The office answers the same questions every week. When does entry close. Is Saturday qualifying. Why has my handicap changed. Can I play in that one if I am a member of another club. Where are the results.
Every one of those has an answer, and a person is giving it individually forty times a week.
The checklist
Publish these and the office gets its mornings back.
1. The fixture list with entry details
Every competition, the date, the format, whether it is qualifying, the entry fee and the closing time. Members plan their month around it and currently ask.
2. The entry method
Which system, where to find it, what happens if entry closes and whether a reserve list exists. Members who miss an entry blame the club.
3. The closing time, exactly
Not a day, a time. This is where most of the individual contact comes from.
4. The draw and start sheet
When it is published, where and what happens if someone cannot make an allocated time. Publishing the timing prevents a wave of enquiries the evening before.
5. What qualifying means
Which competitions count towards a handicap and which do not. Members ask constantly and the answer is a property of the fixture, so it belongs on the fixture list.
6. How handicaps are administered
That the committee administers handicaps under the governing system, and how to raise a query. A website should never explain why a specific handicap moved.
7. How to submit a general play score
Where the system allows it, how to register an intention, what is required and by when. Members want to do it and do not know the process.
8. Visitor and away member eligibility
Whether visitors or members of other clubs can enter, which competitions and what is required. Publishing it prevents an entry that has to be withdrawn.
9. Where results are published
And when. Members refresh a noticeboard that has not been updated since Thursday.
10. Local rules and course status
Temporary greens, preferred lies, the status of the course today and where it is announced. Weather-driven questions dominate winter contact.
11. Prize and entry fee arrangements
What the fee covers, how prizes are paid and how a two-ball entry is handled. Small things, asked constantly.
11b. What happens to a booked tee time on a competition day
Members book socially and then find the course closed to general play for a competition they never entered. Publishing which days carry restrictions, how far ahead the diary is blocked and whether any tee times remain open lets somebody plan a Saturday morning rather than arriving to discover the first tee is a start sheet.
12. Never comment on an individual record
Scores, handicaps, disqualifications and disputes belong with the committee, which is the same restraint described in how to handle sensitive questions in your chatbot.
13. Answer at the hours golfers ask
Entry questions arrive on Friday evenings and at six in the morning, which is also when membership enquiries are lost, as in membership enquiries that golf clubs lose to slow replies, and visitor questions behave as in tee time and visitor green fee questions golf clubs hear.
Getting started
Publish the fixture list with entry details, closing times and where results appear, then answer member questions at any hour. SpideyChat for clubs and fitness businesses answers from your published pages, much as entry rules are published in dress code, age and entry questions nightlife venues get. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about answers on the features page.