business partner Unimax Solutions, the usual training issues have presented absolutely no problems. “Maximizer is incredibly easy to use. We have staff coming in who would normally require a few weeks of training when starting a new job. But they pick it up in days. It’s very self-explanatory and it stops you if you make a mistake and directs you to where you need to be.”

Payoff

So has Maximizer paid for itself? The answer, according to Karen is a resounding “Yes - several-fold. Since we got to grips with Maximizer we have experienced significant growth to the point where we are in a position to go ahead with our hotel project. Maximizer has been a crucial driver in the company being where it is today.”