I had my haircut recently at a barber that I’ve been visiting for a long time. We have become good friends and often chat about life. He knows that I’m involved in software but his tone changed when he heard that we develop software for casinos. His personal casino story had not been a winning experience. He talked about how this casino was only interested in sucking every last dime out of his pocket and there was no personal interaction by the casino or its’ staff.
As I listened to his story, I wondered how many guests this casino had lost as a result of lack of personalized service in trying to interact with as many customers as possible and garnering information from them, i.e. birthday, anniversary, mobile phone number, email address. The key to personalized service is to use that information to create a customer, instead of a dissatisfied visitor.
There are several components to guest development: identifying, attracting, and retaining. Each of these components are important and retention has become easier with the marketing tools we have today. Retaining customers for the long run is cheaper than finding new players. When was the last time you sent your customers a birthday email or text, inviting them for a 50% discount on a meal?
A simple auto generated email like the one below has helped many of our clients express their thanks to their customers and in return retain their loyalty. For more case studies and information on marketing education visit us at booth 1045 at OIGA next month.
