In my last column, I talked about the way some casinos continue to learn into exceptional customer experience, and how it stands out to players and can continue to be a good way for casinos to differentiate themselves.
The opposite, of course, is also true – bad experiences that lead players to sour on a casino. Here’s one example, shared on our Flip The Switch comments for the previous column:
A few years ago, I sat down at a 25 dollar BJ game. No mid shoe entry so I waited. Then there was a chip count that took 15 minutes. Then the shoe ended and some more time went by. Finally after the shuffle a supervisor changed the game from 25 to 50. I asked to be grandfathered in since I’d been sitting there for a half hour. The answer was no. Supervisor said the same. So I voted with my feet since I wasn’t staying there.
Harris G.
Honestly I feel like Harris was being a bit generous by factoring in that he wasn’t staying there – I probably would be turned off playing regardless of if it was my home hotel or not.
Harris shared that he went to another casino, had a much better experience, and has been loyal to them since – so the casino that waved him off probably has lost a decent amount of business for someone who was going to play $25 hands of Blackjack.
But this sort of thing isn’t particularly unusual either – casinos will make players wait in lengthy lines, whether it’s hotel check-in, getting help with a players card or waiting for the buffet. Casinos are slowly replacing humans with kiosks, oftentimes with challenges in uptime, for ordering food, getting a room key or replacing your card.
In the meantime, the casino industry has seen record revenues, all the while raising various fees relentlessly on an annual basis to wring more profit out of an increasingly financially stretched population, leading to recent articles, such as by David Danzis of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, asking if we’re crossing a tipping point where an increasing number of people have had enough.
Notices that MGM was cutting services like bell desk and valet at budget properties like Excalibur have further added questions to what level of service we should expect in the future.
In the wake of this environment, the bad experiences feel worse, because you’re already spending more than you used to for the same services, and if the experience is worse, it adds to the feeling. I recall a few years ago checking into a hotel I had regularly enjoyed. I used their self service kiosk, it told me the room wasn’t ready so I’d be texted.
By around 8 pm, with no text, I stood in line, only to be told the kiosks don’t work. There were no signs, and others were on the kiosks at the time I was talking to the desk agent, but they didn’t seem to care. I got up to my room, dropped stuff off, went to grab a late dinner, and when I went back to my room, my keys didn’t work. Back to the desk, and the line, to find out my reservation had been unlinked from my room, meaning another person could have been added to my room if I hadn’t caught it and fixed it before that happened. All my stuff was in the room, so I was not happy at all.
I haven’t been back since.
It’s a shame, but the frequency and severity of the issues, without so much as an apology, left me uninterested in returning, even as much as I had great experiences there. And six years later, I’ve held to my promise to not accept that as the standard, and that comes before all the cuts and changes many places made after the pandemic.
Customer service isn’t just about excelling when the option arises, but also managing the inevitable issues that will happen, minimizing them in both number and impact. If Harris was given a bit of consideration, they’d have a gambler that was a loyal customer, but because they wasted his time and didn’t care that he was patient and followed all the rules, he’s gone. Another casino couldn’t get their tech together, and didn’t seem to care, so I’m gone.
If casinos are going to keep raising the bar on fees and prices, they need to raise the bar on service too.
