Sagacity Golf helped Coyote Lakes:
The Sagacity Team has been very responsive. If I come up with an idea or a pricing change, even late in the day, I can always rely on the team to make the updates and make it happen. I consider them part of my team. It’s like having another guy sitting in the back office.
– Rowland Cole, General Manager, Coyote Lakes Golf Course
Coyote Lakes, located in Surprise AZ, is considered a favorite course within the west valley of Phoenix. Its undulating fairways follow the natural terrain of the existing property and offer a fun golf experience for golfers at all skill levels. Rowland Cole, the General Manager has been at the course since 2007. Rowland had a history with the course from his time as a Regional Manager with American Golf when they owned the course. When the course was sold, the new owners reached out to Rowland to come back and lead operations.
Maximizing Utilization
In 2016 Rowland started using Benchmark by Sagacity Golf to get new insights into his operation and his competition. He knew that a key metric for success was his utilization and the Benchmark report was an efficient way to measure and adjust his pricing tactics.
Using historical data that he collected and the Benchmark report, Rowland was making manual adjustments to his tee sheet based on competitors’ rates and the weather. He understood that trying to keep up with the constant pricing updates was a challenge and looked for a new way to manage it using Sagacity tools.
We like the daily deals and the way it’s managed along with the price integrity of Forecaddie
Rowland Cole, General Manager
Setting pricing goals to grow revenue
A major issue Rowland faced was maintaining price consistency across all distribution channels (phone, walk-up, course website, mobile app, and all third-party marketplaces). Being able to control his pricing policies is important and is essential to revenue growth. Utilizing Sagacity’s Forecaddie platform, Rowland was able to maintain 100% control while increasing prices when demand is strong.
When demand is lower and the tee sheet is not pacing to historical bookings, Coyote Lakes uses the Forecaddie Daily Deals Widget to promote only the times that are behind pace and automatically adjust pricing to fill the tee sheet strategically. The course saw an immediate impact. Through the Daily Deals Widget, 82% of rounds sold were off-peak.
Coupled with the widget on their website, Coyote Lakes also utilizes Sagacity’s suite of automated marketing tools like email promotion and text messaging to complement their Direct-to-Consumer marketing strategy. During this period of rounds and revenue growth, Coyote Lakes increased their online direct to consumer bookings by 35%. Now, almost 30% of all rounds are booked directly through their website and mobile app.
The Coyote Lakes Daily Deals website widget uses TruDemand Technology to identify future hours that aren’t filling up and intelligently promotes and sells tee times directly to their customers.
Round Growth drives Revenue
Coyote Lakes was able to grow its year-over-year revenue by 16% using the Sagacity Platform. This growth came almost entirely from increasing the rounds sold and not from dropping the rate. Coyote Lakes did not have to slash their rates to grow their revenue. They strategically adjusted prices while maintaining occupancy.
When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Coyote Lakes like the rest of the country saw a big dip in revenue. As golf rebounds in the Phoenix market, Rowland can compare his growth to his competitors using the Benchmark report which shows he’s outperforming the market by 20%. This growth is driven by the partnership in software and people that Sagacity Golf provides.