A Thriving New Spartan Existence

The University Club of Michigan State’s Web site wasn’t built in a day—and that’s why it’s leading to new prosperity.

by Joe Barks (editor@clubandresortbusiness.com)
July 2007
 

Academic types are schooled to be skeptical until they see proof. The same could be expected of managers of academically oriented private clubs, such as the University Club of Michigan State University (UC-MSU), in Lansing, Mich. And it would hold that the burden of proof would be doubled when those managers are also distinguished college professors, as is the case with the UC-MSU’s General Manager, Richard Bruner, who teaches a senior-level course in Club Management at MSU’s School of Hospitality Business.

So it didn’t figure, after the club went live with a new Web site (www.universityclubofmsu.org ) in early April, that Bruner and his staff would be ready to confirm its value anytime soon. Once the switch was flipped, though, it took all of 18 hours for the UC-MSU team to have the proof it needed to become believers.

“We went live on a Thursday afternoon at 3:30,” reports Liz Latoszewski, who was appointed Project Manager and Webmaster to work with Clubessential on the site’s development. “When I came in the next morning at nine o’clock, one of our banquet managers was waiting to tell me she’d received an online booking for a very large wedding reception when she opened her e-mail.”

New banquet bookings continued to show up regularly through the first few days, as well as a flood of requests for membership information that caused the club’s Membership Director to “complain” to Latoszewski that “the Web site is working too well.”

The site’s welcome page fronts a full package of info on all aspects of club life.

In the three months since, the evidence has only become more overwhelming. “It’s clearly created a new ‘buzz’ among our members, who seem very excited about the interactive features now available to them on the site—photo galleries, billing statements and daily chits, and the ability to update their personal data in a secure environment,” Latoszewski says. “The [electronic] newsletters that we now generate have also been well-received as a more up-to-the-minute form of communication; we are getting reservations and event sign-ups as a direct result of members receiving the bulletins.”

Extra Packing
The time and effort taken to build the new UC-MSU site and pack it with information and features before it was launched was just as impressive as the rapid and rampant reaction after it went live, and a major reason for such a prompt and positive effect.

“We took a full six months [to build it],” says Latoszewski. “It’s a more extensive site that needs a lot more pages to cover everything than your average club’s. We have over 1,800 member families, plus affiliations with the university’s College of Business conference center, a hotel and the MSU Forest Akers Golf Courses.

“Plus, we wanted to take the time needed to try to think of everything up front,” she adds. “We took a lot of pictures and even scanned blueprints of all of our rooms, so we could provide downloadable PDFs of floor plans.”

While the UC-MSU team tried to think of everything up front, staff members have also been pleased to find, now that the site is up and running, how easy it’s been to adapt new do-it-yourself features and upgrades that Clubessential offers as part of its ongoing administrative services.

“They make it very easy, through links and uploads, to access and adapt the new enhancements they’re always coming up with,” says Latoszewski. The only “problem,” she adds, is that “sometimes I can’t get new materials loaded fast enough—one idea leads to another, and then another.”

Photo galleries that are posted almost as soon as events end have proved especially popular; confining them to the section of the site that only members can access eliminates concerns about security or clearances.

Getting Everyone’s Vote
All of the extra care that was taken first on the front end, and then after the site launch, has paid off with a comprehensive, well-organized and structured site that’s packed with information, yet remains clutter-free and easy to navigate. Latoszewski reports universal acceptance among site users.

The most gratifying reactions, though, have come from the club’s older members accessing the site. “We were concerned they might be disenfranchised, but they’ve been the most positive of all in their response,” she says. “We’ve gotten more phone calls from [older members] who are thrilled that they know how to ‘do it’ and now want to show it to their friends, too.”

In just three months, in fact, use of the new site has already climbed to such high levels that the UC-MSU staff is confident it will achieve one of its primary goals: making a big dent in the volume of paper needed to communicate with members.

“We print an annual ‘Summer Fun’ guide that is 50 pages,” Latoszewski says. “Already, based on the number of downloads [of its electronic version], we can tell we’ll need to print a lot fewer copies next year. That, plus all the other mailings we’re going to minimize through electronic statements and newsletters, will add up to huge savings.”
Even more proof of success (not that it’s needed).