Tag Archives: Harvest Trends

Uncategorized

Are your hosts really hosts?

Leave a comment

Are they?  Really?  One of our most popular blog posts is “6 Tasks You Shouldn’t Find in a Casino Host Job Description.”  It is popular because hosts being hosts doesn’t happen as often as you’d think.  How do I know?  I’ve lived it.

When I got my first casino job, as a host, I was often very busy, but not driving revenue for the property.  That wasn’t the role of a host in those days (in many regional markets, anyway).  I was what my boss at the time called “Mr. Mikey,” meaning I drew names and announced promotional winners as often as every hour some days.  I handed out paper drawing entries.  I worked at the Plateau Players Club.  I ran slot tournaments and paid the winners.  I ferried comp slips around and I chatted with people at slot machines.  I didn’t do a lot to drive revenue in the sense you think of today.

Years later, when I became responsible for a host team of my own, the scope of their responsibilities began to shift to what you expect is the norm.  Instead of sitting at a table handling Blackjack tournament registrations, the hosts were being asked to drive  revenue in conjunction with the marketing machine, utilizing the personal touch.  It was difficult to prioritize the activities of the team to enable them to be successful in this new role without finding a way to shift some responsibilities elsewhere.  Ultimately, it took two additional people to do the promotions and events tasks that the hosts had been handling, but the revenue the team drove more than made up for the extra labor cost.

Interestingly, balancing a host’s priorities is a more common challenge in 2014 than you might expect.   Today, there are hosts who sit at a desk and return “Why didn’t I get coupons?” calls or enter hotel reservations into the computer system.  Hosts give away cars and do jackpot announcements.  Hosts get called to resolve service issues for players who aren’t likely to ever be hosted.  They “pit clerk” so they can make an informed comp decision.  But they’re not driving revenue.  Not like they should. Your hosts should have a fairly narrow focus.

Even if there are extraneous tasks that the property really needs them to handle, anything that keeps the hosts from connecting with (and driving more play from) your best players should be kept to a minimum.  If you are short-staffed at the Players Club, talk to your counterparts about cross-training some of their part-timers as back-up club reps instead of using a host.   If you don’t have a dedicated promotions team, rotate marketing staff to minimize the impact of drawings and giveaways when it’s likely to be prime casino floor hunting time. If those aren’t viable options, talk to HR for help with a long-term solution instead of relying on the hosts to do tasks that really don’t help them achieve their revenue-driving potential.

Long story short, the hosts ought to be spending the vast majority of their time focused on communicating with and driving visits from your best players.  Identify the players, whether at risk, new with potential, or recently lost. Produce a snapshot of their worth, then show your boss the number.  Let him know how much higher that number can be if the hosts can be protected from distractions.  Work together with your boss and team leaders in other operational departments to establish some boundaries to enable the hosts to focus on their work.  Set the goals, monitor them relentlessly, keep the team on track, and move the needle.

More than ever, your Player Development team can have an impact on your property’s bottom line.  It’s not necessary to increase your reinvestment (in many cases) to retain most of your very best players.  It is, however, necessary to differentiate yourself from your competitors in some way to give you the edge when your guests are deciding where to wind down next time they want to play.  It’s Player Development’s role to provide your best guests with a resource to clear the way to an enjoyable and rewarding casino experience.  Doing this well with as many of your best players as possible is beneficial to the bottom line.

Your hosts need to be free to provide their personalized service to as many of your players of highest worth as possible.  In order to make it happen, you have to get everyone on board with the notion that they are hosts.  They’re not Managers on Duty, not Customer Service ambassadors, not promotion attendants or pit clerks.  Hosts.  On the floor.  On the phone.   Driving revenue.

Then they can move the needle.

 

This post is brought to you by Harvest Trends. We specialize in Player Development (PD). Please take a look at PowerHost, a comprehensive way to drive revenue from your team of Casino Hosts and Player Development Executives. Or contact Paul Cutler at 561.860.2621 or pcutler@harvesttrends.com.  Paul will overnight you an informative package along with pricing.

Casino Host Culture, Casino Host Evaluation

What do I do about the underperforming hosts on my team?

Leave a comment

When looking at your host team’s performance, no matter how often, you are looking at the same kinds of things, such as theo generated, player recency, frequency, incline or decline of play, reinvestment, exceptional comps, profitability, contacts, and events support. Hopefully you and your team can see these numbers on a regular basis so you always know how you’re doing. (You can certainly use monthly numbers to tell how well your team and the individuals on it are performing. More often is better.)

Often, the results are sort of a mixed bag. Some are ahead of pace for theoretical, but behind in reactivation or acquisition goals. Others are bringing people in, but those folks aren’t playing as expected, so the host is behind in generation of theoretical revenue. This can even happen while the property itself is performing well, depending in large part on the level of the host’s efforts.

So what can you do about it? First, check your program for opportunities to underperform. Most important of all, please give your hosts measurable goals. (It doesn’t have to be complicated, though it certainly can be.) Start with contact goals: make XX phone calls, mail XX letters, speak on the gaming floor with XX players every week. This single objective set means your expectations have been outlined and can be measured, so your hosts will know what you have assigned to them to do each day. You can, of course, give each host or the team a theoretical revenue target to reach, and/or you can set achievement numbers around separate functions such as new player acquisition, list growth, maintenance and reactivation. Setting measurable and achievable goals sends a message to the hosts to tell them how to be successful in their jobs. (This works best if you’ve aligned your team’s targets with the overall trajectory of your property’s marketing programs.)

Once you’ve set and communicated goals to the hosts, you have to measure the results in order to provide them feedback for improvement. Document everything. Have them sign the goals when they are communicated, and regularly share results in team or one-on-one meetings. Schedule these sharing sessions for two days after you receive results, whenever that is. This keeps you accountable. In the meetings, provide suggestions for ways to build relationships and follow up on opportunities, ensure they understand the guidelines and tools provided to them, and hold them accountable for their performance. This includes both praise for pacing well, achieving goals, and exceeding expectations as well as proper coaching and discipline in accordance with your property’s rules when they don’t do as well as they should.sittogether

If you’ve looked at your program and found other opportunities for your hosts to underperform, make a list and determine how you will turn things around. Do you have hosts who love to hug the usual suspects but don’t make a lot of phone calls? Communicate a specific number of hours each shift you expect them to actively make outgoing phone calls, then hold them to it. Are there hosts who spend all day on the phone but never hit the gaming floor and talk with patrons? Set a specific number of interactions to be reported to you along with the location on the gaming floor where they spoke with that guest. Do you have someone who seems as though his or heart just isn’t in it anymore? Have a frank conversation about why they have this job and come up with a plan to help them re-engage, or find a way for them to gracefully move on to greener pastures. Alternatively, you could even follow up with guests to verify that they are talking with and satisfied with their host.

Do all of you have all the tools you need to set, measure, communicate, and target goals? If not, resources are available in many forms. A number of technology partners can slice and dice the data for you and help you find the opportunities already in your database. (This is true of the entire database, not just those patrons whose play warrants a host’s attention, by the way.) Use a CRM to provide continuity of contacts, preferences and play history in an ever-changing world. Use analytics to target the right patrons, and you might even use your Casino Management System to code and track play from hosted payers. You’ll also need reporting to show how many contacts have been made, which players have been in, who redeemed what, and what that all means for your host team and your property. Mostly, you have to ensure a steady stream of information about what your hosts and their players are doing in order to keep things on track and make changes when they’re not.

What are some of the specific things you can do to help an underperforming host do a better job? The first thing to do is ensure understanding of the tasks and responsibilities of the role. Start on the same page and check in regularly to stay there. Then, once a week or more, make quick notes about the hosts’ performance. It only needs to be a couple of sentences, but note things like whether you saw her going over and above, if his milestones are consistently being reached or not, and add your thoughts on the numbers in the goal period to date. This is also a good place to compile tardiness, absences or extra work hours, patron feedback you’ve received, time management concerns, strengths or weaknesses (and how they’ve progressed or not), and other measurable data specific to that host’s performance. Then once a month, sit down with each host and share your thoughts on the work history you’ve now compiled over the course of the last few weeks. Doing this ensures you are looking at the data and providing the hosts with the necessary feedback, coaching and support they need to be more successful.

When you’ve done all this and the host just isn’t achieving all he should, it’s time to have another frank conversation about the host’s future. It’s critical, especially at this stage and in this situation, that you document everything. Have the host sign documentation related to your expectations, any special arrangements you have agreed upon, milestones and dates for follow-up, and all the steps that have been taken by both of you to rectify the situation to date. Then keep detailed notes along the way. If expectations aren’t being met after all this, it is probably time to make a change.

It’s never easy to let someone go, but when it opens the door for another person who really wants to do the job, it is likely to make the team stronger in the long run. The effects of having a coworker who isn’t pulling his weight can be devastating to your team. Resentment, rumors, and a general malaise can set in and undermine everything you need your host team to be: courteous to a fault, responsive, and cooperative. Hosts who are frustrated with a co-worker are stuck in what they see as a no-win situation. It’s tough to stay motivated and present a happy face to your guests when you’re feelings about work are uncharitable. Whatever the specific issue, the hosts who are performing will appreciate that you held an underperformer accountable and those who are on the fence will understand that you expect performance at a higher level.

Casino Host Culture

A High Roller Told Me

Leave a comment

What things do casinos do that make their high rollers crazy?

I had the opportunity recently to become re-acquainted with a gentleman I’d met some months ago. His wife is my friend’s sister, and my friend kept telling me that her brother-in-law and I needed to have a chat about his casino experiences so that I could gain a deeper insight into the player’s mind. As a Casino Player Development pro, this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

This gentleman is the sort of blackjack player most any casino would be happy to have. He’s worth millions in gaming revenue each year, and he is fully aware of the fact that the odds are in the house’s favor. He’s a methodical player who is willing to play a higher minimum per hand in order to keep less experienced players off his table. Let’s put it this way: if he loses, it might mean that table games hits their number for the day, but if he wins it won’t tank the day’s drop. He is looking for the gambling plus a high roller experience that he can share with people who are important to him. If the value is there, he doesn’t so much mind leaving some of his hard-earned dollars behind at the end of his visit.

We sat down in his suite at a Mississippi Gulf Coast casino last week, and after I’d given him a quick breakdown of my experience and my current role, I asked him what casinos do that makes him crazy. This man delighted me by answering that question and then following up with examples of things they do right. I was delighted because many of the things he says are done right are all foundational concepts in casino player development. Basically, this high roller confirmed what I believed to be true about how a strong PD team can contribute to a property’s bottom line.

Since this was where we started the conversation, it’s where I’ll start:

What’s Wrong?

  • Casinos send offers in the mail that aren’t remotely of interest to the player. This player only plays blackjack, but more than one casino sends him slot free play every month. He’s not a tournament player, but his ADT is high enough that he receives multiple invitations to blackjack tournaments. He’d love it if you’d send him something that is meaningful to him instead, and he knows the information necessary to make that happen is in your system somewhere, if you’d only leverage it.
  • Rewards programs veiled in smoke and mirrors. As a player who keeps track of his spend, this gentleman already has a good idea what he’s worth to the casino, and he expects that his rewards will be in alignment with his worth.  It should be easy to tell a patron how many points he needs to earn to advance to a higher tier, whether or not he can receive a comp based on his play, and what his average bet and time played are in the system. If it’s too complicated for your employees to explain, it’s probably too complicated.
  • Being made to haggle over comps. To his point, this guest understands how the system works. He told me about an experience at another South Mississippi casino where he had to make a case for getting a pack of cigarettes comped. He was frustrated by this because he’d just dropped roughly $15,000 at a single blackjack table in a few hours and felt like he was being made to beg for a comp he had surely earned. FYI: He doesn’t go to that casino any more.
  • Employees who don’t have access to pertinent player information. When this guy asks for anything, he anticipates that he has earned it and that his request will be granted. He expects that when a host approaches him, that host will know who he is, how much he’s played, and what rewards are available to him because of that information. He even suggested that hosts should have a smartphone app which would enable them to quickly access such information wherever they are in order to provide the best possible personalized service.
  • Casinos who forget who pays their bills. The casino this patron frequents near his home has recently made some changes that make him feel as though his long-term (and significant) patronage is no longer appreciated. He went from having an executive host who anticipated his needs to having a junior host who will have to call him back when he wants a room or show tickets. Remember, this patron is worth literally millions in gaming spend. But this property is apparently trying to attract even bigger players, and in the process is likely to lose many like this man, who would help to balance the scales when a bigger player wins.
  • Failing to get the details right. When I talked with this player, we were sitting at the dining room table in his suite, smoking cigarettes while we talked. He was staying in a non-smoking suite despite the fact that he’s a smoker…whose cigaretters are sometimes comped by the property. While the casino hotel operator in me cringed, I thought, if you know he’s a smoker and you put him in a non-smoking suite, shouldn’t you expect him to smoke in it?
  • Sharing the high roller experience with players of opportunity. He related a story from his “home” casino where he headed to the pool only to find it closed for a private party being held for a lower card tier than his. It was exclusive to those patrons who had that level of player’s card. He thought this was a good idea, because he saw the promise of aspirational play from those patrons who attended the party. He wasn’t even annoyed that he couldn’t use the pool because he understood the business reasons for having the party.
  • Hosts who understand and anticipate his needs. His wife isn’t a gambler, but she is definitely interested in the pool, the spa, some of the shows, and the restaurants at the casinos they visit. His host here on the Mississippi Gulf Coast does a pretty good job of keeping track of the things this player will want during a weeklong trip, and she even goes so far as to alert associates in other departments when he (or his wife) is going to be utilizing their services. The special personal touches this property provides mean this player will return again and introduce people in his life to the benefits his play earns. He may take 4 extra people to the steakhouse or ask to exceed the usual number of cabana guests, but his play warrants that and his host doesn’t make him ask: she offers what she knows he will want.
  • Protecting the player’s benefits from unauthorized use. On the flip side of the coin, the casino in question always asks for ID or a room key before anyone redeems or room charges anything. His wife kept her maiden name, so she is sometimes asked to provide identification to ensure that she is who she says she is. While I was with them, the service was exceptional and included accommodation when she didn’t have her driver’s license readily available. She told me about her first visit to the spa where a new employee didn’t recognize her. After a quick call to the player’s host to verify his wife’s bona fides, her request was handled efficiently and professionally, and she appreciated the extra effort required to ensure that her husband’s (and, by extension, her) benefits were being protected.

All in all, I’d say the casino where I talked with this patron gets about an 8.5 out of 10 for their handling of this high roller and his expectations. He agreed that they get it right more often than many of the other casinos he’s visited. That tendency to get it right more often than not has earned that property this high roller’s loyalty and repeat business.

Amy Hudson

Link in with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/hudsonamy/

Casino Host Evaluation

What if you could build and measure your DREAM PD Program?

Leave a comment

Have you ever taken the time to sit back and really daydream about what you would do in your PD program if there were no constraints? If you could have the answer to any question you have about your host team’s work, their player lists, their productivity, and what the team is actually doing for your bottom line, what would you build?

Having spent nearly 18 years in Casino Player Development, working as an ambassador, host, promotions administrator, tournament official, club manager, and finally director of many things marketing, I know “the struggle is real”. I remember having to practically beg the database guy to run a list for me, then I’d have to spend hours combing through it to kick out the one-trip wonders,remove the folks I knew had passed away since the last list build, plus I had to try to remember which players had relationships with which host…AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

The best marketer I ever worked for challenged me to run my PD program based on what the analysis told me. And while I certainly saw the sense in the suggestion, I had no way to truly analyse the program in order to do what this challenge laid out. We had two database gurus, and they were always too busy to help me. Director or not, my requests always ended up in line behind (all things) direct mail, promotion analysis, ad hoc reports requested by finance or the GM, and nearly everything else these busy guys did every day. Without the occasional fulfilled request for something I could update and run for myself (usually excel riddled with macros and connected to a backup database so we didn’t take down the casino floor by running a report), I was flying nearly blind and spending an inordinate amount of time trying to get answers to my many questions.

But that was then: olden times, as the youngsters say. (You know, before phones were handheld computers…) Now things are different.

What if you could easily ensure that the players coded to your hosts were worthy of that honor? Then, what if you could determine how many other players were in need of a host’s service and could round-robin assign them with a few clicks or by sending an e-mail?

What if you could set daily or weekly tasks that rolled up into monthly or quarterly goals? How about being able to see some progress to goals in real time, and getting a full update every single day? What would you think if the hosts received the same update every day so they could self-correct and make adjustments to achieve their goals in a proactive way?

What if someone told you that all of this (and more) are possible without the need to ask your IT or database teams for assistance every time you have a question? What if you could find these answers for yourself with just a few clicks?

What if your hosts could enter a player contact on the fly or update preferences while they are on the phone so you could personalize the offers that go out to your best and most loyal patrons? Better yet, what if you could see in real time how your hosts are progressing to achieving the goals and objectives you’ve assigned to them?

Wanna hear the best part? You can have all this (and more!) without having to purchase expensive hardware or software. It’s a service that can be completely automated, and it’s available for an affordable monthly fee per user. We’re talking hundreds, not many thousands of dollars. Plus, there’s no contractual obligation, no long-term commitment, and no risk.

It is possible to build the Player Development program of your dreams. It’s also possible to monitor, measure and report on the results of that program.

Uncategorized

10 Steps to Customer Loyalty (that retail could borrow from Casino Player Development)

Leave a comment

On Black Friday, as I contemplated people shopping ’til they dropped for great deals on all the must-haves, I kept coming back to a conversation I had with a Harvest Trends client on the day before Thanksgiving. We both, at almost the same moment, had the same thought: what if retailers used the same methods to drive revenue from existing customers as casinos do with their best customers via Player Development.

I know that some companies are doing some of these things (heck, the airlines really started the whole loyalty marketing thing in the first place, didn’t they? OR was it the credit card companies?), but in my experience, it doesn’t run very deep. Social media has certainly changed the landscape when it comes to communications between consumers and the folks with whom they do business. I believe, however, the implementation of all the steps on this list would generate a significant return, as it would set that retailer apart from the rest.

Here are 10 steps retailers could take from PD to drive more loyalty (and more revenue!):

  1.  Drill into your data and determine which customers make up the top 20% of your sales. Focus first on securing the loyalty of those customers because they are keeping your power on, your doors open, and your paychecks coming.
  2. Look at their buying habits and determine what they might be worth to you if they purchased everything available in your store FROM YOU. Obviously, you aren’t going to get 100% of someone’s spend (on whatever, be it clothes, electronics, furniture, food, entertainment, toys, literally any category) but if you do it right, you can make them think of you first if they need or want something you sell.
  3. Put together a loyalty program in whatever form works best for your company’s business model. Call center(s), targeted mailings, social media followings, events, membership cards, special discounts, points, custom links on your website, free stuff…any or all of these could be included in your program.
  4. Find some fantastic personalities to get the conversation started. Whether you communicate with your best customers primarily via e-mail, snail mail or phone call, you want bright, energetic, responsive and customer-service oriented people communicating with these VIPs. Then get those superstars on the phones or dropping mail or creating dynamic internet campaigns to drive the loyal customers back to you.
  5. Close the feedback loop. Monitor social media interactions (an agency is a good pick here if you have the funds available), ask your customer service interaction team to keep you posted if they hear the same complaint often enough to create a pattern, and train your people to make your customers happy based on their lifetime worth to you and where they are in the life cycle of that spend.
  6. Set goals for the customer service team to reach. Many things could be considered in goal-setting, much like in Casino Player Development. It makes sense to start with things the team can actually control, like issue resolution, number of customers contacted, customer satisfaction scores, and sales figures. Analyze the behaviors of the Top 20% and set goals that are a bit of a stretch, but still achievable.
  7. Monitor and adjust as needed. Often, in Casino Player Development, you lose customers (they move away, lose a job, have new families, etc.) and you might need to shift your focus. Adjust the program to reward first-time buyers or make offer changes if you aren’t getting the results you expected. Use analytics to find the money that’s on the table and plan ways to pick it up.
  8. Try to remain-customer focused so you don’t lose your way. When your loyal customers tell you what they do or do not like about your practices, please listen to them. Clearly you can’t give in to their every whim, but when someone loyal to your establishment complains to you about a thing they find to be objectionable, they are asking you to give them a reason to continue doing business with you. How you respond will directly affect how much longer they will do so.
  9. Let your people know when they’ve done well and hold them to task when they haven’t. The last part is the most difficult for me, but I have learned that you do no one any favors if you don’t create accountability. Ensure that the work gets done as it should, let your people know they’re important to both you and the company. Tell them when customers say they’ve been outstanding and share the pain of the inevitable defeat. Then everyone can get up, dust themselves off and get back to work.
  10. Remember to have fun with it! This is of the utmost importance. Many writers of customer service advice cite Southwest Airlines as a good example of a great many things, and this is one thing they do better than anyone else I’ve experienced. Happy helpers make happy customers, and a sunshiny demeanor is something even the angriest of customers responds to, however reluctantly. Make sure the people who provide customer service in the name of your company have smiles on their faces whenever possible. It’s easier to do if everyone is enjoying themselves.

Did I forget anything, PD pros?  Retail veterans, what do you think?