The idea that loyalty can be generated with little more than T-shirts, comps, specials, and other freebies just isn’t a reality.  In the absence of personalized customer service, players will simply go to whichever casino gives them the best stuff.

Your players club team members are often a guest’s first point of contact.  More often than not, they’re the first ones that have a real opportunity to make a player feel like a valued individual rather than one in a herd of cattle.  Unfortunately, players club team members fail at creating loyal players more often than they succeed.  Usually, this is not their fault.  Very few people in the world come to work intending to do a bad job.  The real reason so many players club team members fail to create loyal customers is that they’ve been taught to believe that their main job is something that it isn’t.

Time and time again, both as a player and in my capacity as a hospitality professional, I’ve seen the same scene play out:  A players club team member enters the guest’s name into the computer, hands the guest their players club card, and then moves on to the next guest without using a guest’s name, while making very little eye contact, and sometimes, without even offering a smile.  Gleaning a personal tidbit from the guest and using the information to make recommendations or point them towards a specific club, event, or promotion in which they guest might be interested doesn’t happen.  Making that kind of connection is the farthest things from the players club member’s mind.  They’re focused on the computer.  As long as they enter in the guest information quickly, accurately, and give the member their card and card information, they’ve done their job.

What if the majority of players club team member guest interactions went much differently than the way I’ve described above?  What if the players club team member had been trained to understand that their main job is not to enter guest information into a computer and send the guest on their way, but to create loyal players?  What if, as a result, the team member did make eye contact, did use the person’s name, and did smile?  What if they found out a piece of personal information such as the guest’s city of residence, and did make appropriate recommendations?  How much more excited do you think your guests would be when they stepped out onto the floor?

Just about anyone can be trained to enter information into a computer and hand guests a card.  New players club team member hires should be selected firstly for their customer service skills and secondly for their computer skills.  After initial training, follow-up or ongoing training should occur so that players club team members remain informed and empowered once they are out on the floor.

Guest services departments are generally thought of as non-revenue-generating departments, but when you make powerful changes to your training program, and are then able to show upper management through guest and employee surveys, mystery shop programs, and social network monitoring data that revenue increases are correlating with the steps you’ve taken to improve service levels, the true value of guest services becomes difficult for anyone to ignore.

Players club programs may recruit new guests, but excellent customer service is what converts them into loyal ones.  When players feel they have a sense of direction, a specific game they want to play, food they want to eat, experience they want to have, and are made to feel through positive personal interactions that your casino isn’t just another casino, but their casino, they become loyal.  Your players club team members are particularly important members of your service team precisely because they are often a guest’s first point of contact.  They have a unique opportunity to set your guests on a course that will make them less apt to be swayed by the next casino that offers them a free T-shirt, and more apt to return to your casino—their casino—every time.

All the best,

Batya

FG Top Tips: The 2 Cs of Customer Comment Surveys

The average customer will tell a handful of people about a positive service experience, and a dozen people about a negative one. Customer comments posted to travel review sites such as TripAdvisor can reach hundreds or thousands of readers in a single day. 

Other people know what your customers are saying about your company.  Do you?        

One of the best ways to find out how your organization is measuring up is to implement customer comment surveys.  Surveys, when designed and implemented correctly, allow you to target those areas that need improvement.  They boost your return on investment, connect you to your customers, and help you convert passing customers into loyal ones.

1. Connect- Customers walk into your business expecting the promises made by your advertising and marketing campaigns to be fulfilled. What was sold to them in print ads, on television, and online has already created a certain level of expectation.  They expect a certain atmosphere, level of service, and product. Customer comment surveys give you the opportunity to connect with your customers and gauge whether their expectations are being met. Having a solid understanding of what your customers are expecting and what it is you’re actually delivering enables you to make operational and service training changes that improve the customer experience, and ultimately, your bottom line.

2. Convert- We all know that loyal customers are some of the most effective tools that a hotel can have in its marketing arsenal. Essentially, they are advocates. To encourage customer loyalty, don’t just present customers with surveys; present them with personalized surveys.  Personalized surveys show customers that you appreciate their business and value their opinions.  They do more than ask what customers do and do not like; they make customers feel that you are making a real effort to listen to their concerns and/or praise, and that you will follow up as needed. Your business becomes viewed as a company that values its customers and is actively working to improve. 

To personalize your surveys, don’t focus merely on what you did or didn’t do correctly.  Give your customers ample opportunities to express what it is that is important to them.  The easiest way to convert customers into loyal ones is to make them feel they are heard.  To make them feel they are heard, you have to listen.

When I was in college, some friends and I routinely met at a very small, out-of-the-way Mexican restaurant several miles from campus.  I loved the place, and not just because the salsa was homemade and it served breakfast tacos all day.  I loved it because every time I stepped out the door on my way out, I found I was in a better mood than I was when I walked in.

The property itself wasn’t impressive.  I never asked any of the people who worked there whether it was true, but from the outside, it appeared to once have been a vehicle repair shop.  Once inside, you immediately noticed how small a space it really was and how close the tables were to one another.  You also noticed that the place was packed.  The place was always packed, and with all sorts of people—college students like me, families, lone businessmen, construction workers, and couples, young and old.  It was a family business, and the servers there treated everyone like family.  You didn’t even mind when one of them bumped into your rickety table and inadvertently spilled your iced tea.  Mishaps like that, which happened quite frequently due to the lack of space, only seemed to add to the place’s charm.

The close proximity of the tables also made it impossible to ignore the other patrons.  You knew what they were ordering, heard their conversations, and more often than not, wound up being a part of their dining experience, and you, theirs.  Even if people tried to ignore their neighbors at first, inevitably, as soon as the food came, they’d turn to the nearest onlooker, roll their eyes, and start talking about how unbelievable everything tasted.  Yes, the other patrons would agree, the food is amazing, and they’d start recommending other things on the menu that must be tried.

I’ve dined in plenty of fine restaurants, enjoyed wonderful meals by award-winning chefs, and had truly excellent restaurant service experiences.  Still, I probably think about this one little Mexican restaurant more than I think about any other eatery.  The food was that good.  The experience was that unique.  The servers were that memorable.  I even remember some of their names:  Eddie, Marisa, Tomás.

I’ve often heard FreemanGroup’s founder, Bill Freeman, remark that those of us in the hospitality industry tend to overcomplicate service when what good experiences boil down to are the basics:  good products, good service, and good memories.

Whenever I’m talking to a restaurant owner or manager about FreemanGroup’s training, measurement, and other service solutions, I think about Bill’s remarks.  If you take an objective eye to all of our solutions, all very pointed, thoughtful, organized, and results-driven, you begin to see that they are really just ways for owners, managers, and service teams at larger organizations to get back to service basics and reclaim the things that enabled their businesses to gain widespread popularity in the first place.

I like the idea that by applying all of the right modern service solutions and technology available in an intelligent and genuine manner, even large organizations can go home again—at least, metaphorically.  The more I think about it, I like the idea a lot.

Time for margaritas!

-Batya