Every private club surveys its members. Very few do it well. The typical club survey is a sprawling, 60-question marathon that takes 25 minutes to complete, generates a barely valid response rate, and produces a 40-page report that sits in a binder on the general manager’s shelf until the next survey cycle rolls around three years later.
Meanwhile, the handful of questions that actually predict whether a member will renew or resign are buried somewhere on page four — if they’re included at all.
Organizations like Club Benchmarking, McMahon Group, and GGA Partners have spent decades analyzing what drives loyalty in private clubs, and their research points to a clear conclusion: most clubs are asking too many questions that don’t matter and not enough questions that do.
Why Most Club Surveys Fail
The fundamental problem with traditional member surveys is that they confuse satisfaction measurement with operational feedback. Knowing that members rate the golf course maintenance a 4.2 out of 5 is useful information for your superintendent — but it tells you almost nothing about whether those members plan to renew their memberships next year.
Satisfaction and loyalty are not the same thing. Club Benchmarking’s published research on member loyalty demonstrates that place attachment — the emotional connection a member feels to the club — functions as the bridge between satisfaction and loyalty. A member can be perfectly satisfied with the facilities and services but weakly attached to the club itself. That member is far more likely to resign than a member with strong attachment, even if the attached member has specific complaints about the food or the pace of play.
This distinction matters because most surveys measure only satisfaction. They ask members to rate amenities, services, and staff — all of which produce useful operational data but miss the deeper question: Does this member feel like the club is an essential part of their life?
The Satisfaction Gap That Predicts Churn
Data from a McMahon Group survey of more than 83,000 private club members reveals a critical insight that should reshape how every club thinks about survey design. Forty percent of members describe themselves as “very satisfied” with their club, while 49% are “satisfied.” On the surface, that looks like 89% satisfaction — a number most boards would celebrate.
But the gap between “satisfied” and “very satisfied” is where retention risk lives. Among members who are “very satisfied,” 47% strongly agree they receive good membership value. Among members who are merely “satisfied,” only 6% feel the same way — nearly an eightfold difference. Very satisfied members are also dramatically more likely to recommend the club to friends and colleagues, which directly fuels the referral pipeline that most clubs depend on for new member recruitment.
The takeaway is clear: clubs should not be satisfied with “satisfied.” The goal is to push the percentage of “very satisfied” members above 50% — and you can’t manage what you don’t measure.
The 7 Questions That Actually Predict Retention
Based on research from Club Benchmarking, McMahon Group, GGA Partners, and decades of behavioral science, here are the seven survey questions that most strongly predict whether a member will renew or resign — and the rationale behind each one.
1. “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend membership at this club to a friend or colleague?”
This is the Net Promoter Score question, and it remains the single most predictive question in any member survey. Members who score 9 or 10 (Promoters) are your retention base and referral engine. Members who score 0 through 6 (Detractors) are active churn risks. Yet GGA Partners research found that only 14% of clubs currently track it. Among clubs that do, the average NPS is +64 — well above the global cross-industry average of +32, according to SurveyMonkey benchmark data from more than 150,000 organizations.
2. “How likely are you to renew your membership when it comes due?”
The most direct retention question you can ask — and it’s remarkable how many clubs omit it. Members who answer “somewhat unlikely” or “very unlikely” need immediate outreach from the general manager or membership director, not a survey committee. A phone call within 48 hours can prevent a resignation that no post-departure analysis could reverse.
3. “How would you rate the overall value of your membership compared to the cost?”
Value perception is the lever that separates members who stay from members who leave. This question captures whether the total membership experience — not any single amenity — justifies the financial commitment. When value scores decline, it’s rarely because the club got worse. It’s usually because the member’s usage patterns changed and nobody noticed.
4. “How connected do you feel to other members at the club?”
This measures social bonding — one of four components of place attachment identified in Club Benchmarking’s research. A member who has a regular foursome, a tennis partner, and friends at the bar has built social infrastructure that’s painful to abandon. A member who uses the club alone is always one bad month away from questioning the value of dues.
5. “How well does the club reflect your personal values and lifestyle?”
This measures place identity — defined in Club Benchmarking’s framework as how closely a member’s personal values align with the club’s values and culture. It captures cultural alignment, which is increasingly important as clubs attract younger and more diverse memberships. When members feel the club’s identity doesn’t match their own, no amount of facility upgrades will prevent their departure.
6. “How often do you use the club in a typical month?”
Usage frequency is the strongest behavioral predictor of retention. McMahon Group’s research across more than 1,500 surveys confirms that the more members use the club, the higher their perceived value and the less likely they are to resign. This question converts subjective satisfaction into objective behavior — and when usage declines, it’s often the first warning sign that a resignation is coming, sometimes months before the member themselves has consciously decided to leave.
7. “If you could change one thing about the club, what would it be?”
Open-ended questions are often dismissed as hard to analyze, but this one frequently surfaces insights no rating scale can capture — the parking situation that frustrates members every weekend, the reservation system that doesn’t work, the programming that skews too old or too young. When the same issue appears in 30% of responses, you’ve found your highest-impact improvement opportunity.
Response Rate: The Number That Validates Everything Else
A survey is only as good as its response rate. A 15% response rate produces data that’s functionally useless — the members who respond are systematically different from those who don’t.
McMahon Group consistently achieves response rates above 50% across the private clubs they survey. That’s the benchmark. Anything below 40% should raise serious questions about whether results reflect your full membership.
The tactics that drive response rates are well established. McMahon Group’s comprehensive surveys typically run 14 to 15 pages and take members 15 to 20 minutes to complete — a length that works because members are invested in their clubs. Shorter pulse surveys of three to five questions should take no more than a few minutes.
Timing and Frequency
The question of when and how often to survey is less complicated than most clubs make it. Industry best practice suggests two complementary approaches running in parallel.
First, a comprehensive satisfaction and loyalty survey conducted on a regular cycle — timed for the end of peak season, typically September or October. This captures the full spectrum of the member experience and gives management the off-season to implement improvements.
Second, shorter pulse surveys — three to five questions, delivered quarterly or after major events — that track trends in real time. If you renovated the dining room based on member feedback, a pulse survey three months after reopening tells you whether the investment landed. GGA Partners recommends tracking NPS metrics at minimum annually through surveys of this type.
McMahon Group’s comprehensive surveys are typically initiated in cycles of three to five years for deep strategic assessment. The worst approach is the one too many clubs default to: surveying once every five years with nothing in between.
The Questions That Waste Everyone’s Time
Not all survey questions are created equal. Here are the categories that consume survey real estate without producing actionable insight — and that actively reduce response rates by making the survey feel longer and less relevant.
Granular amenity ratings without context. Asking members to rate 15 individual aspects of the golf course produces data that’s useful for your superintendent but tells the board nothing about loyalty. Move this level of detail to a separate, optional department-specific survey.
Demographic questions you already know. Your membership database contains each member’s age, tenure, and family composition. Don’t ask them to re-enter it. Pre-populate from your records.
Hypothetical spending questions. “Would you pay more for an upgraded pool?” Members say yes in surveys and vote no in capital assessments. Willingness-to-pay data is notoriously unreliable.
Questions about services members don’t use. If a member doesn’t play tennis, asking them to rate the tennis program muddies your analysis. Use conditional logic to skip irrelevant sections.
Acting on Results: Where Most Clubs Drop the Ball
The survey itself is only half the equation. The other half — and the half that most clubs botch — is what happens after the data comes in.
Desert Highlands in Scottsdale provides a historical case study worth examining. A 2005 McMahon Group survey of the club’s membership found that 93% of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied — compared to 78% at other clubs McMahon had recently surveyed. The club shared those results transparently with members, highlighting areas where scores dipped alongside specific plans to address them.
The highest-impact approach is to identify three to five priorities — the issues that appeared most frequently in open-ended responses or showed the largest gap between your scores and industry benchmarks — and communicate a clear timeline for addressing each one.
The Retention Math That Justifies Better Surveys
If the case for better surveys still feels abstract, consider the math. According to CMAA’s 2022 Finance and Operations Report, median annual attrition is 4.3% for golf and country clubs, 3.3% for city and athletic clubs, and 3.7% for yacht clubs. While those figures may appear manageable, industry analysts warn they reflect pandemic-era lows and could return to — or exceed — historical norms.
GGA Partners benchmarks typical natural attrition for private clubs at 5% to 8% — a reminder that today’s CMAA figures may be artificially low. Data from membership sales firm Capstone Hospitality found that average resignation totals across their client clubs increased 63% in 2023 compared to 2022, signaling that the post-pandemic membership surge is unwinding and that retention can no longer be taken for granted.
Every prevented resignation saves not just one year of dues but the full lifetime value of that membership — plus the cost of recruiting a replacement. The seven questions outlined above won’t solve every challenge your club faces. But they will tell you which members are at risk, why they’re at risk, and what you can do about it before the resignation letter arrives. In an industry where member attachment is the bridge between satisfaction and loyalty, asking the right questions isn’t just good practice. It’s essential strategy.
