Apple, Amazon and Nike are examples of companies that have changed their consumer experience. Casinos need to follow soon or will be left behind in how people spend their entertainment dollars, according to a longtime gaming executive.
Catherine Burns, a former senior vice president with Scientific Games told a gaming educational seminar last week said consumer behavior is in a “brand new world” and it impacts every company including the gaming industry.
Catherine Burns
Burns spoke on player development and technology on Dec. 13 as part of seminar hosted by the Harrah College of Hospitality at UNLV. Burns said people have many choices how to spend on entertainment and it’s important casinos leverage mobile technology and artificial intelligence to gain insights from players, she said.
“When a player tells us he’s not happy, do we have a host going up to them immediately?” Burns asked. “Do they understand the whole profile of that player or customer? Do they know that the player is playing their online sportsbook, and do they know that player is consuming a ton of food and beverage and whether they are using nightclubs? That’s where we are at now of starting to build that profile of the player to really understand their value to the entire integrated resort or the entire casino property. We have a ways to go as an industry to get to best practices.”
Burns used Amazon or Apple as an example of individuals buying products and the customer experience. She cited how an Apple employee handles every aspect of the transaction from sale to payment with the use of a mobile device to make it immediate and give customers what they need.
When a customer talks on the phone with Amazon about a problem with a purchase, the service representative has the person’s entire profile on their screen of what they spend, how they spend and when they spend, and the representative bases decisions off that information.
“We’re not different in what we’re trying to do in the casino world,” Burns said. “We want the same experience. We want a casino employee to get to a customer quickly. When they are doing that, we want them to look at their mobile phone and profile of the player and what they are doing, how they are playing and how do we take care of them. That is the paradigm of where we are going. Those tools are what we need to bring into gaming, and some companies are now starting to do.”
Burns said the only way casinos can expand their customer base and grow that is to know who is in their properties. Casinos need to know if the person wants to game on mobile, slot machines, tables, or do they want to play community games or even game while in a restaurant. Artificial intelligence, analytics, recommending options and other technologies need to be deployed beyond the gaming floor.
“You need to understand what that customer experience is and who better to help you understand than the operator’s employees,” Burns said. “The employee has all of the tools to understand that player in real time to award a comp in real time across the business. Suddenly, you’re delivering a better experience for that customer. The reason you have to focus on that so heavily is that’s what happening to us in our private lives before we set foot in an integrated resort.”
Burns described the experience of a taxi versus the ride share of Uber or Lyft as an example of how consumers want quick and seamless transactions that are cashless. Businesses are turning more to cashless technology and casinos need to do the same.
Ratings by customer and provider – such as used for ride share – are tools that can be used by casinos, Burns said. Also, when rating players for comps, someone who’s only worth a couple of thousand dollars of month should be viewed differently if they have 100,000 Instagram followers, she said.
“That’s a major value proposition,” Burns said. “The power of those influencers in that room is enormous, and they can make or break businesses.”
Andy Caras-Altas, CEO of Traffic Generation LTD, who appeared on panel with Burns, said her vision “isn’t quite reality yet, but it’s an important sea-change in our industry,” not only for North American but Europe and Asia.
For it to work, Caras-Altas said it’s vital for casinos and their relationship with vendors. If the vendors aren’t able to keep up, the industry will fall behind and be the worst for it. But change is needed, he added.
“We can no longer say we did this 20 years ago or 30 years ago, and it’s fine,” Caras-Altas said. “It’s not fine. The customers are changing. Forget the demographics. We have heard a lot of talk in the industry about millennials. How older patrons are interacting with their environment in the commercial world is changing. People in their 60s to 80s are using smart phones. The penetration is colossal and how they engage with commercial entities has changed profoundly. There’s no reason why the gaming industry needs to fall behind. Why can’t we move forward?”
