American Golf

American Golf

American Golf is Europe’s largest golf retailer. With 95 stores in the UK they’ve recently expanded their offering into leisure, including Golf Courses, Driving Ranges, Adventure Golf, and Food and Beverage. As the business continues to grow, robust processes have become a must-have – with the help of game-changing technology to tee them up for success. 

From just 10 users to wide-scale roll-out, SafetyCulture platform has helped American Golf bring their A-game to every store and facility.

We spoke to Curtis Dwyer, Profit Protection Officer and Michael Anderson, Leisure Compliance Manager, about how they used SafetyCulture platform to level up on loss prevention and compliance. 

A Tee-rific Tool

Recently, within their Retail business, the SafetyCulture platform use cases have soared – to now include loss prevention audits, emergency lighting and risk assessments. SafetyCulture platform is also being used by their distribution centers to help prevent issues and retain records. 

The business has also piloted Heads Up, SafetyCulture’s one-stop messaging broadcast center. The feature allows organizations to record short videos or image-based messaging and send them out to team members – all at the click of a button. 

Heads Up helps American Golf remind their stores of the product count of the week – the store teams are then able to acknowledge within SafetyCulture platform they’ve understood the message. And the result? Improved store accountability, as the Head Office has visibility of who has and hasn’t seen the message – and can take action accordingly. 

And it’s not just the Profit Protection team leveraging SafetyCulture platform – the marketing team now have plans to start using it to maintain brand standards. Through floor walks and inspections, they’re now able to distribute Heads Up messaging about point of sale merchandising and utilize inspections to process staff discounts.

Staying ahead of the game

Not only is SafetyCulture platform giving the team the ability to proactively prevent shrinkage and protect brand standards, it’s also allowing them to react quickly in unexpected situations. For example, recently a batch of products was damaged. Once the supplier notified American Golf, Curtis and his team were able to jump into SafetyCulture platform and create a template swiftly – in just 5 minutes. This was then distributed out to their stores to initiate a stock count and remove the damaged products to return back to the supplier. 

Teeing up for success with tech

As American Golf continues to expand in the UK, Michael Anderson, Leisure Compliance Manager, has been integral in setting up the leisure arm of the business. With SafetyCulture platform, he was ready to create processes that were robust, timestamped and paperless.

Starting from scratch, Michael was presented with the “perfect opportunity” to cultivate digital processes within the Leisure team. From food safety records to maintenance logs, the team is able to maintain high standards and compliance – receiving 5-star hygiene ratings. Michael believes American Golf’s digital-first approach gave them “a much better chance” of attaining and retaining such hygiene ratings because their use of SafetyCulture platform demonstrates how seriously they are taking safety as a business.

Team engagement is everything 

Teams in stores and across facilities are seeing first hand how easy SafetyCulture platform is to use. Before, it was taking management long periods of time to check paper documentation – now easily available to them at the click of a button.

The digital aspect has also meant the business has not suffered from a gap in record keeping due to limits on regional management travel during the pandemic. Scheduled inspections in the tool help keep store and facility managers on track, protecting the overall reputation of the business. 

And not only is SafetyCulture platform being utilized on the frontline, the team is also leveraging analytics to report on top-level statistics, including these in board packs provided to Chief Executives.

It’s all in the details 

The wide-scale visibility that the tool is giving management is also helping them engage with other features of the product such as Issues and Actions. Off the back of store visits, management is setting store actions to rectify non-compliances and using the SafetyCulture platform Issues feature to help their stores raise any maintenance issues.  

Not only is SafetyCulture highlighting non-compliance, it’s also shining a light on those stores and facilities that are operating at the top of the game, making it easy for Head Office to reward top scoring stores. 

Without a doubt, American Golf has undergone a digital transformation with its use of SafetyCulture platform. They have set the standard when it comes to proactive and reactive compliance and loss prevention in Retail and Leisure. They’re reaping the benefits through reduced inspection times, decreased shrinkage and improved brand reputation. 

So, what’s next?

Their digital compliance and loss prevention ambitions don’t just stop here. Michael is looking at how they can be using SafetyCulture platform in conjunction with sensors to monitor fridge freezers across their Leisure facilities. And Curtis is exploring how the Issues QR code could be harnessed in stores to allow employees and customers alike to raise issues even without a SafetyCulture account. 

The team has praised the onboarding, account management and ongoing training that has been provided by SafetyCulture to enable them in their digital inspection transformation. Michael believes SafetyCulture platform is “game-changing from a retail perspective”.