Five emails a day. That’s all it takes to set your golf facility on a path toward greatness. Of course, success in this industry requires more than hitting send five times – but it’s a start. Through this small daily set of actions, you can begin to implement the Net Promoter System (NPS) to achieve robust member loyalty at your golf club.
NPS is an approach to measuring and improving customer loyalty. It centers on a metric – Net Promoter Score – that is calculated via responses to one survey question and is a strong predictor of an organization’s future growth.
“Net Promoter is about the simple idea that with every life you touch, you either enrich it or diminish it, and it would be really good to keep track of that,” said NPS creator Fred Reichheld at Medallia’s Experience Conference in March 2025.
A Net Promoter Score is determined through a one-question survey. The question: On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it that you would recommend [company X] to a friend or colleague?
Those that score 9 or 10 are labeled promoters. Anything between 0 and 6 denotes a detractor. The 7s and 8s are deemed passives. Your score is calculated by simply subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters.
How NPS turned one Philadelphia club around
Philadelphia Cricket Club is one of the country’s best NPS success stories. Jim Smith Jr., PGA of America Director of Golf and Chief Operating Officer, implemented a Net Promoter strategy in 2015 with an underwhelming starting score of 8. In January 2026 he logged a 72. That’s world class.
Since incorporating its Net Promoter strategy, the club has nearly tripled its annual revenue, boasts its lowest member attrition rate ever, has more than doubled its employee count, and has eliminated its ever-unpopular member assessments.
Smith set Philadelphia Cricket Club’s transformation in motion with those five emails, sent to five different members each day. By collecting and sharing his members’ feelings about their club, he sparked a shift in staff culture with an aim toward what he calls “incremental improvement.” The results speak for themselves.
Smith says: “That’s probably the one thing I’m proudest of in my 20 years at the club is helping get the Net Promoter from 8 to 72.”
How to collect Net Promoter data
Attaining a score requires just one question. Achiev- ing an accurate picture requires another. Along with the 0-10 question, an open-ended follow-up provides your members a chance to explain why they gave their score – and that’s where you prompt specific, actionable feedback.
There’s one problem: People hate surveys. Which is why Jim Smith Jr. doesn’t send a mass templated survey once a year. Instead, he manually sends five personalized emails every day asking for a response and explaining how that response helps the club improve.
By habitualizing these emails, you gather data and feedback throughout the year. By systemizing the process, you ensure a regular touchpoint with every single member. And by humanizing your survey, you’re likely to have a substantially higher response rate – Smith estimates two-thirds of his survey emails get answered.
A truly successful Net Promoter strategy requires a club-wide embrace of a simple but profound idea. As Reichheld, its founder, wrote on LinkedIn in 2019: “The goal is to increase the number of customer lives you enrich on a sustainable basis.” To do that, you have to know where you stand.
Gathering Feedback
How do you know your club is doing a good job? The responses to your NPS questions – both the score and the why, both positive and negative – help you understand how your efforts are being received across a diverse range of opinions.
Having accurate data about your membership’s perception of the club allows you to create targets for your staff. When you know where you stand, you know where to aim. A concrete number provides your team something to build on.
Data is nothing if you don’t act on it.
Smith personally responds to every suggestion and quickly implements any good idea he can. Some suggestions, he saves in a file to revisit at a later date. When he can’t fulfill a member’s request, he takes the time to explain why.
Here are three ways you can deploy your data as a PGA of America Golf Professional:
Share it with your staff: In his book, “The Ultimate Question 2.0”, Reichheld wrote: “It’s impossible to create loyal customers without first inspiring a team of employees so they become promoters themselves.” Once a month, Smith shares all member comments in an email to his 80-person staff. The majority of comments are positive, and sharing them reinforces to staff that their good work is noticed and appreciated.
Deploy it to secure further investment: Smith started his NPS journey by focusing on his staff. He held firm in his belief that happier staff would lead to happier members, and that happier members would stay longer and attract others like them. He has proof. “So when we go in (to management) and request more money for staff or a new position that was going to provide a service, whatever it was, we have a story to tell,” Smith says.
Use it to defend your facility: Smith says his thousands of positive scores provide him a rebuttal when approached by a “Negative Nelly.” “I can look that guy in the eye and go, ‘Guess what? You’re the anomaly.’ If we stink as bad as you’re saying we stink, why are the Net Promoter scores this high? Why is membership so strong? Why is attrition so low? Why are these people so happy?”
Bottom line: A healthy Net Promoter strategy can act as a cycle.
Constant member feedback arms your staff with purpose – which makes staff happier, which makes members and guests happier. Which, along with proof, makes a strong case for facility investment. Which makes staff happier, and on and on.
Philadelphia Cricket Club’s most recent Net Promoter Score of 72, while considered outstanding, isn’t reason to relax. It’s a goalpost meant to be moved.
“If my Net Promoter Score came in at 80, I’d be saying to the staff, we need to get to 82,” says Smith. “Incremental improvement; how do we do that?”
Start with five emails.
