Tournament CFO Praises Ease of Implementation, Gift Card, Simplified Cashier Training, Customer Service

Dear ECRS,

Although our namesake and TOUR player greeter was noticeably absent from the 18th hole, this year’s EDS Byron Nelson Championship had many unique moments as we honored Byron Nelson and celebrated the tournament that bears his name. I personally want to thank ECR Software Corporation for being one of our charity partners and for supporting what continues to be a premier PGA TOUR charity event.

We had some good luck with only one day of monsoons and high winds, and some bad luck with some failed greens. We also reached a major milestone as our on-course merchandise golf shops hit record sales for the third consecutive year, thanks to the support of the CATAPULT software.

Why the Byron Nelson Continues to Choose ECRS & CATAPULT

This is our fifth year partnering with ECR Software Corporation and I must say, the CATAPULT software continues to play a key role in allowing us to achieve our operational objectives. As a once-a-year retailer, we have to be agile. This software continues to have a rock solid platform with rapid implementation and easy to program functionality. It has powerful multi-store capabilities as we incorporated the CATAPULT point-of-sale system into three on-course merchandise shops with a total of eighteen registers.

How CATAPULT Has Streamlined Our Processes

Our volunteers work under extreme pressure to manage $1.5 million in retail merchandise over a five day period. Using the CATAPULT software has allowed us to manage merchandise assortments relative to customer demand and current product mix, not only between multiple stores, but also through analyzing nightly sales and inventory reports, allowing vendors enough time to reorder hot items. All information is transferred overnight to a headquarters office where the comprehensive reportability is an absolute pleasure compared to our previous method of manual inventory counts. The system saves countless hours in bookkeeping time and sales tabulations.

How CATAPULT Has Increased Our Revenues

In 2006, the tournament ventured into the next expansion of the retail environment by integrating CATAPULT’s electronic gift card program. In previous years, the tournament provided their VIP ticket purchasers with gifts picked by the tournament. This was replaced with the gift card allowing the customer to pick out his/her own gift. This robust solution has proven to be a great way to draw spectators into our merchandise golf shops and increase our profits. Redeeming gift cards is simple. Scan the items, scan the gift card, print a receipt and you're done. Any amount unspent remains on the card for future purchases and the balance is printed on the receipt.

How CATAPULT Has Improved Our Customer Service

By incorporating this automated retail software system into our on-site merchandise shops, our customer services have noticeably improved through the use of the bar coding and touch screen features which provide for quick checkout. The hourly sales reports show our customer count served on the last day was 510 with $39,385 in sales for one given hour. We averaged $7-12,000 an hour with a 150 customer count during our week long event. The hourly sales reports have given us the ability to provide appropriate hourly staffing. Our average wait time was less than 2 minutes. I can’t imagine handling this checkout load without the use of your program. Being a five day event, with over 250,000 in attendance, accuracy and checkout time are of the essence.

Byron Nelson was a true gentleman and exemplified everything that is good about the great game of golf. Though his presence will be sorely missed, his work for the kids continues. Since 1969, this tournament has raised more than $92 million to aid vulnerable children and their families, making it the leader in PGA TOUR events in charitable contributions. We anticipate reaching the $100 million mark with this year’s results.

Thank you for your generous support of this amazing annual event.

Very truly yours,

Teri Isaacs Jones, CFO
Salesmanship Club of Dallas