Casino customers, who see the technology in place in their everyday lives, want that same experience when they visit a resort. It’s time for the casino industry to give it to them, according to two tribal information-technology executives.
Enhancing the casino experience with more digitalization was a focus Wednesday at the TribalNet Conference & Tradeshow in suburban Dallas. The session was hosted by Virgil Debrosse, IT senior account manager, and Tony Gawne, executive director of IT and commerce business systems, both with the Chickasaw Nation that operates tribal casinos across southern Oklahoma.
Gawne and Debrosse agreed that a disruptive landscape taking place has been influenced by the pandemic — a lot of social changes and expectations that will increase even more in the future. They said it’s time to accelerate the adoption of digital business and seek more direct routes to customers.
“We are right now at a crossroads,” Debrosse said. “We have customers, technology, and a desire for experience. The trick is where they meet and how we get them to a sweet spot. The pandemic has fueled customer behavior over the past 18 to 20 months and there have been a lot of requests from the customers about the technology that we provide them. Even our employees have a lot of expectations about how work gets done.”
The two executives talked about how cashless-gaming technology had been sitting out there for years with little buy-in from casinos, which were also facing regulatory hurdles slowing its implementation. That changed during the pandemic, with the adoption and acceleration of its use by properties.
“You either try to outrun the disruption or capture and maintain the momentum,” Debrosse said. “A lot of us are in the process of capturing and maintaining the momentum right now.”
Gawne said customers today not only want everything at the swipe of their mobile phone, they also want it to be simple, two desires that aren’t always easy in an environment as regulated as the casino industry.
“They want to be connected and have a personalized experience, but they want to maintain their privacy,” Gawne said. “A lot of these things don’t work well together, and there’s a lot of insight that we can derive from outside of gaming and how they manage expectations of customers.”
Outside influences are impacting consumers and casinos need to follow suit, Gawne said. There are 15 ways to order a pizza from Domino’s Pizza, even on Facebook.
“When you start talking about what this multi-platform methodology looks like, we have to start thinking that way as well,” Gawne said. “It’s a little more difficult, because pizzas aren’t regulated.”
When people book a flight with an airline, then call in, they expect the airline to recognize their number, pull up their flight information, and routinely send text notifications.
“Those are different points of interactions centered around the same experience,” Gawne said. “We need to match that.”
Cosmetics retailer Sephora has a chat box where people can book an appointment. Customers can even submit photos of their faces and artificial intelligence will recommend lipstick and makeup colors.
Starbucks has a chat box where you can submit an order and it will tell you when your order is ready to pick it up instead of waiting in line.
“Think of a world where we employ this same technology and our customers can get the information they want when they want it,” Gawne said. “I don’t think it’s enough to say where the Red Ruby (slot machine) is in the casino. I think the experience our guests are being crafted to expect would be to show where Red Rubys are, the denomination, and if the game is in play or available, so I don’t have to walk to the other side of the casino floor. To me that’s the casino experience. If I’m ordering my coffee and the chat box is telling me when it’s ready, it’s the same expectation on the casino floor. I’m ordering the experience and I want to know if it’s available for me.”
The same may be true for how guests book hotel reservations. Instead of call-center agents handling them as they have for years, Gawne said, artificial intelligence can be used to figure out barriers to faster transactions and reduce friction. Some of that can be offloaded to chat boxes or another level of interaction.
The Chickasaw pair discussed the ways in which machines, instead of employees, can deal with tasks and problems, such as monitoring purchase orders for goods throughout the casino, whether they’re for light bulbs or toilet paper. AI can be used to determine when bathrooms need to be cleaned. The technology can even be deployed to help determine which staff person would best handle a problem with a customer. This is especially critical in an era when workers are more difficult to hire and retain.
“I’m willing to bet that some analyst in a back office either once a week or once a month is checking and issuing a purchase order,” Gawne said. “Why can’t we have a machine collecting that information off sensors to automatically fulfill those orders and shop in the digital market and negotiate prices?”
