“You just made that up, didn’t you?”

Well, yeah. I kind of did.

I was a panelist at the Raving Player Development Summit in 2011. (You may know me as Amy Burbidge. Life changes happened.)

My response to one of the topics we discussed led the term “Preemptive Reactivation” to drop out of my mouth (and into the microphone).

Steve Browne stopped mid-step, spun around and locked eyes with me for a beat. He grinned and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Amy here just paid your registration fee for you.  Preemptive reactivation! That’s powerful stuff…” I’ll never forget it.

He’s spoken about it since, and I believe Raving featured the term in one of their publications not long ago.  Me?  I worked to continue exercising it for as long as I ran a Player Development team afterwards. I tried to instill in my Casino Host team that Preemptive Reactivation is essential for player retention. In fact, I believe Casino Hosts are uniquely situated to readily practice Preemptive Reactivation, particularly in an increasingly competitive worldwide marketplace.

How can  YOU benefit from this fortuitous turn  of phrase?  You can learn what it is and how it will help you retain your best players BEFORE they start to spend their time and money someplace else.

Preemptive reactivation first requires you to know which of your best players are visiting you less frequently than they once did.  Then, you go about finding out why they are visiting you less frequently.  Finally, you do something about what you’ve learned.  Often, just a phone call from a host is enough to accomplish preemptive reactivation: they know you noticed their absence, found it important, and asked them to return.  Sometimes you have to solve a problem for the player(s) in question.  Sadly, there are also some who have just begun to drift away and you may not be able to get them back.

Why do I call this process “preemptive reactivation”?  Because you are taking action BEFORE you lose the player entirely.  Proactively identify any threats to your strongest players, reach out to them to let them know you don’t want to lose them, learn what you will have to do to keep them close to the fold, and then put your money where your mouth is.

I’ll be happy to help you figure out what preemptive reactivation means at your property, if you like. Been there, done that.  I even have the t-shirts to prove it!