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… |

· The player must provide their “player card” to the Staff member who will rate their play.

· The Staff member must accurately capture both “time in” and “time out”. If the player leaves un-noticed Staff will guess the “time out”.

· The Staff member who rates the play must be accurate for the player to receive the appropriate value. This is easy for short play, flat betting but is impossible over a long period of time (an hour or more) and when the player bets varying amounts. For example, a player who doubles up on wins or losses will often be over-rated as the Staff tend to remember the bigger bets and average the spread only without taking into account frequency of bets (eg. A minimum bet of $100 with a maximum of $800 becomes an average of $450 whereas in reality the average might only be $200).

· Average decision rates are used to calculate turnover. This will advantage players in some situations such as on heavy chip action Roulette games where the system average might suggest 35 spins per hour whereas the reality might be the Dealer can only manage 15. Alternatively, on Blackjack the system average might be 60 hands per hour whereas if the player is playing “heads up” against the Dealer (1 box per round), then 200 decisions per hour might actually be achieved.

· No allowance is made for varying player skill at Blackjack or the play of bets with varying house edges at some other games. System standards are often averages or the lowest house edge on a particular game where edges vary (eg. Craps: 1.4% for the Pass Line versus 16.7% for Any Seven).

· The player must approach Staff to determine if any benefits are available. Thus, those that ask: get, while the less outgoing may miss out.

· If the player also plays Gaming Machines they may either have to use 2 cards or might get quite different benefits on their play (eg. some comps, some cash back or some gift redemption).

With so many “problems” you might wonder why we still do it. While the problems are recognised the benefits outweigh the consequences and from a cost perspective the Casino often deals in soft costs where the player receives a benefit with only a marginal cost implication (such as a room in a Hotel/Casino during a period of low occupancy).