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February 2010
On the Tee with ForeTees Welcome to another edition of "On the Tee with ForeTees". 2010 is off to a great start for us and we are excited to share some of what's new at ForeTees with you. Here is a short list of just some of the items that will be covered in this newsletter: 1. The new Mobile Interface for our tee time product; 2. FlxRez - online reservations are now available for other areas of your club; 3. The floating calendar - a new feature that many of you have been asking for; 4. Email enhancements (you will want to read about these!); 5. Tee Sheet Notes; 6. A money saving alliance for you with our friends at VGM Club; 7. And more... Please feel free to forward this newsletter to your fellow staff members. Thank you and enjoy!
New Features
We are proud to announce the addition of the following great new features.
Remember: For more information simply click on the "New Features" link at the top of your ForeTees page. You can also now view these newsletters simply by clicking on the "Newsletters" link next to the New Features link at the top of your ForeTees page.
Mobile Interface
The new ForeTees Mobile Interface was officially released for usage on February 3, 2010 for all of our current clients.
We are very excited about how this product is performing and we are also thrilled by the feedback we are receiving from our clients
who have activated the interface at their clubs. This site will allow your members to easily view your club's tee sheets,
make new tee times, manage their existing tee times, and change their settings.
One of the advantages of this interface over a smart phone application is that there is no additional cost for the club or the members to use it. In other words, ForeTees keeps increasing its value to our customers without passing on any additional costs to you. We are quite proud of the fact that we are able to do this for our valued customers. Let's answer a few of the most frequently asked questions about this new feature: 1) The mobile interface will work with most smart phone devices. Current makes and models of phones such as the iPhone, Blackberry, Droid, etc. are working very well. 2) If a club is using a seamless interface with their club website we are requiring them to first turn on this feature, assuring us that the club is aware that the mobile interface does by-pass the website. 3) Adding players to a tee time using the interface can be a little tedious, so we suggest you advise members to keep their partner list up to date. This will help save time when they are using their mobile device. 4) YES, the interface does make it possible for your staff members on the first tee or rangering the course to have a LIVE tee sheet right in the palm of their hand. Just make sure this person is in the ForeTees database and that they establish a username and password for their phone. For more information, or to enable the interface, simply click on the new Mobile Image in the upper left corner of your ForeTees screen. We hope you enjoy the Mobile Phone Interface. It's another great new feature from ForeTees.
FlxRez is Here!!!
Many of our tee time clients have been asking for a similar product that can be used in other areas of the club such as the tennis courts,
spas, racquetball courts, platform tennis, barber shops, etc. Well, it's here - FlxRez (flexible reservations). We recently introduced
this product to the General Managers with a mass mailer to our current accounts, as well as unveiling the system at the recent Golf
Industry Show. The response has been fantastic. Just like our tee time product, FlxRez was developed to increase staff efficiency,
as well as increase member satisfaction.
If you feel your club could use FlxRez, please contact one of our regional sales directors listed below. They will be more than happy to answer your questions and do a live online demonstration for the staff or committee members at your club.
Tom McManus - Eastern Regional Sales Director
tom@foretees.com or 508.769.7370 Larry Aspenson - Western Regional Sales Director larry@foretees.com or 760.641.5368
The Floating Calendar - It's New and You'll Love It
Have you ever wished after scrolling to the lower part of a tee sheet page that you didn't have to scroll back up to the top to select another
day on the calendar? Well, the time is now here - the calendar is floating with you down the left side of the tee time page. Thanks
to our talented programmers at ForeTees who strive to meet our customers' needs and expectations, we have just recently added this
feature to the system. So, enjoy the convenience and time saved and all of us at ForeTees will continue to strive to improve our system everyday.
HTML Email Notifications
Effective Wednesday, Feb 24th all email notifications generated by the ForeTees system will be sent in HTML format. This means that the email
message will have a website-like, or graphical, appearance. We hope your members find this a little more appealing.
Note: If the member's email client does not support the HTML format, then the email should automatically appear in the old text format.
Email Attachments
Also effective Wednesday, Feb 24th, proshop users will have the ability to attach up to 3 files when sending emails to members from the ForeTees email feature
(Tools - Email - Send Email). This will allow you to send a great deal more information without the need to type it in or copy and paste.
Use this to send Tournament Results, Event or Product Promotions, important Club News, etc. We recommend you send this information in PDF format.
Tee Sheet or Time Sheet Notes
Another new feature you will notice on Wednesday, Feb 24th is what we call Time Sheet Notes. This feature will be available in both the ForeTees (Golf)
system and the FlxRez system for the proshop users. This feature will allow you to enter and maintain notes for the date you are currently viewing.
You will notice a new Notes item near the top of the tee sheet or time sheet page. The notes entered will be viewable by proshop users only and will follow
the sheet indefinitely, allowing you to view them under Old Sheets as well.
Coming Soon - Guest Tracking & Email Templates
The ForeTees development team is hard at work on a new feature that will allow you to track the guests that play at your club.
The new Guest Tracking feature (a.k.a. Guest Database) will allow you to save the names of your guests along with other valuable
information, such as email addresses, phone numbers, addresses, etc. This feature will provide an easier method of tracking how
many times a particular guest plays at your club, and it will allow you to follow up with your guests for marketing purposes.
Our dedicated development team is also working to further enhance our Send Email feature by providing the proshop user the ability to select from several HTML Templates when building an email message to send to the members. This will provide a more professional approach to marketing your club's products and services. Watch for a release announcement on these great features in a future newsletter.
ForeTees and VGM Club Form New Alliance
There is one challenge that we are facing everyday in business and the private club industry is no exception - improving the bottom line.
At ForeTees, we strongly believe that if we can help our clients do this through the use of our system and by exploring the great savings
made possible by VGM Club, we are going to have happier customers.
VGM Club is the nation's premier member service organization for the club industry. With its over 450 suppliers and distributor partners, VGM offers its member clubs volume discounts, improved terms, cash rebates and other incentives for all areas of club operations. Plus, if you mention that ForeTees recommended you, you will save at least 50% on your VGM dues. Let VGM give you an example of savings you can expect when using their program. It will be a very pleasant surprise to you and your club staff. Visit VGM at www.vgmclub.com or call 1.800.363.5480 to find out more information. The savings of thousands of dollars a year to your bottom line will help your club reach its financial goals.
Congratulations to Congressional Country Club
National Fitter of the Year
ForeTees would like to send out our congratulations to John Lyberger and his staff at Congressional Country Club as the winner of the 2009
Ping National Fitter of the Year Award. This award recognizes the authorized Ping Fitter that has demonstrated the highest commitment to
custom fitting and the promotion of its benefits to golfers of all abilities. John's staff members include Danny Shanz, Bobbie Beattie,
Mike Dickson, Sam Frost, Ryan Lagergren, Stacy Miller-Arndt, Brad Myers, Mark Nihill and Charlie Schuyler.
Again, our congratulation for the outstanding job all of you do for the members of Congressional and thank you for allowing ForeTees to be a part of your outstanding operation.
ForeTees Congratulates Its Top 100 Golf Shops
We are very proud to have many of Golf Magazine's Top 100 Golf Shops using ForeTees and would like to recognize these clubs for reaching this high
plateau in the merchandising business. The clubs are:
ForeTees Booths Very Busy at the PGA Show & GIS
Our booths at both the PGA Show and the Golf Industry Show were buzzing with activity this year. Many individuals were stopping by to view
demos of our industry-leading tee time system, as well as taking a look at our new FlxRez System. Plus, many of our existing customers were
stopping by to say hello and to check on all the latest news from ForeTees. Many of them were very interested in our new Mobile Interface.
Needless to say, everyone was very excited to see it in action. Also, many of our current clients were responsible for sending by golf
professionals and managers that aren't currently using ForeTees, but thought they should take a serious look. We want to thank those of
you who believe in us so much to recommend your friends to our company. It is very much appreciated.
Also, at the PGA Show for the first time we conducted a User Conference to help insure that our members were getting the most out of their ForeTees product. Nearly sixty individuals were in attendance and all shared a lot of good information. Thanks to ForeTees' Ben Haubach for presenting our new features to those in attendance and answering questions from the floor.
iPhones Are a Hot Commodity
Early statistics show that the iPhone is a very popular choice with members at our ForeTees' clubs. Our early statistics show that approximately
60 percent of individuals signing onto the new Mobile Interface are using the iPhone. Once the system is in use for a longer period of time, we
will share with you some additional interesting facts about smart phone usage by your members. Stay tuned!
Bentwater C.C. - Members Book 94% of Tee Times Online with ForeTees
Bentwater Country Club in Montgomery, Texas, has done an outstanding job in encouraging their members to book tee times online using ForeTees.
In fact, their percentage is so high we thought it would be a good idea to share some of their success with all of you. Bentwater has 94%
of its tee times booked online by members as compared to a ForeTees average of about 65% nationwide. Here are some of the practices used
by Bentwater to be so successful:
NOTICES:
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See you "Down the Middle"!
Watch for these emails in the future to keep up on the latest news from ForeTees. |
