We've launched the new forums! Read more here

Review Club Champion Full Bag Fitting - Disappointed

Nippon Shafts
OldeDude

OldeDude

--Still Alive and Well--
Albatross 2024 Club
Joined
Jul 2, 2018
Messages
8,736
Reaction score
10,483
Location
Sierra Foothills, CA
Handicap
--17--
So I took advantage of the recent special at Club Champion, the $100 Full Bag Fitting to celebrate them opening their 100th location, and I have to say that it was the first time I've been really disappointed with them. My fitting was last Saturday at the Roseville, CA location, where I've previously had iron and putter fittings, I've also had a Club Champion driver fitting at another location, so I'm pretty familiar with their process. My fitter was Brandon, who was pretty new, saying that he and the other two fitters had only been there around three months (maybe high turnover at this location?). Anyway, here's how the fitting went:

Interview
I had filled out the Pre-Fit Questionnaire, and during the pre-fit interview I let Brandon know the following:
  • I was taking advantage of the $100 Full Bag Fitting Special, and really didn't expect to be buying any new clubs.
  • My current driver is not one I was fit into, so driver was first priority, and the one area I really would expect to see real improvement.
  • I have never been fitted for Fairway or Hybrid, so that was second priority. I'm happy with my current fairway and hybrid, although the long clubs are a weakness in my game, so I'm open to finding anything that might help.
  • I've never done a wedge fitting, so would be interested in going through the process even though I am pretty happy with my current wedges.
  • I am happy with my irons, but would like to hit some of the newer models, mine are 2019, just to give them a go, and you never know, we might find that special something.
  • I just did a putter fitting last year, so if we didn't get around to that it wouldn't matter.
Driver
After a short warmup I hit my driver to get a baseline, then we started things off with the Cobra LTDx Max, I haven't received the data from the fitting yet, so I'm not sure on just what heads and shafts we tried, but he decided right away to change heads. We were seeing very high spin, both with my driver and the Max, Brandon said my OTT swing was a big cause of this, so he changed to the LTDx LS. We went through several shafts, finally settling on the Fujikura Ventus TR Blue 5R. Moving into a good variety of heads we found the best results with the Ping G425 LST 10.5*, which was considerably better than all others, including my gamer, with the Ventus shaft we were getting good dispersion, +25 yards over my gamer, and spin down to a very good level. On a side note, I had asked to try some heads that he hadn't initially gone with, specifically Ben Hogan and Tour Edge Exotics, and he said they didn't have those.​

Hybrid
I hit some baseline shots with my current 20* hybrid, then Brandon handed me I believe a Titelist TSi3 hybrid, which I didn't hit too well. He changed it out to I think a TSi2, which I didn't hit any better, so he decided to go a different direction, handing me a Srixon ZX #3 (20*) Utility Iron, which I hit really well. We tried a few shafts, settling on a MCA C6 Black 60R.​

Fairway
I'm not sure why, but we went right into the fairway without doing a baseline with mine. I'm not sure which we started with, but Brandon wanted to try a higher lofted "3", going with 16.5*. I told him that would work for me, since that is what I've gamed for years. We tried a few heads and shafts, ending up with the Callaway Rogue ST Max 3HL with a Nemesys 65R shaft. I hit that combo pretty well, but I'm not sure it was really any better than my gamer.​
​
Brandon then cleaned up the area a bit, putting shafts and heads away, sat down and asked me about what grips I preferred, and put together a quote for the driver, fairway, and Utility Iron. He put on a pretty hard sell for me to at least purchase the driver. Once I had him convinced that I wasn't buying any new clubs right away, as I had said in the interview, he made it pretty clear that we were done. We had been at it for a bit over two hours, and never touched any irons or wedges. I'm sure I could have pushed to do more, but I really felt that he had checked out, and pushing to continue wouldn't have been worth the effort.

I've been out of town since the fitting, just got home yesterday, but I called Club Champion this morning to talk to Customer Service about a few things. For one thing, Brandon hasn't yet emailed me the data, which I specifically asked for at the end of the fitting, so I asked for that. Another was I asked if they could send me the quote, I have the spec sheet on what they quoted, but it isn't priced out. I then talked to them a bit on my abbreviated fitting, and tried to get a feel for what is going on since I've heard of others being less than satisfied with the experience of the $100 special. The CS agent said he was sorry that the fitting was less than I expected, but was otherwise very noncommittal with his responses. As I expected, the fitters are on commission, so I can see how they might be less motivated when someone comes in with little expectation of making a sale. That doesn't make it right, you are still paying for the service of getting fit, and they should give the same level of professionalism whether you paid $100 or $400 for your fitting, and whether or not it ends up in a sale. As I told the Customer Service agent, I think that their $100 special might have backfired on them a bit, because if many of their fitters provide the experience I had they just might lose some business rather than gain some.
 
My CC fitting in 2019 was similar regarding the lack of listening to me and the hard sell. I paid full price for my fitting. At least they did email me the data afterward.

My opinion is that if they charge anything whatsoever, they owe the customer 100% professionalism. If charging a lower than normal fee impairs their ability to offer proper service, then they don't need to make such offers. Having been in a service business myself for many years, I know that service customers base the vast majority of their satisfaction upon their opinion of the service provider, not necessarily on the outcome of the service itself. It's a shame that so many in service industries fail to recognize this fact, and the impact it has on future business. Their CS agent's response to your issues just made matters worse.
 
sternalot said:
"Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome" - Charlie Munger
Click to expand...
I actually never thought about if the fitters were on commission or not until after this experience. Thinking about it after the fact though got me thinking to ask the CS rep. 🤷‍♂️
 
They are still by far the leaders in this space. Are sitting on a gold mine. And continue to get greedy. It's going to happen here and there with their commission based model, but it seems to be getting more frequent and no surprise the $100 special customers are being treated like this.

I'd no doubt ask for my money back if you didn't even get a full fitting. Yeesh.
 
If they don’t want folks to come in and test gear without buying they need to raise their prices to prevent that from happening and provide a bigger discount to that fitting price when people do buy.
 
I have to agree with the disappointment, and I paid full price.

I had a day where my swing was atypical and I was visually frustrated and questioning the value of the results after the first 20 minutes. He should have told me to go home and come back another day but instead kept trying to upsell me on clubs for the next 90 minutes, where the results were negligibly better or worse (still terrible). We were looking at averages, which he explained was to fix the bad swings just as much as optimizing the good ones, but results were all over the place and it was impossible to tell a cohesive story from the data. He would walk away for 10 minutes at a time, not watching me hit, and then come back to look at the results and speak to me like I didn't know a thing about clubs. I never received the post-fitting data either, where I at least could have separated and categorized the "max potential" for each club, ball flight, and been analytical about finding trends of why my hits were doing what they were doing.

I felt like I knew too much about the data to be the targeted demographic for a fitting, since I understood what I was looking at and disagreed with the way they were trying to spin certain numbers into a sell -- big focus on max distance, not even carry, when my trajectory was noticeably way too low and would never hold a green.

That was actually the second fitting (the first was not at CC, and was a bit of a better experience). I'm not sold on the fitting process at all, or at least their motives when fitting me. I'm sure it would be more enjoyable now that I can string 10 quality swings together in a row, but I can't see the benefit of a 25 handicapper getting fit except for loft/lie which they do for you at most demo days.
 
Been to a CC twice and wasnt impressed either time. Had a better time at GG fittings
 
baylrballa said:
They are still by far the leaders in this space.
Click to expand...

I think they win on distribution (locations) and are in the top tier of having a consistently large fitting matrix. More and more becoming clear that they are not leaders when it comes to fitting talent/expertise.

That last piece is obviously INCREDIBLY challenging, so that’s not a dig at their employees necessarily. I think it is more a function of management/investors clearly and meaningfully prioritizing location growth over product quality.
 
I had a CC putter fitting about 2 years ago that left a lot to be desired. Could have been that I came in with a prepaid coupon but the entire process was rushed and I was given a couple of recommendations. Never was asked if I would like to try any of the recommended models so I asked if I could try one of the models and did get to roll a few in the stock setup. The information I received via the SAM Lab results was the only good part of the experience.
 
I went into my full bag CC fitting informing the fitter that I was going to the Grandaddy in 12 months. I would not be getting a new driver, but wanted to test them, really wanted wedges, and wanted to test irons, driver, and putter. The fitter was very generous with his time and we went well over the 3.5 hours. They didn’t pressure me much to buy irons because I said I’d be back if I decided to, but they did push hard for $60 upcharge shafts in the 3 wedges I was ordering. I didn’t want or need the shafts or the puring and ultimately picked up the wedges from them with no upcharge shafts. I’d have no issue going back, but I’m not sure it would be my first choice with other options in my area.
 
Man these reviews are having me worried about my $100 fitting on July 9th. My only hope is that I'm heading to their headquarters store (Willowbrook, IL). Yet it seems like many who are doing it more to see where we can improve and aren't really looking to purchase a full bag may be getting shoved out because of the deal.
 
I'm not completely giving up on Club Champion, this was my fourth fitting with them, one of the previous was a pretty good experience (driver), the other two were very good experiences (putter & irons). I've only bought one club from them, and that was a stock putter that they sold for the standard retail price. Everything else it seems that their prices are through the roof. I get that they are custom builds, and for instance for a driver they charge for the stock driver plus the high end shaft, with no discount for the stock shaft that you're not getting, but in this case they quoted me a good 20% - 25% above what the Fujikura site says is MSRP for the Ventus shaft.

The commission model might also explain why the recommended choice is often the most expensive, and the shafts that are tried during the fitting aren't shafts that would be no upcharge shafts from the OEM. Back when I had my iron fitting, the recommended irons were Honmas, which were way more expensive than the Mizunos and Taylormades that were really close in performance. Shafts for the irons they went to the more expensive Steelfiber shafts and not even hitting the less expensive Recoils with a similar profile.
 
Friend of mine won a driver from our course. He went to Cc and paid for a driver fit, he was upfront in that he wasn’t purchasing.

during the fitting my friend reported that the fitter wasn’t super interested and he walked away less than impressed.
I understand that most of their pay comes from commission so someone saying they aren’t going to buy can be a tough pill to swallow.. but if it was me I would give 100% then hope the customer either changes their mind or is impressed enough that they tell friends or return and want to fit/purchase other parts of the bag.

Giving poor service is going to make sure you don’t make a sale that day and likely not ever from this customer or any of their playing partners.
 
I realize that most really here like CC and I'm glad they've been pleased the results. Also, I understand the pros and cons of the commission model. What I'm saying is that some fitters push the commission model to its extremes. I paid full price for a full bag fitting. Upfront I told my fitter that my main concern was irons. To give him his due, he told me that nothing at the time was outperforming my gamer driver, which was a Ping G30. I wanted input on fairways, hybrids, wedges, and putter, but was focused primarily on irons.

I won't bore you with the details of my fitting. Let's just say I was extremely displeased and quite frankly left feeling conned, especially since I later emailed them my concerns and never heard a word back. If he had listened to me regarding the irons and had backed off the hard sell a bit, I'm fairly certain I would have bought the irons from CC. Later, I also would have likely bought other clubs from them as well. Que sera sera.
 
If the fitters are on commission, they probably hate the $100 special. But it's something Corporate is promoting, so they grin and bear it. I'm sure they hear "I'm not planning to buy anything today' a lot. Just like most buyers at a car dealership say, 'they are just looking.' He probably hoped that was just something to take the pressure off and if you found value in the process, you'd be willing to buy. And liklely felt like things were going well when he found a driver that performed much better than yours.

I know the model isn't viable, but I'd rather pay a fitter a rate for their time that they feel is worth it, but still have the ability to test a wide selection. And have the purchase be a totally unrelated transaction.
 
Oof, starting to sound pretty hit or miss especially with the $100 deal. Both my wife and I have scheduled fittings in two weeks at the San Carlos, CA location. We're a good hour away and giving up a day on the course for this, so hoping it turns out good.
 
Such a bummer that people keep having these experiences with the $100 fitting. I was really looking forward to mine because it would be my first 'real' fitting. I wanted to start to learn more about different shafts and they seem to have the most varied inventory in shafts. Now it's something I'm dreading. I'll likely end up just canceling it altogether. I don't want to be treated like garbage. It sounds like their fitters are actually salespeople and that makes it highly unlikely that the consumer is going to end up with a positive experience.

It's sounding more and more like CC is going to lose more than they are gaining with this promotion. What a shame.
 
That post said:
Such a bummer that people keep having these experiences with the $100 fitting. I was really looking forward to mine before last week. Now it's something I'm dreading. I'll likely end up just canceling it altogether. I don't want to be treated like garbage. It sounds like their fitters are actually salespeople and that makes it highly unlikely that the consumer is going to end up with a positive experience.

It's sounding more and more like CC is going to lose more than they are gaining with this promotion. What a shame.
Click to expand...
It is a shame. Were I a CC exec, I'd be highly interested in the customer feedback being voiced in this thread and others. The $100 fitting promotion obviously is intended to attract new customers but, if the feedback here is any indication, it is generating a disproportionate amount of negative word-of-mouth.
 
I'm super conflicted too. Callaway's 50% bonus trade in has me doing some serious pondering on just ordering some Apex 21 DCB's with the Recoil Darts and be done with it. (Still need to address the hybrids, but pretty happy otherwise.) 🤷‍♂️

Edit to add: Since I've never been in front of any kind of launch monitor, I'm going to stick it out just to see what my numbers are and see where it goes.
 
Last edited:
Puttmaster said:
It is a shame. Were I a CC exec, I'd be highly interested in the customer feedback being voiced in this thread and others. The $100 fitting promotion obviously is intended to attract new customers but, if the feedback here is any indication, it is generating a disproportionate amount of negative word-of-mouth.
Click to expand...

You just have to be strong and say “sorry not ready to purchase. Give me my data and recommendations and I’ll put some serious thought into your quote.”

Nobody likes saying no but when they’re putting the hard sale on, it gets easier.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
That post said:
Such a bummer that people keep having these experiences with the $100 fitting. I was really looking forward to mine because it would be my first 'real' fitting. I wanted to start to learn more about different shafts and they seem to have the most varied inventory in shafts. Now it's something I'm dreading. I'll likely end up just canceling it altogether. I don't want to be treated like garbage. It sounds like their fitters are actually salespeople and that makes it highly unlikely that the consumer is going to end up with a positive experience.

It's sounding more and more like CC is going to lose more than they are gaining with this promotion. What a shame.
Click to expand...
I really didn't intend for this review to turn anyone away from Club Champion, but maybe as another example of how things could end up not meeting your expectations. I'm sure it's likely many are having great experiences with the $100 deal, maybe just go at it a different way to minimize the possibility of being disappointed. 🤷‍♂️
 
Honestly, I have been skeptical about the whole $100 full bag thing.

Heck here, it costs me $120 for a fitting for irons (not at CC) alone.

I think it is super sketchy to have your fitters be on commission and then not fulfilling the terms discussed at the start of the fitting. No wonder people always have horror stories about their fittings.
 
Just_Brad said:
Honestly, I have been skeptical about the whole $100 full bag thing.

Heck here, it costs me $120 for a fitting for irons (not at CC) alone.

I think it is super sketchy to have your fitters be on commission and then not fulfilling the terms discussed at the start of the fitting. No wonder people always have horror stories about their fittings.
Click to expand...

It feels like it just sets up the fitter and customer to be disappointed. It seems like CC's thinking is that they'll get people in the door who wouldn't normally pay hundreds of dollars for a full bag fitting. And those people would be more inclined to make a purchase since they got such a good deal on fitting.

While it's standard 'loss leader' sales strategy, it's a lot harder to do with a personal service than a product....especially when part of the service is by someone who gets a sales commission.
 
mantan said:
It feels like it just sets up the fitter and customer to be disappointed. It seems like CC's thinking is that they'll get people in the door who wouldn't normally pay hundreds of dollars for a full bag fitting. And those people would be more inclined to make a purchase since they got such a good deal on fitting.

While it's standard 'loss leader' sales strategy, it's a lot harder to do with a personal service than a product....especially when part of the service is by someone who gets a sales commission.
Click to expand...

I always wonder if these cheaper fittings are the "n00b" fitters just starting out. In one way, it could be a good way to book a lot of fittings, and get more experience. On the flip side, if they are still putting the pressure sales pitch on, its not great.

I just feel like a scenario where you are paying for a specific fitting, or a specific fitter, should result in a better outcome than a discounted full bag fitting. In the end, if the player comes away feeling shorted, its not a good thing for either party.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top