Technology Delivered Customer Service 1998
Speech prepared for the Technology and Gaming Conference on how changes in technology will create enhanced customer satisfaction.
By Andrew MacDonald
Casino Manager, Conrad Jupiters, 1997
The competitive edge of the 90s | Firstly, it is important to analyse the existing impediments to providing exceptional Casino customer service. | How then are comps generated, collated and disbursed? | The problems associated with the system are… | How then might these issues be resolved? | Now that we’ve got the person into the Casino, provided them their game of choice and given them back some added value in complimentary benefits its time to see what they think of us. | Firstly, it can be used to establish customer demographics… |
To accomplish this at Jupiters we’ve recently moved away from using the standard Guest Comment Cards. These tended only to cater to extreme comments and the cards had to be sought out by our customers.
Now every one hundredth customer through the doors is given a Guest Comment Card to fill out. To encourage people to do this the card also acts as a simple raffle ticket into a monthly draw with 2 prizes being given of 1 night’s accommodation with breakfast included. The customer then rates their service experience in various outlets and provides feedback on atmosphere, speed of service, friendliness, greeting, professionalism, personal presentation of staff and facility cleanliness. The form filled out is much like a TAB or Lotto ticket with the person merely blacking out a small oval with a pencil to indicate their rating from “Poor” to “Excellent”.
Returned forms are run through a “Scanform” device which collates all results from the sample. This information is then downloaded into an “Excel” spreadsheet for manipulation and presentation in monthly reports. This enables the company to dynamically monitor the service climate within the operation and identify the impacts of various management initiatives or staff industrial issues. For example, this information was extremely useful during recent Enterprise Agreement negotiations as we were assured that customers were not being impacted as a consequence of the industrial unrest based on the ratings of service delivery. Naturally customer satisfaction is also a reflection of overall employee morale and, therefore, the ability to regularly “poll” this is of great value.
Feedback of all information generated by these Comment Cards is provided to Staff on a monthly basis and thus a continuous loop exists in the process which can be used as a motivational tool. Without high-tech systems such as “Scanform” the practical collection, collation and analysis of such valuable information would not be possible.
Now that we’ve found out that customers enjoy the service experience offered how do we try to get them to come back again. Just hope and see what happens, knowing that you’re providing a product that’s in high demand at the right price and with high levels of quality service. Not likely anymore. Too many competitors doing roughly the same thing.
Now once they’ve left the building we keep on talking to them and servicing their needs via direct mail. Not “junk mail”, direct mail. Mail that attempts to build a relationship with higher value customers. Personal letters and cards which people like to receive. A birthday card from David Hilton or Val Saunders, Christmas cards, invitations to special events, tournaments or promotions based on your own particular interests. This isn’t only essential in terms of creating a real relationship with a customer but also in limiting costs associated with database marketing. Jupiters Casino Rewards database now exceeds 100,000 and is likely to grow at a rate of 40,000 new people each year. Clearly to mail to everyone is not always practical nor efficient. Thus apart from our quarterly Newsletter the whole database is never used. Instead each promotion, tournament, special event or offer is targeted in its delivery. A recent promotion is a great example of this. The “Free Play Day” Slot Promotion was communicated in a very targeted sense due to a limited operational budget. This promotion enabled customers who generated 1 Bonus Dollar playing Gaming Machines on a particular Tuesday to enrol in a Free 10 minute tournament. 30 special promotional machines were set up with what’s known as a “hot” chip. A game EPROM with a return to player of greater than 100%. The Machines we used were old IGT Waratah’s with a Blue Moon game set at a 160% return to player. 32 sessions were held in the day and the top three scorers won $1,000, $300 and $200 for First, Second and Third.
The direct mail piece for this promotion was sent to people in the Broadbeach area who had indicated a desire to play in a Slot Tournament, who played mainly during the week and who generated around 1 to 2 Bonus Dollars in a session. Thus, instead of sending out 100,000 pieces of direct mail we were able to target this down to a very affordable 2,000 pieces. Also by being targeted we impressed these customers with our knowledge of their particular wants and it is this sort of recognition that develops relationships.
This process, however, is limited to customers who have already used our facility. One of the more interesting aspects of database marketing is data mining and profiling. This essentially has several aspects.
