Mike Hendrix (00:00)
Hi, I am Mike Hendrix from SMB golf. And today my guest is Mike Terrell, managing partner at Real Time Feedback. And this is the Tech Caddie podcast.

Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike Terrell (00:27)
Hey Mike, thanks for having me. Nice to see you.

Mike Hendrix (00:30)
Well, thanks for coming on. I'm excited to talk to you because you all have technology that you've built that you didn't necessarily think about golf courses on day one, but I think it's come to be pretty evident that the platform you guys have and that you've built is really, really good for golf courses. And so I wanted to kind of help tell that story and expose it a little bit. There are different companies in golf that deal with reviews and

reputation management and that whole world. just feel like you guys are going about it a little differently and it's exciting to me. think if I was an owner operator, I would be a client. So we'll get into that, but you're in Dallas, Texas. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ultimately came to be at RealTime Feedback.

Mike Terrell (01:20)
Yeah, you bet. Thanks for that. Yeah, so I'm based in Dallas and I've been building technology products for the last, oh, better part of 20, 25 years and mostly around customer experience, customer engagement type applications. We actually own and operate a lot of hospitality concepts here in Dallas and we started noticing a decline in customers being willing

to let management know about a bad experience they might be having. So even if we had a manager go up to the table, ask how was your meal today, they would just look you in the face and say everything was fine. We quickly realized that fine was another nasty four letter word. And so we got with our development team and started working on a platform that could allow someone like that wasn't having a great experience to not leave angry or upset.

and then blast this online, but rather create a platform that they could simply let management know discreetly and then management could respond to them.

Mike Hendrix (02:28)
And so, so Mike, I mean, this is as a hospitality company or as a restaurant company, you all were just essentially trying to solve your own problem without going outside.

Mike Terrell (02:39)
If I

have one right. Exactly right. We were trying to figure out a way we could just solve our own situation with our own restaurants, our own bars, our own gyms, and ⁓ came up with Real Time Feedback.

Mike Hendrix (02:54)
Did, were you using, cause now I'm trying to understand the DNA of that company a little bit, but we're, mean, were you using third party point of sale, third party reservation stuff? Like you didn't build everything you guys used to run the company from scratch.

Mike Terrell (03:07)
No, no, no. At first, it was a very scaled down version of what it is today, which was simply we had customized QR codes,

put them at the table. Someone could scan it very easily and then type in whatever their issue was. That would go straight to a manager on site. The manager could then respond back to that customer. And that's how it all started.

Mike Hendrix (03:30)
Got it, got it. And so I think to do that or for you guys to make that decision, the first thing that had to kind of be there is you believed in guest Feedback, right? You didn't look at it as a nuisance. You didn't look at it as, oh, well, that guy's just a jerk and I'm not going to pay attention to him or her. You all believed in it and you actually, you wanted to be able to leverage it to grow your company.

Mike Terrell (03:56)
yeah, I'm a customer service fanatic. So I want to make sure everybody is taken care of.

Mike Hendrix (04:01)
So you've read the book, Raving Fans, 12 times. You've given to lot of employees, I'm guessing, all that.

Well, I'm a big, I'm a big book guy myself. And, and especially like, okay, when you come to work for me, there's these five books you're going to read, you know, type of thing. And raving fans has always been in that, in that group. that's, that's good.

Mike Hendrix (04:23)
Hey, just Mike here real quick. You heard my guests there say he's over the top about customers, loves customers, wants to serve them as best they can, et cetera, et If that's how you feel, his product might be a great fit for you. Maybe you don't feel that way. Maybe you don't think about or don't want to be considered a hospitality company. And that's okay, it's your business. It's yours to run how you see fit.

But if you don't, if the whole vibe of hospitality doesn't resonate with you, then this product might not be for you. If you think of yourself as a hospitality company in the golf industry, then Mike's product might be a great fit for you. So let's keep going on, but just, I just want to say upfront, this might not be for everybody, for the people that think of customers more as just a transactional, ⁓

piece of their business and I take your money and then you go play golf and that's the end of it, then maybe this product isn't for you. So let's keep going, we'll see where the pod goes.

Mike Hendrix (05:29)
So the company today is Real Time Feedback. Take us through a little bit of the building of the company when you decided like, Hey, we're going to spin this thing out of this other company. And it's going to, you know, have its own.

architecture, hierarchy, that type of

Mike Terrell (05:43)
Well, once we started realizing it was becoming such a valuable tool for our needs, ⁓ we had some friends over at American Airlines Center here in Dallas that we reached out to. And it turns out that they were looking for a platform to increase fan engagement. AAC, that's where the Dallas Mavs and the Stars and lots of concerts happen. ⁓ So we got with the folks over there over guest experience.

And it turns out they had three different products kind of cobbled together to try to do what they wanted to do. And it still really wasn't providing that full suite of experience that they were looking for. So our dev team got to work with their guest experience folks and we built out the system to their specs. And this was in 2018 going into 2019 and launched right before COVID. And I got to say, not a great Time to launch a new business.

Mike Hendrix (06:41)
Especially if arenas are your main customer.

Mike Terrell (06:41)
The

So it was kind of a blessing. It gave us a lot of Time to start ⁓ devoting a lot of different development efforts to creating the platform and really rounding it out with different features.

Mike Hendrix (07:02)
Did you have a sense from day one that a key component of this was going to be that it would be Real Time Feedback? It wouldn't be an hour after I left the restaurant or an hour after I left the gym or something like, did you guys know right away it was going to be, it's all about Real Time or did you stumble into that? No.

Mike Terrell (07:21)
⁓ that's kind of what we set out for is, you if someone had a bad experience and an hour goes by, every hour that goes by is just, you know, festering into a bigger issue by the Time they get home or by the Time they want to tell 10 friends or blast you online. We wanted to get ahead of it as quickly as we could. So, you know, in the moment, creating actionable Feedback

Mike Hendrix (07:46)
And that's the difference with what we're talking about here with this platform. This is real time feedback. Think about how the golf courses have operated for years and years and years. Feedback might take place if you see a Ranger and you don't see a Ranger, but probably more than two or three times around. But really at thousands of golf courses in America, there are no Rangers anymore. That's kind of gone by the wayside.

So this is real time feedback. It does not bog down your phones. It helps the golfer to share what's going on. Hey, there's no water in the cooler on number six, right? And then you respond ⁓ quickly. ⁓ thanks for letting us know. We're gonna run some complimentary drinks out to you and we're gonna get that cooler filled up ASAP.

real time feedback. Let's take advantage of technology that exists today. Let's use technology to help our businesses be better, provide better guest experiences and really rise above the rest. That's what this is about, real time feedback.

Mike Terrell (09:02)
and.

Mike Hendrix (09:04)
I watched, I guess an interview or a podcast you all did with someone from American Airlines center. she was specifically, ⁓ talking about the experience that, that suite guests have. And it started to occur to me as I was watching it that, this actually is similar to golf. Because if you're in a suite, let's say for a Mavs game, this is an extended period of Time, right? This is a two hour experience.

theoretically they had a cocktail party way before the game even started. It was maybe a three hour experience or something like that.

Mike Terrell (09:41)
Right, exactly. Yeah, they used to have ⁓ phones in the suites and they pulled those out just to use our platform. Because now more than one person can request what it is they need. So it just became more of a better system to document all that as well.

Mike Hendrix (10:00)
And there it is, remove the phone. We love when technology helps us reduce phone calls. Your staff loves it when the phone rings less. And more and more golfers today, customers today, they would prefer to text message rather than speak on the phone. And so, and you know, with the phone, it's hard to ultimately

I know exactly what was said in that conversation. What I'm referring to there is, you know, the staff reports back to the GM. Well, he said this or she said that. Well, if we remove the phone and we just get into digital messaging, that goes away. It's all memorialized. We've got it right here. It's really easy to read. Maybe that helps you manage employees better. Maybe it helps to keep customers a little more accountable.

I don't know, I think time will tell. ⁓ But whenever we can bring on platforms that reduce phone calls and we believe improve the guest experience, we think that's a win. Let's keep going, this is getting more interesting.

Mike Hendrix (11:16)
But when you launched in golf and I guess you're still kind of in the launching phase specific to golf. mean, you're, starting to amass golf course clients. You're starting to look at integrations with a tee sheet point of sale companies and we can get into all of that. But I don't think you launched as a F&B solution. You really launched as a, there's an issue on the golf course. And I want to tell somebody in the golf shop that there's an issue.

Mike Terrell (11:44)
Right, absolutely. Yeah, we're in a lot of, we're heavy in a lot of different industries, including stadiums and arenas, ⁓ automotive dealerships, fitness facilities, restaurants. And I've always known there's been a big, there should be a big opportunity within the golf world. I know these guys want to kind of free up their phone lines and, and don't need anybody calling to tie those up that when they're trying to take more bookings.

I set out to try to explore that space, went to the Orlando PGA show Had some really good conversations and overwhelmingly the folks that I spoke to said if they weren't in the golf, if they weren't a pro right now, they used to be, they're like, man, I wish I only had this when I at my course.

So I got a lot of validation, I guess is what I'm saying, that this is something that was sorely needed in the industry.

Mike Hendrix (12:42)
You're

walking around the show. You're theoretically, you're just introducing yourself to people. You see somebody looks approachable. How were you explaining it back in January? Like what would you say to a GM or a head golf professional to explain what it was you wanted to talk about?

Mike Terrell (12:58)
Well, basically we're a two-way guest engagement platform that allows your customers the opportunity to let you know about any potential issues as they're happening or shortly thereafter, The idea is not only they can let you know, but you can respond back to them all in the moment. And then as a byproduct, we're able to drive five-star reviews through the roof.

Mike Hendrix (13:23)
And that's it gang, for the salespeople out there. That in 30 seconds, Mike gave you his elevator pitch. He knows it inside and out. I didn't tell him beforehand that I was gonna ask him to explain to me what his product was, but you could see him very quickly, intuitively. Yep, he just asked me for the pitch. Here I go, and he nailed it. So all of our sellers out there.

You gotta have that elevator pitch down. Hopefully it's even less than two minutes. Mike knocked it out in 30 seconds. Really easy to understand. Practice, practice on a device like this. Do Google meetings and just record yourself and play it back and do it again and play it back. Practice, practice, practice. Get that elevator pitch solid and tight.

Mike Hendrix (14:15)
⁓ because of why? how does the back and forth with the guy in the golf shop lead to a review?

Mike Terrell (14:21)
So through our integration partners, such as Lightspeed, we're able to send out a message post-round, typically shortly after the round's over, to everyone in the group to ask them the rate their experience on a scale of one to five. And we see about anywhere from a 30 to 40% engagement rate on those SMSes, those text messages.

Mike Hendrix (14:46)
And, and then I would assume, the review, you probably have an integration with Google as well or something. And then the review finally finds its way to Google.

Mike Terrell (14:56)
Yeah, we are a Google partner. yeah, in our one through five system, it allows you to go post straight to Google or Golf Pass or TripAdvisor. Whatever review site that you want to drive reviews, we can drive them.

Mike Hendrix (15:10)
Nice, can you give me a feel for what is the typical back and forth that is happening today? know, golfer on the golf course, ⁓ communicating with someone in the golf shop. What's happened? Like what are the themes of these conversations? What's it usually about?

Mike Terrell (15:28)
Yeah, so there's kind of two flavors. One is the what we call smart codes. We've got QR codes that go in the carts and around the course.

Those are customer generated feedbacks. And those are a wide range of things. But typically, it's going to be slow play. ⁓ I need the Bev cart. ⁓ I found the club, lost the club. ⁓ Those will be the typical ones that we see on the course.

they need something, need something now versus the text messages that go out, those are really rating their overall experience. So they're able to really let everything out that they want to let you know about. So maybe your ⁓ fairways aren't green enough or your greens are having issues or they just, there was something they didn't like about the course, especially if they're a member, right? They want to let you know what's going on and why they're not satisfied.

Mike Hendrix (16:23)
Yeah.

Mike Terrell (16:50)
You know, I mentioned we get 30 to 40% engagement. I would say 80% are more positive than negative. The Feedback's coming in. But it gives you, it's that 80-20 rule. Yeah.

Mike Hendrix (17:04)
Yeah. And then does the operator have the opportunity to choose if he or she wants that review to get out into the review world?

Mike Terrell (17:14)
Yeah, mean, our clients write the rules. We've built this platform to be so universal and so dynamic that they can kind of, know, whatever it is, the workflow, the functionality, they kind of write the rules on how they want that to go.

Mike Hendrix (17:29)
I see. then they can, they can write a rule that says, look at the five star review. want it to post if it's a four star below, I don't want it to put, mean, they can, I'm assuming that that's the option they have.

Mike Terrell (17:40)
Yeah, they can do that. Keep in mind, you know, we want to be in compliant with Google. So everybody has the opportunity to voice that whether it's a positive or negative, we give them the option. But we have found that 98% of people, if you give them the opportunity to give you Feedback versus writing a one star or blasting you online, they'd rather give you Feedback.

Mike Hendrix (18:02)
Did you hear that there where Mike mentioned being in compliance with Google? Seemed to be a little bit of a hesitation on if we really can restrict one and two star reviews from making their way out to Google. ⁓ I didn't press him too hard there, but you should. When you get a demo of this platform, ask that question. Be very intentional about understanding your control.

over bad reviews. I would imagine in a big public podcast, he's going to want to stay right on the straight and narrow with Google. Maybe in a one-on-one conversation, you'll learn some things that he wasn't comfortable sharing in the podcast. Certainly possible. ⁓ So just, be a smart buyer, ask good questions. Whenever you're doing a demo with a technology provider, write a couple of questions down before the demo even begins.

and be prepared, get value out of the time you give them to demo their product.

Mike Hendrix (19:08)
Sure, yeah, okay, I understand. And I would imagine too, there's a bunch of back and forth, like you said, I wanna see the Bev cart or whatever, it never even is related to a review. It just helped improve the guest experience in that moment. It wasn't about telling people I love to play here, it was just about my personal experience today at the golf course.

Mike Terrell (19:30)
Exactly. Yeah, those those QR codes that we place in and around the course. Those are really designed for actionable Feedback in the moment.

Mike Hendrix (19:40)
feel like ⁓ that is so much about hospitality. I've taken on a new role where I'm working a lot and helping the Ohio Golf Course Owners Association quite a bit to restore this association, bring on new members, bring on new sponsors, et cetera. And one of the themes that we're starting to talk about just in back and forth with members of the association is the concept of hospitality. That, hey, let's not think of the

of you as just being like in the service business or something. Like, let's think of you being in the hospitality business and thinking about the overall experience we provide to every golfer, maybe even before they get to the golf course, after they leave the golf course. And it feels to me, and it makes sense now that we're talking, because you're talking about this kind of came from a hospitality company, but it feels to me like this is very hospitality oriented rather than just being like,

transactional oriented.

Mike Terrell (20:41)
Exactly. We built this based on what we were seeing with our hospitality concepts. And like I said, it just turned out to be such a valuable tool that it just made sense to take it to market.

Mike Hendrix (20:55)
what's the Feedback that you are getting from golf courses?

Mike Terrell (20:58)
You know, I think most operators have a pretty good idea, a pretty good handle on their day-to-day operations. ⁓ But then there's those that they're kind of more removed. This gives everybody, because our reporting can roll up to top brass. Now they can look at a, we've got this very cool reporting tool that will do a monthly summary using AI.

and it'll take all the feedbacks you receive plus all the reviews you've received and then crunch them down and let you know, here's all your deficiencies. ⁓ Here's things you're doing well at. And it's all tidied up into one little summary. But I would say ⁓ they're surprised when they start using it how much of a difference it's made in the day to day, especially building those relationships with the guys coming out or gals coming out to play. ⁓

I can tell you food and bev sales have gone through the roof.

Mike Hendrix (22:00)
Yeah.

Mike Hendrix (22:02)
Can you hear Mike there trying to be nice? He doesn't want to say out loud, we have customers that are so surprised as to what's coming in. Because he doesn't want the operator to feel like everybody acts like an absentee owner, right? He's trying to be nice there. ⁓ But the reality of it is, is when you bring a platform on like this, you do learn a lot about your business. It doesn't mean...

that you're a lazy operator or that you weren't paying attention. What it means is there's now technology and platforms out there that just gives you better vision. Okay. It's just like when we finally invented LASIK surgery or something, It just gives you better vision into your business. It does not mean you were derelict in the past. This is simply an improvement. And listen,

Take it from me, a former multi unit operator, albeit in restaurants, but a multi unit operator. I know how hard it is to stay on top of the details at each location. It's really difficult, Mike's platform helps to solve some of that. ⁓ I love that about it. I love the fact that it's these digital messages that you can put your eyes on when it's convenient for you. Really helps to,

eliminate, I think we said earlier, some of that he said, she said thing. So he's trying to be kind, but I think in reality, it's become clear to him that his customers are learning a lot about their business. Let's keep going.

Mike Hendrix (23:38)
Tell me a little bit about the QR codes. Are they specific to each golf cart or is it the same QR code across the facility?

Mike Terrell (23:46)
No, they're unique that we call them smart codes. So every Time they're scanned, we're going to tell you where it came from and it's going to Time and date stamp it. So if it's cart 37, you're going to know what Time it came in. And depending on how you run your your your T-sheet, you can associate that back to a player. Right.

Mike Hendrix (24:07)
Have you had conversa, you know, talking about integrations and I know you mentioned light speed a second ago. Have you had conversations with the likes of Yamaha, EZ-GO that you could theoretically somehow integrate into the screen they have in the golf car?

Mike Terrell (24:23)
⁓ I am talking to a fairway IQ We've had some discussions ⁓ But I've got more developers and I do salespeople on staff so it's kind of hard to to get to everyone I'm thankful that you're you offered me a spot on your show here. Hopefully get the word out a little bit

Mike Hendrix (24:26)
Yes.

Well, you we, we, we say this a lot. I mean, we don't, you're not a customer. We don't even really know each other very well at all. I, I just, as I have been reading about the company and I'm seeing how other industries use it, I kind of keep coming back to this, like, Hmm, this would be really convenient if I'm in five fairway and there's some shenanigans going on in the group in front of me. Right? I mean, listen, there's a lot of new people in golf today.

And I don't want to run any of them off. I don't want any of these new younger players to feel unwelcome. But at the same Time, I mean, we got to have some level of semblance out there. We have to have some level of rules out there. And I feel like this tool could be really helpful in that sense. And so that's why I wanted to have you on, because I just feel like there's 600 plus golf courses in Ohio.

get this thing going at 300, 400 of them, the overall golf experience in Ohio is going to be better. It would be my thought on that.

Mike Hendrix (25:51)
So what am I even talking about there, right? Here's the scenario, and this is just how I see things. ⁓ Let's say somebody takes five shots in a bunker, and you're playing behind them, and the group in general has been struggling for a few holes, right? I wanna be able to send a message into the pro shop. Hey, the group ahead of us is playing really slow. They look like they're beginners. Can you help us out?

This is where I think a golf course can do so much ⁓ good for the entire industry. Those four people or three people in front of your group, they are not trying to ruin your day. That's what we're going to assume. Okay. We're always going to assume positive intent. They're not here to ruin your day. They just don't know any better. Do you realize how many new golfers are out there?

Right? They just don't know. And so the role of the Ranger is really evolving to where the Rangers becoming a coach, the Rangers becoming just almost a teacher ⁓ of the way we get ourselves through a golf course. And so a Ranger can go out there and say, Hey, listen, guys, you know, until you carry a handicap of 10 or less, when you get to double bogey,

We want you to, when you get to double par or when you just simply get to eight strokes, we expect not ask. We expect you to pick up and go to the next hole and move on to the next hole. That might seem a little harsh, but it's just teaching. It's just teaching the group in front of us that this is how we do it. And Hey guys, as I was pulling up, I noticed your carts were parked in front of the green.

Okay, one thing that's gonna help pace a play is when you get to the green to go putt, we always wanna have your carts parked beyond the green, close to the next tee box, ⁓ if you can. And that'll help you move when you're.

done putting that'll help you get to the next tee much quicker and let the next group continue on. So you can see the Rangers becoming a coach, the Rangers becoming an instructor for all these people that are new to the game that frankly just didn't have the benefit of their parents teaching them. Their parents didn't play golf. We went through that generation where the parents didn't play golf.

And so now all these kids that were playing travel baseball seven years ago, they've become golfers. Their parents didn't play golf because they were at all the travel baseball games. And so nobody really got to teach this group how to get around a golf course. ⁓ That's what I'm talking about in that scenario.

Mike Terrell (28:36)
Absolutely. I agree with you.

Mike Hendrix (28:38)
And I'm sure you do. And so you're in the automotive space. You're in the arena space. What is your strongest sector today?

Mike Terrell (28:49)
Strongest is probably ⁓ automotive and fitness. Fitness like Gold's Gyms, for example.

Mike Hendrix (28:57)
Walk us through how it works at a Gold's Gym. How do they use it?

Mike Terrell (29:00)
So similar to when they check in, we set a timer. Everybody usually works out for about an hour. So in about an hour, they'll receive a SMS, a text that says, hey, hey, Mike, thanks for coming in today. On a scale of one to five, how would you rate your experience? So we're collecting reviews that way and Feedback. And then they'll put up around in the common areas, even down to pieces of equipment. If this equipment, if this machine's having issues,

please scan the QR code and let us know. So they can just scan a QR code and it knows what machine it's coming from and they can put in, the belt is wobbly or just basically letting management know about what's going on in the facility. Then obviously in the restrooms and freeways, so just common areas.

Mike Hendrix (29:45)
Yeah.

But you know, I just sitting here thinking you, don't need any integrate. Like if you didn't have an integration with Lightspeed and you didn't get one with foreUP, you didn't get one with GolfNow whatever you're still, your tool is really good in terms of the Real Time Feedback. Like the, they're on the golf course right now. So, so I don't think you need an integration for that. The integration piece comes in with the followup that when you're really efforting to get more reviews than you had previous.

Mike Terrell (30:19)
Exactly. Our first course we launched was Maui Nui and there was no integration and they were getting lots of feedbacks just from the QR codes and what we did, they manually sent us a list of players every few days that we would put in our system to send out the rating request and we took them from a 3.9 to a 4.4 in 90 days.

Mike Hendrix (30:47)
Which yeah, and that's hard to do for those people that don't know. So that's a huge move, yeah.

Mike Terrell (30:54)
Yeah, they're super happy.

Mike Hendrix (30:56)
It's, you know, it's, it's interesting, Mike, I don't know if you know, ⁓ but Reserve with Google, which is kind of part of your Google business profile today in golf reserve with Google is just now turning on Tee Time functionality. So people are actually starting to book from the business profile. ⁓ and, so there is more focus on the business profile right now in golf. The last podcast we did.

was actually with a gentleman in marketing that talked about how to optimize your Google business profile so that chat GPT could read it more effectively and actually start to serve your golf course back as a recommended course based on what chat GPT knew. Well, part of what he said was you want as many reviews in there as you can get because chat GPT understands what's authentic and what isn't authentic.

⁓ And so your tool kind of dovetails really well with what he was talking about because you do want to have, you know, frankly, a lot of activity running through your review channel in the Google sphere, so to speak.

Mike Terrell (32:04)
Yeah, Amazon's done a great job of training everybody on how to shop, That's right. not only the quality of the reviews, but how many. It's Real important.

Mike Hendrix (32:15)
Right.

So I would imagine, ⁓ you know, you talked about, ⁓ some of the, the user experience, the operator experience. would imagine this tool scales really well for a management company, stacking five golf courses together in one console, so to speak, and really understanding how your portfolio is performed.

Mike Terrell (32:37)
Absolutely. Yeah, we have the ability where they can look at all their courses at a bird's eye view and really start honing in on where their deficiencies are. You know, who's trending, ⁓ you know, month over month and ⁓ some of the best reporting I've ever seen.

Mike Hendrix (32:54)
Nice is, you know, not to, you know, we don't want you to say the price out loud, but I mean, is this, it, are you getting pushback from operators that this is cost prohibitive or does it feel like, no, this is pretty affordable compared to what operators are paying for technology throughout their, their, uh, business in golf.

Mike Terrell (33:15)
Yeah, I would say that ⁓ initially, as I started, ⁓ you know, talking to folks in the industry, that our price point seems a little higher than some of our other industries. But ⁓ once they started using the platform, they saw where the value was there, because we are a premium product. And, you know, our pricing can scale depending on how many courses you have. But

The value is definitely there. Tenfold, especially when you start adding up what it means to go from a 4.1 to a 4.5, 4.6 with all those reviews.

Mike Hendrix (33:56)
sure. Talk about the user experience, not the golfer experience, but the operator experience. How is the operator engaging with the platform? He or she is doing it on her phone. You they're just it's just another tab on their desktop computer. Like how how's it work for the operator?

Mike Terrell (34:14)
Yeah, so we have a desktop version where all the feedbacks come in as well as an app that you can have on your phone so you can as they come in you get notifications and you can respond right away. We've got AI built into the response so it helps you take out some of the brain drain of coming up with response every Time we have what we call canned messages. So if it's you know slow play it's already loaded up. You just hit the button so we've taken a lot. We know.

Operators are busy and we need to have an efficient way for them to message back their customers and So we've created that for them and you can have multiple people on your staff Responding so kind of like the three dots when you're sending a text back to someone you see someone else is responding We've got that built in There's five of us and you know, we're all starting. We'll see that someone else is already responding. So

Mike Hendrix (35:04)
Nice

If, if, I don't know if this is something you all thought about or you're doing it with another industry, but if someone did hit up the pro shop and say, says like, send me four transfusions, right? It's a, it's a four some out there. want four transfusions. We're on 12 Tee Do you have the ability to actually complete the sale within your stack or with, or does that, is that going to have to be done, you know, ⁓ through some other means?

Mike Terrell (35:38)
⁓ We need to integrate with whatever they're using, but we couldn't have a button where they could order, have an order form there or menu item ⁓ there where they can order. Not something we really do today. Right, right. Anything's possible, right?

Mike Hendrix (35:50)
Got it.

Yeah. mean, so many people, Mike, in the golf technology world want to be in the payments business, right? Because there's margin there. And so I didn't know if that was something where you all thought like, yeah, and then we're going to make this thing be transactional. Ultimately, you're going to pay for those four transfusions before they show up, you know, ⁓ type of thing.

Mike Terrell (36:20)
We can, we just, that wasn't our model setting out.

Mike Hendrix (36:23)
Of course.

Mike Terrell (36:25)
We're trying to stay in our lane, provide that exceptional experience.

Mike Hendrix (36:27)
Of course.

⁓ we do tend to talk about roadmap here. ⁓ is there more to build? Is there, are there more versions of this to come?

Mike Terrell (36:39)
yeah, we're always building, ⁓ typically through customer requests. So we've got a nice roadmap going ⁓ and we're constantly adding to it. So if someone has an ask, we take a look at it. And if it's usually good for them, it's good for the majority. So we want our dev map and we don't charge. We have a lot of different modules from lost and found ⁓ to ⁓ customer generated content.

We have lots of different modules that add on to this and we don't sell those individually. This is ⁓ kind of an all you can eat model where if there's something you don't want to use, we just turn it off. We don't nickel and dime and charge for different modules and whatnot.

Mike Hendrix (37:28)
Yeah, that's nice. ⁓ In terms of the multi-course operator, ⁓ is there an integration like with Instagram, with other social media platforms that maybe aren't considered so much review platforms, but you could still somehow export the different amounts of Feedback to social platforms?

Mike Terrell (37:55)
yeah, yeah, like I said earlier, our clients can write the rules where they want these to go to.

Mike Hendrix (38:00)
That's excellent. That's excellent. And so what's the future look like for golf? What's the goal? Knock down a couple more integrations, knock down a management company? What's your strategic thought on how you ultimately get this out to the masses in golf?

Mike Terrell (38:18)
Yeah, so we've had lots of conversations with big groups like from Troon to just had a call today with Landscape and looks like Founders is coming on with the course. Give us a try. Basically, we're just looking for, you know, the opportunity to prove what we say we can do, we can do. And we're willing to give ⁓ free pilots away right now so you can see it for yourself.

Mike Hendrix (38:43)
Well, I'll have to find you off to find you a couple of Ohio guys, at least to demo it, you know, and get some Feedback and that kind of thing. I think in the, in the podcast and what we're taping right now, we'll also put some screenshots in of the UI for the operator, you know, understanding how the, the experiences. I think at the end of the day, every operator is worried about

not is it a good idea, but how much Time is it going to take? You know, and I think that that tends Time tends to be such a barrier. ⁓ But if you really prioritize Feedback and really understanding what the golfer experiences on your course, I think what you're doing makes it makes a lot of sense.

Mike Terrell (39:31)
And you know typically we see a handful of feedbacks a day coming in right? It's not like they're gonna be inundated with feedbacks Coming in where that's you know someone's full-time job is to keep up with them It's typically a handful a day as long as you can keep it and using our platform. It's just like texting a friend You know saying you know responding to them, so it's super simple Unless you you know you have a lot of issues, then you might get more than a few handful ⁓

a day, but that's typically what we see.

Mike Hendrix (40:02)
Mike, if somebody says, if an operator says, hey, listen, for whatever reason, the labor market's tight or money is tight or whatever, ⁓ we just don't have Rangers on staff like we used to. How does your tool help me overcome just the lack of Rangers that we have at the golf course today?

Mike Terrell (40:24)
Well, I think it depends on kind of how they're set up. But if I was out on the course and I scan the QR code and I'm in cart five and say, hey, there's a group ahead of us, I'm assuming that proshop is going to know who's in front of us and can reach out to them directly by phone if they don't have someone to send.

Mike Hendrix (40:47)
or, know, Hey, actually we have someone to send. It's just that that person has two or three responsibility. It literally could be somebody that works the grill, right? But also has to multitask because that's just the reality of that particular business.

Mike Terrell (40:58)
Right.

Right.

Right, yeah. We found that most people just want to be heard, you know, in a lot of instances, you know, just letting them know that, thank you for letting us know we're sending someone as soon as we can, you know, thanks for your patience. You know, that goes a long way in defusing a situation as well, just being heard.

Mike Hendrix (41:25)
Hey gang, how great is that? know, just as simple as can be. Hey, a lot of people just want to be heard. Again, maybe your golf course or maybe the way you run your business is just simply transactions. Golfer pays, golfer hits the ball, golfer goes home. Fine. But if you're really in the hospitality business and you just happen to be operating a golf course, find a way

so that the customer feels like they can be heard. Let's not think of everybody as just a golfer, they're a customer, right? Just like you're a customer when you stay in a Hilton or just like you're a customer when you rent an Avis car. Find a way to help your customer be heard. I think that was really good. Getting to the end of this podcast.

Mike Hendrix (42:21)
That's

Can you talk about, ⁓ sometimes tools like yours ultimately turn into also into like a database grower. So I'll give you an example. there are companies that help with like wait lists and whatnot and like, I'm going to get on the wait list. couldn't find the Tee Time I wanted, so I'm going to get, and then there will be operators that are, have, you know, they're using the wait list functionality for two or three months. And they say,

And we have way more just emails in our database than we ever did before. We have way more mobile phone numbers related, you know, tied to golfers than we ever did before. We're able to use that for marketing purposes, et cetera, et cetera. Do you get Feedback like that? Like this turned into a great grower of data that we have on our customers.

Mike Terrell (43:06)
Yeah, I think historically everybody's been using email as the unique identifier for the player, whereby we're looking for the cell number. And so as we start sending out our text messages, we can quickly realize if it's a landline versus a cell number and then let them know at the course, give them a list. OK, here's all your numbers. As they start checking in next Time, start capturing their cell numbers. ⁓

instead of the landlines because we can't really do much with the landlines.

Like you said earlier, we just have a handful of courses right now and we're trying to get a little market share going. We're having lots of conversations. ⁓ The product is proven. We're seeing great results. ⁓ It's just a matter of getting it out there, letting other people use it.

Mike Hendrix (43:55)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's Mike Terrell from, ⁓ Real Time Feedback. Mike, I can't thank you enough for, for hopping on. ⁓ this will be one of those podcasts that we really will try to get into a lot of people's inboxes because it's really, you know, this isn't conceptual, right? This is true blocking and tackling, you know, get this platform, improve the way your golfers are treated on the course, improve your reviews ultimately that everyone can consume. So

To me, it's very black and white. It's easy to understand. So we'll try to get this out to as many people as we can.

Mike Terrell (44:31)
Awesome. Thanks Mike. Really appreciate it. All right, you too.

Mike Hendrix (44:33)
All right, Mike, have a great day.