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Press Releases & Articles
November 2007
Guest Advocacy Will Help Casino Marketing Departments Achieve Goal
of Increasing New and Repeat Business
by Martin R. Baird
(Print,
PDF)
Casino marketing directors are under increasing pressure to drive
new guests to their property and increase the frequency of existing
guests’ visits. They can meet this challenge by working in concert
with other departments to focus on creation of guest advocates.
An emphasis on guest advocacy will help the marketing department cut
its costs because guest advocates are an advertising army that
drives the casino’s message to advocates’ friends and family. At the
same time, guest advocates create repeat and new business. Advocacy
research reduces data noise that comes from volumes of customer data
casinos produce but few people within the organization pay attention
to. For example, the casino can stop doing customer satisfaction
research.
In short, guest advocacy can help a marketing department meet its
goals while reducing certain costs and eliminating work to redirect
resources to a more productive endeavor.
Let’s start with customer satisfaction.
I have something radical to suggest. Stop wringing your hands over
customer satisfaction. Gather those customer satisfaction surveys
and comment cards and throw them in the trash. Tracking customer
satisfaction is a waste of time, energy and money.
Many businesses today struggle with collecting meaningful feedback
from their customers. You can’t walk into a business without being
handed some sort of research tool. You’re asked to fill out a card
or a survey. You’re encouraged to call a phone number on the receipt
and answer some questions.
But these efforts generate useless information. The Harvard Business
Review published an article that outlines 10 years of customer
satisfaction research in more than a dozen industries. Thousands of
customers were interviewed. The upshot of the research is this –
customer satisfaction has zero correlation to the future growth of
any business. That’s right, none!
How can this be? Let’s focus on casinos and the concept of
satisfaction. Casino guests are incredibly fickle. They can be
satisfied on Saturday because they’re winning and dissatisfied on
Sunday because their luck turned. They can be satisfied on Tuesday
because their favorite food was on the buffet and dissatisfied
Friday because it wasn’t. So are they satisfied or not? A comment
card can’t answer that question because it’s just a snapshot in
time. And because satisfaction is nearly impossible to pin down, it
doesn’t relate at all to the bottom line and a casino’s future
growth.
So what does matter? There is a category of customers at every
casino that is critically important. These are customers who are far
beyond satisfied. They are advocates. They are so pleased with their
gaming experience that, of their own free will, they tell friends,
colleagues and relatives about the great casino where they play.
These customers return to play again and again (repeat business) and
the positive word they spread can cause other people to give the
casino a try (new business). New guests who also are wowed by the
casino can become advocates themselves and start spreading the word.
Advocates risk their personal reputation by encouraging others to
play at their favorite casino. A guest who fills out a comment card
risks nothing.
You’re probably wondering what you do now. The first step is to
measure the degree to which you have guest advocates. Express that
as an index, or score, and you have a powerful tool for managing the
future growth of your casino. Research has shown that in some
industries, the advocate score has as high as a 98 percent
correlation to future growth. That’s why customer advocacy has
become so important at such leading corporations as Intuit, Harley
Davidson, Dell, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Symantec.
Knowing the advocate score is great but what you do with that data
is even more important. Casinos should want to create as many guest
advocates as possible and that means making an effort to drive the
advocate score ever higher. The higher the number, the more
successful your casino will be.
Generating the advocate score is the first step. Implementing a
turnkey system of internal improvement to raise the score is the
next step. This system will put the data into action, make people
accountable for leveraging it and keep the process rolling forward
smoothly. Seven best business practices should be the foundation of
the system. Those business practices are as follows.
Leadership. Management must act as leaders to create a culture that
clearly demonstrates how important guest advocates are.
Program Management. A formal program must be in place and it must be
monitored.
Goals and Metrics. Goals must be set and met.
Incentives. Employees are critical to providing the kind of customer
service that turns guests into advocates. Incentive, reward and
recognition programs will be needed to spur them on.
Action Planning. Progress will occur only with an action plan.
Improvement. Internal improvements will be required to create more
advocates. Those improvements must be identified and implemented.
Closure. Guests should be asked how the casino can be a better place
to play. Give guests closure by letting them know how their input
was used.
So there you have it, a formula for success. Get out of the customer
satisfaction rut, embrace the concept of advocacy, measure your
advocates and roll out a turnkey system for improvement that creates
even more advocates.
Martin R. Baird is author of “Advocate Index™: An Operational
Tool” and chief executive officer of Robinson & Associates, Inc., a
customer service consulting firm for the gaming industry. Robinson &
Associates helps casinos determine their Advocate Index, a number
that indicates the extent to which properties have guests who are
willing to be advocates, and then implements its Advocate
Development System to help casinos create more guest advocates. The
Advocate Development System uses the proven methodology of Advocate
Index in combination with best business practices to chart a course
for growth and profitability. More information about the Advocate
Development System and Robinson and Associates is available at the
company’s Web sites at www.advocatedevelopmentsystem.com and
www.casinocustomerservice.com. A copy of “Advocate Index: An
Operational Tool” may be obtained by calling 206-774-8856. Robinson
& Associates may be reached by phone at 480-991-6420 or by e-mail at
mbaird@casinocustomerservice.com. Based in Annapolis, Maryland,
Robinson & Associates is a member of the Casino Management
Association and an associate member of the National Indian Gaming
Association.
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