Casinos Must Embrace Change
Casinos need to stop using customer research methods of bygone days and embrace change so that they can begin focusing instead on guest advocates, according to Robinson & Associates, Inc., a gaming industry consulting firm.
"I see many casinos using yesterday's customer service procedures and wondering why they are not getting better results," says Martin R. Baird, chief executive officer of Annapolis, Maryland-based Robinson & Associates. "The performance of their casinos is not improving because they are stuck in the past."
Baird offers the following tips about customer research methods that are no longer useful and the importance of changing for the good of the Casino.
Tip No. 1. Guest satisfaction surveys are a waste of time and money. "Valid research has found that there is zero correlation between customer satisfaction and the future growth of any business," Baird says. "The same applies to the gaming industry."
Tip No. 2. Casinos continue to conduct satisfaction surveys. "I was at a casino's Web site recently and there were a number of places that showed me where to take their online guest satisfaction survey," Baird explains. "Thus, casinos continue to do things that are unproductive, even wasteful."
Tip No. 3. Casinos must change or risk failure. "If casinos don't embrace change and focus on guest advocacy instead of satisfaction, they could end up like many other industries that now exist primarily in history books," Baird says. "These industries - railroads among them - are no longer on the tips of people's tongues because they failed to change with the times and faded. Some of them are still around, but the world has passed them by."
Tip No. 4. Casinos should not be blinded by their current success. "I'm sure casinos find it difficult to equate change with future success when they see cars streaming into their parking lots at all hours of the day and night," Baird notes. "I'm also sure the railroads couldn't envision an end to the glory days when they dominated transportation."
Baird suggests that casino executives ask themselves the following questions.
Try new things. "What are you doing in human resources and other areas of your casino to try new things?" Baird asks. "What are you doing to take that next step that will lead you from where you are today to where you want to be? Adding a hotel and golf course is not a solution. Doing what you have always done, just in a slightly different way, is not the answer."
Envision the future. "What would your guests look like if you could create your dream casino?" Baird asks. "What would your guests look like if they were all advocates for your property? What would your employees look like if they were inspired by the work they do? What would your senior team look like if they were all advocates of the casino rather than the money or title they have?"
Casinos must become dissatisfied with old-school management techniques such as satisfaction surveys, Baird says. "Then they are free to create a vision of what their casino could be in the future," Baird says. "Share that vision with everyone at the property. They must know what your casino of the future looks like in order to see it, too. Better yet, they need to own that vision. If the gaming industry is to have a future, it must take the scary step of changing its ways to make all of this happen."
