The Union Club of Cleveland’s Lawrence McFadden, CMC, GM/COO, explains how the club has taken a virtual approach to member engagement during the coronavirus.
People join clubs to be a part of a group with common interests and to engage with fellow members and also with the staff. There is a unique and special bond between staff and members that includes a recognizable face, the confidence that we are going to care for one another, and the pride that someone knows one’s interests, preferences and needs.
Growing up at the Greenbrier as a young chef, I didn’t have the privilege of interacting with the guests of the hotel daily or even monthly. Traditionally, the service staff and the culinary professionals were forward facing to the guests and if the rest of us were noticed, it was only by face.
Often while sitting with experienced, tenured captains or servers, I would hear them tell stories about the generations they serviced during their years of employment. Watching and greeting families as they grew and extended as the years passed brought them a sense of purpose and continuity. Americans are habitual, so the pilgrimage to the Greenbrier year after year became a family tradition passed down through generations.
Staff plays a unique role in the dance of hospitality. We are the historians of our members’ needs, wants and likes. We silently mentor members through new menu changes, uncomfortable situations or personal life chapters. We become extended family.
Having lunch with members last month, one had water without ice, I had warm water in a water glass, and one had no water. All of this was executed before a greeting was ever extended or the daily special recited. These are the unexpected wishes and needs met that members pay their membership fee for. Add to these preferences a smile and the phrase, “it’s my pleasure,” and magic has truely been created.
Recently during the coronavirus challenge, we have found an opportunity to connect with our members in a new way. We have taken the greatest member value proposition our staff has and placed them interactively into their homes on their terms. We are bringing their personalities into the shelter-at-home state directive with a Virtual Club Connect.
Emotionally, we are able to engage with the members as we have each day for the past 148 years of the Club’s existence inside our clubhouse.
On April 2nd we sent out our first virtual Club Connect. It included cooking, fitness and beverage talents in the homes and businesses of our members. We even created a master of ceremony, a unique personality from the front desk, Sandra, to introduce the program.
Club Connect was a happy hour like event held each month at the club. So its transition into a virtual event made obvious sense. To date, producing a handful of Club Connects and adding an extensive video library of the various talents of our staff and interests of our members, we will continue to produce messaging each week, long after the virus has subsided.
Most great leaders will tell you that creativity or adjusted business models came out of caustic business or personal situations. Problems create solutions, and often those solutions become the norm for the future. This is simply, as they would say, “Living on life’s terms.”
While standing in the lobby last year, an Indian woman was expressing interest in joining the club. Kochi was her birthplace and was one of my first spice trips. The conversation led us up the entire continent and a week later she joined the Club. Engagement can’t be found on the profit and loss sheet and often under the term of productivity, many companies’ truth to value see these simple conversations as unproductive.
The simple act of social distancing has challenged our Club to move forward with digital, virtual and paperless processes for the next generation of members. While many of our members still like reading a book, utilizing a checkbook, or a reservations book, there is a growing need and desire to engage in ways we have never done before and to leverage technology to do so.
In reflection, while convenience is a key to technology, my professional hope is that members will still come to the Club to gather, break bread and enjoy conversations versus sitting at home, connecting on a tablet. Both are engagement, and individually both have their merits, but dining brings soul to our clubhouse.
A virtual smile and thanks is the greatest gift we can give to another human being. Please enjoy watching our staff creating member experiences in a new and different format.
