Tag Archives: Casino Player Development

Casino Host Culture, Uncategorized

What Kind of Culture is Best for Casino Hosts?

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It takes a special kind of “people person” to be a good Casino Host.  The backgrounds of today’s hosts are quite varied, but the thing they all have in common is that they are delighted to be in the company of others.  A host has the ability to make each of his players feel as though they are the most important person in the world.  Hosts can make “no” sound like “I’d really like to…”  And they need a particular kind of environment in order to thrive and do their best work.

Like employees in any sort of job, hosts expect to be compensated for the work they do.  Hosts should be paid a salary commensurate with carrying a company phone that is likely to ring at all hours of the day and night.  Casino hosts have to cater to some very demanding guests, but because the guests are worth it, most hosts pride themselves on satisfying those “difficult” players.  But again, just like any other employee, hosts require more than just a paycheck in order to do the job to the best of their ability.

Think about the primary tool in a Casino Host’s toolkit: the relationship.  It is more powerful than a comp, brings players to the casino more reliably than the direct mail program, and trumps new or updated competitors in the long run as long as it’s been properly built.  Interestingly, a strong relationship with a team leader should be part of a host’s compensation.

The relationship a Casino Host has with his or her team leader will, in many cases, directly affect the host’s level of engagement with his or her assigned players.  In a recent blog post on Harvard Business Review, the author suggests that engaged employees feel “loved,” and that the more “love” an employee feels drives a higher level of engagement in the job.  The post clarifies that the love in question is “companionate love,” derived from a feeling of connection and warmth in the employer/employee relationship.

“You mean we have to hold hands and sing Kum By Yah in a circle at our host meetings?”  As entertaining as that might be to watch (contact me before you do this; I want to have you record it and send me the video file!), what I am proposing goes deeper.  I am suggesting that team leaders invest some emotional capital in the hosts to help them flourish.

Any good Player Development professional will confirm that the relationships hosts (or any casino associate, for that matter) build with the property’s players build loyalty and help a casino hold on to their share of the gamer’s wallet.  Strong host/player relationships can prevent a player from defecting to a competitor over a disappointment or other negative experience.  Doesn’t it stand to reason then, that the relationship between an employee and his or her team leader would have a commensurate effect on the employee’s performance and direct engagement with the job?

Here are some ways to build that companionate love without crossing the necessary boundaries of a workplace relationship.  Spend some time with the members of your team during the workday.  Learn about them: family ties, personal motivators, challenges and frustrations, hobbies and interests, background experience, and growth aspirations.  Share some of your own workplace experiences with the members of your team so they see you more as a fallible person instead of just as a “boss.”   Ask them for feedback on your leadership style.  Demonstrate their importance to the property’s success and implement their ideas whenever you can.  Lavishly praise their accomplishments and provide candid and fair assessments of their performance when improvement is needed.  Observe their performance first hand and discuss your observations.  Talk WITH them and not just TO them, just like you should with your guests.  Generate a dialogue.  Build strong working relationships to ensure they each feel a connection with you.

Not the warm and fuzzy type?  Don’t fake it.  They’ll know.  Just be genuine.  Step outside your comfort zone for them.  Make the effort.  It will make a difference.

How will you know it’s working?  When the members of your team feel comfortable coming to you with their concerns and speak freely, you’ve arrived.  If someone isn’t doing the best job possible, and you approach them to discuss it, defensiveness melts away during the conversation.  If it’s real, you’ll both know.  And your team will thrive.

By all means, share your own experiences with us.  Tell us what you’ve done that worked or what you’ll do to build that kind of relationship with your team.

Casino Host Evaluation

7 Keys to Evaluating a Casino Host’s Performance

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As the end of the year approaches, it is time to reflect on the year past…and for many of us, it is time to begin writing evaluations. It does not have to be a daunting prospect. Two things need to be addressed, however, before we get started.

  1. Use concrete examples whenever possible to back up what you write in the evaluation.  Even if you don’t include them in the document, make note of the examples and use them when you discuss the evaluation with the host. Anecdotes help you make a point in a clear and concise manner.
  2. Nothing in the evaluation should be a surprise to the host. If you’re going to drop a bombshell on someone, this is not the right time. Be honest, but don’t be brutal.

Use the following 7 areas of performance to evaluate whether your hosts are doing well or not, and use the evaluation process as a starting point for coaching to improve the performance of those hosts who are not meeting your expectations. Rate each host in every attribute and make notes to back up each rating.

Accountability: A host who is accountable is one who takes ownership of his role and understands how it contributes to the property’s success. The accountable host handles his responsibilities and knows where he stands in terms of his performance. What negatives should you look for? “Lost” reservations, difficulty locating the host while on shift, guests who say calls were never returned, incomplete tasks, and similar dropped balls.

Contribution: An individual makes a contribution to a team by providing candid and constructive feedback to team leaders and co-workers in the spirit of continuous improvement. Did your players like the ice cream social party you had? If not, what should you have done instead? A host who is contributing to the team’s success would have shared with you what her players said about it. She also might have told you about the shortcut she found in your player tracking system and she may even have suggested coming in an hour early tomorrow to show the ambassadors how to set up for tournament registration.

Collaboration: Hosts need collaboration to be successful. From getting timely hotel reservations to setting up birthday celebrations, hosts need to establish and nurture working relationships across the enterprise to effectively meet both guest needs and property objectives. Leveraging relationships with dealers, slot attendants, steakhouse servers, reservations agents and valet attendants enables a host to provide the absolute best experience for their players. Ask the host who her go-to person is in each department on property to understand how collaborative she is.

Communication: It is of vital importance that hosts understand what needs to be shared with whom, and in what venue. Ensuring that the flow of information follows established guidelines to protect private and proprietary data is one of the most critical security concerns hosts have. Beware the over-sharer or, alternatively, the host who rarely has anything to add to a conversation.

Results: A results-oriented host is one who achieves individual and team goals the majority of the time and focuses on results instead of efforts. Here, you’re looking for a performer who can tell you whether or not he is on pace to reach a goal, how much theo his players drive on a typical Wednesday, and what he is doing to surpass his goal. A host who is not results-oriented will tell you how many people he was unable to reach when he was making calls and often offers up excuses instead of plans when he is off pace.

HostGoals

Guest Service: This seems like a no-brainer, but it needs to be addressed because of its importance to Player Development. When in front of a guest, the host should be able to focus on that guest as though he or she is the only person in the world regardless of what is going on around them. A host should always follow up on guest requests in a timely manner and should provide the same level of courtesy to his collaborators around the property. Think of more than one anecdote to back up your score in this area, because there is always room for improving one’s guest service.

Strengths and Areas for Growth: To demonstrate your understanding of each host as an individual contributor to the department, include a short list of that host’s strengths as well as areas in which there is a need for improvement. Think of it sort of like a lawyer’s closing argument. Present to the host a quick but comprehensive picture of your view to his overall performance. Doing this establishes that you have been paying attention to the host’s work and that you know him.

Now that you’ve written some scores and anecdotes for each of the attributes, set aside the evaluation. Review it in a couple of days and make any adjustments you deem necessary, then complete the review process according to your property’s practices. Keep in mind that you should be setting the example for your team, so you may want to evaluate your own performance using the same 7 attributes.  Happy evaluating!

 

Uncategorized

A Day in the Life of a Casino Host

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Good Player Development leaders realize that each host has inherent strengths and challenges, and that it is important to provide each host individual opportunities to grow, to maximize their strengths and increase their overall effectiveness.

Individual performance toward goals, as well as contributions to team efforts and the provision of excellent guest service should be elements in the host training and evaluation process. Ideally, host efforts will be observed and monitored on a daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.  Feedback should be provided regularly to create both accountability and skill enhancement.

The ultimate goal of all that hosts do is to drive business.  Every job responsibility of a host is a function of this goal. Bringing high-worth and potential high-worth players back to the property and increasing trip frequency by these players, developing a “base” of players from which to draw, and recognizing and rewarding guests based on their play are all things hosts do to reach that ultimate goal.   Monitoring the performance of tasks a host should complete in a shift is an easy way to begin assessing performance and effectiveness.

Daily Tasks

One thing that sets this job apart from so many others is that a host does not have a set schedule of how and when they perform their job responsibilities within their shift. Time management is a key skill and each host has to determine what they should work on and for how long. While there is flexibility, each host should have some element of routine in order to accomplish their goals.

Here is an example of a casino host’s daily activities.

  • Check the mail, both snail and electronic.  Mail that is addressed to someone in particular should be placed in that individual’s mailbox and other mail should be distributed accordingly.
  • Check that day’s arrivals list to make note of reservations for high-worth players.  All the hosts should be aware of the day’s anticipated arrivals and should work as a team to greet these guests and take care of their needs, especially for guests whose host is not on property that day.
  • Spend some time in the office during the shift to read e-mail/check phone messages and make/return guest calls as needed.
  • Once the most outstanding of the above contacts have been made, head out to the gaming floor.  Floor time includes sign-ups (as assigned), but also means face time with guests (make contact with the regulars; get to know some new faces) and interaction with staff in other departments.  REMEMBER!  A good host is a role model for the property.  It’s easy: Smile, be sincere, project a positive attitude, and try to be the “morale coordinator” for everyone, guest and team member alike!
  • Organize a contact list and work from the office after some time on the floor.  Check for new player bounce-backs, inactives, players with upcoming occasions to note, and hot players.  Prepare guest mail for bounce-backs, any greeting cards, and “Welcome to the Club” notes. Look for tier upgrades (if applicable) and check on the progress of yesterday’s (or today’s) new sign-ups.
  • Make guest calls to book business.  Focus on positive guest contact and planning something special for at least one couple or group of players for the coming week(end).  Make player development second nature by staying cognizant of player contacts.
  • Use the tools provided to track and note all contacts.  Set up reminders as needed to make reservations, provide amenities (flowers, food, cards, etc.) for upcoming visits, or complete other follow-up tasks.  Include trying again to reach guests who were not reached on the first try.
  • Make sure that upcoming events are booking as they should, and do some telemarketing if needed.  Be sure to complete assigned calls for filling events in a timely manner.
  • Follow up on play reports for sign-ups or player contact logs, double-check on restaurant reservations or notes      that need to be delivered to guest rooms, book show tickets, and take care of all the follow-ups due today.  Look through the ones due for tomorrow.
  • Complete required reporting on all contacts and activities as assigned.
  • When leaving a work area, make sure it is neat and orderly.  Log off the computer before the next person will need it.  (Lock the workstation when leaving for only a short time.)   Before leaving at the end of a shift, make sure  that everything has been distributed as needed (reports sent, mail delivered, messages delivered etc.).

Thoughts?  Comments?  Missing responsibilities?

E-mail them to ahudson@harvesttrends.  Please.

Uncategorized

What IS Preemptive Reactivation?

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Simply put, Preemptive Reactivation is a name for a Player Development approach in casino gaming. It is a method for identifying and mitigating player loss.

There are three steps:
1. Identify a new or imminent threat to which you may lose good players
2. Determine which of your very best players are likely to migrate to the new option you’ve identified
3. Assign those players to a host (if they aren’t coded already) to work on solidifying the relationship to prevent their departure

Here’s an example. You are looking at the numbers and notice that your hosted players are making fewer trips than they did last quarter and compared to the same quarter last year. While this may not come as a surprise to you in light of the economics in the last few years, you are conscientious and want to find out why.

Time for step one.

Identifying the threat is often the most difficult thing to accomplish. If it’s imminent, maybe you already know about it. Perhaps there is a shiny new casino opening up in one of your main markets. You could be facing the expansion of an existing competitor, looking at an aging property you cannot properly upgrade, or it could be as big as the leviathan that will be legal online gaming in the USA. But, there’s a chance it’s more of an internal issue. Have you received feedback that better players are dissatisfied with club benefits, direct mail offers, service failures or something else you can address in-house? If it’s something like that, or if you just aren’t sure, leverage your host team in any number of ways to achieve this objective.

Give them a series of questions to work into player conversations to tease out the reasons for diminished play/visits. Give them a survey interface into which they can enter the card number and check (or type in) the reasons given to them BY THE GUESTS for their less frequent visitation. Hold events, have executives record outgoing calls to ask players to contact a host with concerns, or drop a postcard in the mail for a special “tell us about ourselves” day in conjunction with your operational department teams. Set up a feedback loop with your Casino Host team at its core. The answer you get the most often is your biggest threat. Then you’ll know why the numbers are down.

Now, step two.

Determining which players are most likely to defect is only marginally less tricky than identifying the threat. In our scenario, you should be able to identify which players are making fewer trips, but in the event of an imminent threat, you’ll need to do some detective work.

You know from where your better players come, right? Look at those zip codes and determine whether those players are closer to you or the new/upgraded competitor. They’ll tell you if they are getting more compelling offers from another casino they’ve visited. Determine who else has been there and evaluate whether you have the stomach for the bidding war that might ensue if you try to buy back the business.

Whatever the threat, you have to come up with a plan for mitigating the losses. Offer your players an alternative that’s more appealing than whatever they’re thinking of leaving you for. You’ll be able to see the effectiveness of your plan when the trip numbers start to shift.

Then, step three.

Make adjustments to your hosts’ player lists in order to ensure ongoing communication and satisfaction with your property. This single step will do more to secure the loyalty of your best players than anything else you do. Maybe in step two, you determined that the food offers coming from a competitor were driving your best players to their steakhouse. You don’t want to dismantle your entire direct mail program to cater to a small segment of high-end players. Instead, use the personal touch that is casino player development. Empower your casino hosts to offer those players a premium: the guest turns in to the host his mailer coupon for four buffets in exchange for an equal value in the steakhouse. The player can make the reservations and make all the arrangements for the guest’s convenience, meet him in the steakhouse, do some relationship building and exchange the paperwork.

In order to make this work, you’ll need some pretty specific analytics. You’ll need to have several months’ or quarters’ worth of player development reports, your direct mail redemption analysis, a breakdown of your hosted players including demographics and frequency, and that’s just for starters.

You’ll also need an articulate and engaged team of casino hosts, a participatory executive team and some guests who aren’t afraid to speak their minds. (Fortunately, that last one isn’t very difficult to find!)

Harvest Trends can help with some of the rest of the things you’ll need. (Sorry, you’re on your own with the executives.) Contact Amy J Hudson at ahudson@harvesttrends.com or at 304-218-1265 to find out how.

Uncategorized

Isn’t guest service more important than ever?

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As more and more casinos open across America, doesn’t it seem like providing a superior customer service experience would be the first thing existing casino operators would do?

Sadly, many casinos are hiring only part-time employees who aren’t invested in the long-term prospects of the property. This may someday extend to the Player Development department, where the effects could be quite dramatic and negative.

With more options available than ever, and with online gaming just months away for at least SOME casino players, how will you know what is happening to your very best players?

If you’re doing it right, your casino hosts will know. Prepare for and respond to threats to your business by utilizing Preemptive Reactivation.