A gaming company can spend billions of dollars constructing a beautiful building, but if the employees don’t go the extra mile to make guests feel special, the guests will not come back. Casino employees have a huge impact on their co-workers, the guests and the property’s overall success through the service they provide.
Martin R. Baird
Robinson & Associates, Inc.
mbaird@casinocustomerservice.com
www.advocatedevelopmentsystem.com
480-991-6420
When it comes to providing casino guest service, something as simple as a smile can generate immediate results. It can have a positive effect on how casino employees feel, as well as how guests feel. So when employees provide great guest service, it has an immediate impact. Employees make the difference. They should keep that in mind at all times as they go about their jobs at the casino.
Martin R. Baird
Robinson & Associates, Inc.
mbaird@casinocustomerservice.com
www.advocatedevelopmentsystem.com
www.casinocustomerservice.com
480-991-6420
When you provide great service (smile, make eye contact or remember a guest’s name), you have a positive impact on their experience and that makes them want to come back. Also, it impacts your co-workers because they see how much of an impact they can have as well. Providing outstanding service has a tremendous positive impact on all involved.
Martin R. Baird
Robinson & Associates, Inc.
mbaird@casinocustomerservice.com
www.advocatedevelopmentsystem.com
www.casinocustomerservice.com
480-991-6420
Casino managers expect their employees to do a good job. But I recommend that managers and supervisors turn their staff members into employee advocates who perform their jobs superbly, provide an excellent gaming experience for guests and serve as ambassadors for the property of their own free will.
Employees are critical to generating repeat business for casinos. They are the ones who deliver the outstanding service that gives guests a reason to return to the casino again and again. So what is middle management doing to create the kind of employees who unfailingly do a great job and provide only the best of service day in and day out? What are they doing to create employee advocates?
Here are my observations on the importance of employee advocates.
-- Employee advocates truly like their jobs. They enjoy working at their casino so much they wouldn’t think of resigning. They show up for work on time, and they’re prepared and enthusiastic. They do everything they can to make each guest’s visit an extraordinary experience.
-- Employee advocates contribute to the bottom line. Because they’re less likely to jump ship at the first opportunity, employee advocates also help reduce turnover. They are committed to their casino’s long-term success. They say positive things about their casino when they are out in the community. That might encourage first-time guests to play at the casino and that’s new business. They encourage friends to apply to work at their casino, thus expanding the property’s applicant pool.
Following are tips on how casino managers can have more employee advocates among their staff ranks.
-- Set the example. It all starts with managers and supervisors acknowledging that they set the example for their employees. Everything flows from there.
-- Acknowledge difficult working conditions. One way to set the example is to let employees know that management understands and appreciates how tough jobs are for average casino workers. Casinos make everything look fun and glitzy for guests but that doesn’t reflect the conditions under which casino employees struggle to do their best.
-- Help employees cope. It would mean a lot to employees if they just knew that their bosses understand what they have to endure. Acknowledge these problems and help them cope. Take the old saying ‘it’s the thought that counts’ and put it into action.
-- Interact with new employees. Casino managers know that many employees will walk off the job. The average casino employee will stay on the job if he or she can make it past the first 100 days. Thus most managers and supervisors don’t even introduce themselves to new employees until the 100-day mark. I think new employees will be more likely to stay on the job if managers and supervisors set a good example by getting to know them. Get them off to a good start and keep the support coming.
-- Managers should watch their own behavior. What do you emphasize while on the job? What do your employees see you doing? Employees who are expected to provide great guest service often see their bosses sweating the money – agonizing over drawer balancing and getting 500 hands an hour. That is not a good way to encourage your staff to become employee advocates. Break out of that rut.
Employee advocates exist at many casinos and management can actually turn less-enthusiastic employees into advocates. Employee advocates are indeed dream employees but they are not beyond the realm of possibility. They are very real and the more of them you have on your shift, the more successful your casino will be.
Martin R. Baird
Robinson & Associates, Inc.
www.advocatedevelopmentsystem.com
www.casinocustomerservice.com
mbaird@casinocustomerservice.com
480-991-6420
Casino guests want to feel warm, at home and comfortable when they visit a gaming property. Employees play a role in creating that feeling. Casino customers don’t want to walk into a casino that feels sterile and cold. They want the property to project warmth and personality and employees a major part of making that happen. Their smiles and eye contact help guests feel warm and welcome.
Martin R. Baird
Robinson & Associates, Inc.
www.advocatedevelopmentsystem.com
www.casinocustomerservice.com
mbaird@casinocustomerservice.com
480-991-6420
The name of the gaming property I write about in this article shall remain a mystery because I don’t want to cast aspersions on the people there who work hard and do a good job.
Nevertheless, this article is a blow-by-blow account of a terrible experience my wife Lydia and I recently had at a large Las Vegas casino-hotel. I will whine big time and casino executives tempted to skip to another area of my blog should be ashamed. They should want to know how bad things can get for a casino’s visitors and vow that this will never happen at their property. They should care because I will never visit this casino again.
The trip did not start out well because I had a raging head cold. Over time, the casino didn’t seem to understand that I was in no shape to put up with difficulties.
We requested a certain type of room in the hotel, something with a modern look. The room was waiting and it was nice but it was a very long hike to get there. We unpacked, checked e-mail on our laptop computer and then Lydia left so I could get some sleep. Thirty minutes later, I heard a pounding sound. At first I figured it was a neighbor’s TV and drifted back to sleep. When Lydia returned, she told me our room was over one of the bars. That was not the best place to get some rest and I said we would have to move. Lydia made the call and the staff was very nice. We moved to another room of the same style 14 floors higher.
Things improved when we had dinner. Our meal was excellent and we decided the service at this property was very good. People even smiled and asked how we were doing.
Fast forward to 4 a.m. when Lydia woke me up. She smelled something like hot wire, something electrical burning. It wasn’t our computer so I suggested she check the hallway. I couldn’t smell anything because of my cold. She cracked the door and immediately closed it. Much worse in the hall! Concerned that there was a fire in the hotel, Lydia made another call to the front desk and they assured her there was no problem. They were cleaning the grease traps in the kitchen and that caused the smell.
The front desk staff was very nice and offered to move us again. Because of the hassle, they moved us to a junior suite in a different part of the hotel. We appreciated their effort but this was our third room in just over 12 hours. On top of that, we went from the style of room we liked to a big room that had – no disrespect intended – an old person’s feel. This was just not us, but we accepted it because I was exhausted and sick. So we unpacked yet again and called down to set our wake-up call – for 60 minutes later.
Knowing the kind of room we prefer, we wondered why the staff thought we would enjoy this one. The previous rooms had comfortable sheets and bedding. This room had an old Las Vegas hotel bed with sheets that were closer to uncomfortable than plush. The first two rooms had nice hair dryers. This one had a cheap, inefficient one. We wanted to move again but I decided three moves was my limit.
After the wake-up call, we started our computer and the Internet connection we purchased three rooms ago no longer worked. I made the call this time and was told I would have to buy the service again but that the cost would be fixed at checkout.
That sums up our problems while at the property. But here’s an interesting tidbit. This was our second visit to this particular property in less than 90 days. In five total days of staying there, we spent almost $5,000 on hotel rooms and meals. I know that didn’t put us in the top 20 percent by Las Vegas standards, but I would expect a better experience for the money.
When I returned to my office, I sent the casino a detailed two-page letter via e-mail. I should have expected what happened next. I received the following rely 48 hours later: “Thank you for your e-mail. Your e-mail has been forwarded to the Hotel Operations Department for review and response. Their response will be sent via U.S. Post to the address on your room account unless you provide another mailing address.”
Let me see. We moved three times in 12 hours and were so unhappy we pondered yet another move. I took the time to write and send a multi-page letter. The best the casino could do was send a generic e-mail reply two days later that said I would eventually get another response via snail mail? They didn’t even apologize for our unpleasant experience.
I tell anyone who will listen that guest satisfaction is not an accurate predictor of a casino’s future growth. You need to measure guest advocacy if you want to predict the future. During this most recent three-night experience, Lydia and I went from “very satisfied” to “very dissatisfied” a number of times.
Here’s the crucial question. Are we advocates of this property? We both were advocates when we arrived. After the fist move, I went from “advocate” to “neutral” but Lydia was still an advocate because it was indeed a nice room. At 4:15 a.m. as we waited for the bellman to move us again, she was still an advocate because our next room was a suite. By then I had shifted to “oppose” because I wanted to rest, not sample all the rooms in the hotel. When we arrived at the suite, Lydia’s attitude went to “neutral.” I rested comfortably in “oppose.”
The e-mail response I received to my letter of complaint has me firmly rooted in “strongly oppose.” I am now an anti-advocate. I will tell anyone who will listen not to stay at this property.
Are you measuring the right things? Are you measuring your property’s advocate rating? If you are, do you ask the right questions to find out why some guests are not advocates?
Martin R. Baird
Robinson & Associates, Inc.
www.advocateindex.com
www.advocatedevelopmentsystem.com
www.casinocustomerservice.com
mbaird@advocateindex.com
480-991-6420
I can’t think of a single casino that would not want to boost its stock price. I also can’t think of a property that loves a high rate of employee turnover. And no casino executive enjoys firing people or getting fired. If your property would like to have the best situation possible in each of these three scenarios, read on. I have some ideas that will help you reach those goals.
By the way, if you are not a publicly traded company, don’t move on to the next article in my blog. It doesn’t matter if you’re privately held, you have people to answer to on a regular basis concerning your company’s performance. You are accountable, whether it’s a single owner, a small group of investors, a tribe or a huge corporation that has your performance under the microscope 24/7.
OK, let’s start with your stock price
I hear it said by casino executives around the world that “employees are our most important asset.” But in the United States, from a corporate tax standpoint, investing in your people is an expense just like paperclips and staples. I’m talking about spending dollars on staff training. The way the tax code is written, such expenditures are not an investment like research and development (R&D). This means that if a casino invests in human capital through training, it has a higher level of costs than competitors that do not. Your investors won’t be happy about that, so it’s best not to have a line item in the budget for training. Right?
Wrong. Recent research offers a strong argument that investment in human capital is the right way to go, that it will boost your company’s performance
Laurie Bassi, a former economist at Georgetown University and chairwoman of Bassi Investments in Bethesda, Md., , conducted a study and found that companies that invest in their people actually out perform the competition. “Returns on human skills are consistently super-normal,” Bassi says in the study. Money spent on improving the people in an organization is a better investment than, say, R&D or new buildings, Bassi concludes.
“Underinvestment in employees takes a variety of forms, notably as a failure to spend adequately on training,” Bassi writes. “This underinvestment in intangibles yields very tangible harm to all stakeholders – employees, employers, shareholders and society as a whole.” Her research shows that the bottom 10% of companies only invest $106 per employee while the top 10% invest more than $1,507 per employee.
Do you know what you currently invest per person for training? This has nothing to do with training in policy and procedure. That’s a given, like breathing. What investment are you making per person to give your employees new skills that they can use to better cope with the stress of working at a casino or to improve your customers’ experience? According to Bassi’s research, that level of investment is an indicator of your casino’s future performance.
Now that we have your stock price turned upward with some strategic investing, let’s reduce employee turnover.
It should be no surprise to you that casino employees do not feel appreciated. Study after study bears this out. Between mergers and skyrocketing growth, employees feel like they are stuck in the middle with little or no voice. They are not loyal because they feel their employers have not been loyal to them.
So what can be done? At the risk of sounding repetitive, the answer is invest in your people. People like to receive training. When they are trained to improve their skills, they feel that the company is looking out for them over the long term and that they are not just disposable pieces of meat. For most people, formal learning stops when their school days are over. It doesn’t have to be that way and, in fact, it shouldn’t. Gaming companies have an opportunity to help people grow and excel by teaching them new skills.
Executives often ask me why they should spend money on training when those people will just take their new knowledge to another casino for more money. I firmly believe that most employees will not leave for greener pastures. Sure, some will and perhaps it’s a good thing that those staff members hit the road. Most of your quality employees will appreciate that you have invested in them. I recently completed a training session in Europe and when it was over, the majority of the participants couldn’t thank their supervisors enough for believing in them. They were grateful for the opportunity and the experience. Those people will not walk out the door for a couple more euros per hour at a competing casino. They will be lifetime employees if that investment and support continues.
Finally, how not to get fired. In gaming, this could be the most important of the three scenarios. Anyone who has been in gaming for awhile can tell endless stories about why people have been given the gate. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Some people do illegal things and are terminated. Others make some very bad choices and are shown the door. Isn’t this a fun business?
But of all the stories I’ve heard, I have yet to hear of a person being dumped because the property’s customer service was too good. Think about how important this is. If the restaurant serves tough chicken, heads will roll. If there’s no hot water in the hotel when the CEO visits, there will be new people at the property very soon. Great guest service and smiling and friendly employees – well, no one ever got fired for that!
How do you achieve such a high level of customer service? You guessed it. You train your people to provide it. Most people don’t know anything about quality service. It’s an acquired skill, one they will come to love.
There you have it. By investing in your people, you can increase your casino’s value, boost employee retention and add some security to position. This sounds like a three-step system to success that you should set in motion today.
Martin R. Baird
Robinson & Associates, Inc.
www.advocateindex.com
www.advocatedevelopmentsystem.com
www.casinocustomerservice.com
mbaird@advocateindex.com
480-991-6420
Happy is such a simple word. We all want to be happy and casino guests are no different. Sometimes casino employees have to go above and beyond to make them happy, to turn them into guest advocates at some point. But that’s not necessarily difficult. Sometimes above and beyond is simply remembering a guest likes two olives in their drink or that they prefer a specific game.
Martin R. Baird
Robinson & Associates, Inc.
mbaird@casinocustomerservice.com
480-991-6420
