Emotional Rescue
Casino Journal - January, 2006
Written By: Fred A. Buro
If anything is to be learned from the mounds of data garnered from social studies about the high school drop out rate, it is that detachment is a key ingredient in student defection from high school.
Detachment could be a key ingredient in customer defection from casinos as well. The energy on a busy casino floor comes from the games, lights, sounds and the people. It is an up beat party atmosphere with a lot going on everywhere that is hosted perceivably by the front line staff of the brand. If you have ever hosted a party, you made sure that none of your guests were abandoned or had a bad time. You involved everyone in the experience. And if your friends had a great time, they told you about it and they talked about it with many of their friends long after. But if they had a bad time, they told everyone about it except you.
In casinos, every front line employee is hosting the party. They are trained to interact and focus on customer needs in order to insure that the guest’s experience is a good one throughout their stay. As modern casinos become technologically advanced, customers have fewer reasons to interact with traditional floor staff. For example; as automation proliferates and more real-time data is provided behind the scenes about customers on property, key decisions can be made about everything a customer desires during a trip without the customer actively participating in a dialogue with a real person.
In the slot world, consider down loadable games and ticket-in ticket-out; once they are deployed together, the staff interaction a player may have on property may be limited to a few words at hotel check-in, one or two words with a restaurant host, from there its up to the waiter. Conceivably, the only slot decision a player may need to make in a casino may be one of geographic preference since any game, with every player parameter including custom graphics, points, cash back and comp information, can be downloaded to any slot device at any location within the resort. In other words, a slot machine in every hotel room may not be a far fetched idea.
These slots can contain anything including every game and every denomination a player may want to play. Even specific player parameters such as hold percentage or customized pay tables based upon desired reinvestment percentages for individual players may be at the real time discretion of the casino, and may be changed at any time; on a day-by-day or, on a game-by-game basis. Slots may be priced based on volume – extending time-on-device on slower days, and shortening time-on-device on busy days.
In addition to downloadable games, slot machines may host a pseudo belly glass - really just a flat screen monitor with a default image; a marketers dream. Once a player card is inserted into the game, an interactive touch screen could appear displaying a variety of information or personal financial options. A custom graphics package could unfold with images designed specifically for an individual player. Programs could include images of their favorite landscapes, food, celebrities, broadcast TV, cable, or photos of past player events or the grand kids - truly a new dimension in CRM dynamics.
In the table game arena, arrivals like automated Roulette is perhaps the real “Hal” of the casino floor, sans a soft calm voice; an authentic Roulette wheel spins under a glass dome with a dozen or so automated betting devices around it, but no dealers are utilized. On another front, the newest card reading technology reads every card a black jack player is dealt. Skill levels may be analyzed and a player profiled instantly. With smart chips, how a player bets is also tracked and monitored. Integrating information like that could easily impact old school pit strategies related to the timing of fills, dealer breaks, changing cards and of course, reinvestment.
The effects of interfacing operational gaming technology with marketing databases can have a profound effect on the gaming event by minimizing human interaction. From the moment a gaming trip is triggered, the gaming event may become increasingly more impersonal which can fuel detachment.
.
Fundamental marketing strategies dictate that only meaningful customer differences should delineate market segments, and that the customer relationship should be perfectly managed against those segments. Not withstanding, consumer groups are getting cut into smaller and smaller segments as if more segments guarantee better results. Ultimately, too many segments yield only vague differences between customers. And as CRM strategies place the “right offer in the hands of the right customer at the right time”, technology is right there dehumanizing the redemption process further detaching customers from service staff.
Of course with simpler processes, less staff, faster service, and better tracking, expanded operating margins can be achieved. But that success may also camouflage the defection of really good players. Player’s club transactions, slot attendants, slot techs, change attendants, pit staff, security guards, redemption staff and operators to name a few; all the folks customers interact with on the casino floor, are slowly going away - the consequence of which may fuel detachment.
Gaming is an event but is also a psychological experience which fulfills an emotional craving. Hence, passionate driven employees can make an extraordinary difference to a customer’s gaming experience. Employees personify a brand as well as the gaming experience. When a brand makes a commitment to a customer about a product or service, it’s like someone giving you their word; it is a promise that strikes an emotional cord. It feels good and you want it to come true.
To that end, seek opportunities to make emotional connections with customers where segmentation and technology fall short. Essentially; make promises and keep them. Identify and satisfy the natural desire of your customers to be socially engaged and honored and you will transcend stand alone CRM and reinvestment strategies. Connect with your customers in a way that makes them feel emotionally attached to your brand and you will ultimately solidify their loyalty to it. It may be the single most important thing about your success that your competitors can not easily copy because to them, the process would be invisible.
Written By: Fred A. Buro
If anything is to be learned from the mounds of data garnered from social studies about the high school drop out rate, it is that detachment is a key ingredient in student defection from high school.
Detachment could be a key ingredient in customer defection from casinos as well. The energy on a busy casino floor comes from the games, lights, sounds and the people. It is an up beat party atmosphere with a lot going on everywhere that is hosted perceivably by the front line staff of the brand. If you have ever hosted a party, you made sure that none of your guests were abandoned or had a bad time. You involved everyone in the experience. And if your friends had a great time, they told you about it and they talked about it with many of their friends long after. But if they had a bad time, they told everyone about it except you.
In casinos, every front line employee is hosting the party. They are trained to interact and focus on customer needs in order to insure that the guest’s experience is a good one throughout their stay. As modern casinos become technologically advanced, customers have fewer reasons to interact with traditional floor staff. For example; as automation proliferates and more real-time data is provided behind the scenes about customers on property, key decisions can be made about everything a customer desires during a trip without the customer actively participating in a dialogue with a real person.
In the slot world, consider down loadable games and ticket-in ticket-out; once they are deployed together, the staff interaction a player may have on property may be limited to a few words at hotel check-in, one or two words with a restaurant host, from there its up to the waiter. Conceivably, the only slot decision a player may need to make in a casino may be one of geographic preference since any game, with every player parameter including custom graphics, points, cash back and comp information, can be downloaded to any slot device at any location within the resort. In other words, a slot machine in every hotel room may not be a far fetched idea.
These slots can contain anything including every game and every denomination a player may want to play. Even specific player parameters such as hold percentage or customized pay tables based upon desired reinvestment percentages for individual players may be at the real time discretion of the casino, and may be changed at any time; on a day-by-day or, on a game-by-game basis. Slots may be priced based on volume – extending time-on-device on slower days, and shortening time-on-device on busy days.
In addition to downloadable games, slot machines may host a pseudo belly glass - really just a flat screen monitor with a default image; a marketers dream. Once a player card is inserted into the game, an interactive touch screen could appear displaying a variety of information or personal financial options. A custom graphics package could unfold with images designed specifically for an individual player. Programs could include images of their favorite landscapes, food, celebrities, broadcast TV, cable, or photos of past player events or the grand kids - truly a new dimension in CRM dynamics.
In the table game arena, arrivals like automated Roulette is perhaps the real “Hal” of the casino floor, sans a soft calm voice; an authentic Roulette wheel spins under a glass dome with a dozen or so automated betting devices around it, but no dealers are utilized. On another front, the newest card reading technology reads every card a black jack player is dealt. Skill levels may be analyzed and a player profiled instantly. With smart chips, how a player bets is also tracked and monitored. Integrating information like that could easily impact old school pit strategies related to the timing of fills, dealer breaks, changing cards and of course, reinvestment.
The effects of interfacing operational gaming technology with marketing databases can have a profound effect on the gaming event by minimizing human interaction. From the moment a gaming trip is triggered, the gaming event may become increasingly more impersonal which can fuel detachment.
.
Fundamental marketing strategies dictate that only meaningful customer differences should delineate market segments, and that the customer relationship should be perfectly managed against those segments. Not withstanding, consumer groups are getting cut into smaller and smaller segments as if more segments guarantee better results. Ultimately, too many segments yield only vague differences between customers. And as CRM strategies place the “right offer in the hands of the right customer at the right time”, technology is right there dehumanizing the redemption process further detaching customers from service staff.
Of course with simpler processes, less staff, faster service, and better tracking, expanded operating margins can be achieved. But that success may also camouflage the defection of really good players. Player’s club transactions, slot attendants, slot techs, change attendants, pit staff, security guards, redemption staff and operators to name a few; all the folks customers interact with on the casino floor, are slowly going away - the consequence of which may fuel detachment.
Gaming is an event but is also a psychological experience which fulfills an emotional craving. Hence, passionate driven employees can make an extraordinary difference to a customer’s gaming experience. Employees personify a brand as well as the gaming experience. When a brand makes a commitment to a customer about a product or service, it’s like someone giving you their word; it is a promise that strikes an emotional cord. It feels good and you want it to come true.
To that end, seek opportunities to make emotional connections with customers where segmentation and technology fall short. Essentially; make promises and keep them. Identify and satisfy the natural desire of your customers to be socially engaged and honored and you will transcend stand alone CRM and reinvestment strategies. Connect with your customers in a way that makes them feel emotionally attached to your brand and you will ultimately solidify their loyalty to it. It may be the single most important thing about your success that your competitors can not easily copy because to them, the process would be invisible.
posted by Fred A. Buro at 5:03 AM
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