Creating profitable guest experiences through effective planning and execution
You’ll find kiosks on just about every gaming floor, but how do you know if you need one? Their goal is to drive incremental gaming revenue, improve efficiency and create a better winning atmosphere for your guests. The loyalty kiosk provides an assortment of opportunities to use alternative valuation factors to deliver a win or “wow” factor to high-frequency guests who may not win on the gaming floor. What are some ways to ensure that you aren’t just creating another giveaway and, therefore, over-investing in your players? How can a property use them more effectively, avoid lines at the club booth and keep from migrating high-value guests to stand in line at the promotional kiosk? How can loyalty kiosks make your property more profitable while simultaneously enhancing the overall guest experience?
We checked in with some tribal gaming operators who have made kiosks a successful part of their marketing strategy and asked them a series of questions about how they are using this tool.
Adam Levy, Marketing Manager, Spotlight 29 Casino, CA
How can loyalty kiosks make your property more profitable while simultaneously enhancing the overall guest experience?
“Loyalty kiosks are available 24/7. When hosts go home at night, your food offers are a click away. Promotions aren’t limited to certain hours because of staffing or budget concerns. When a player meets criteria, they can participate. Afraid your high-value guest may miss out on the overall guest experience when implementing kiosks? Not when you have kiosk promos tailored just to them. With kiosks you can have multiple promos running simultaneously, each dedicated to specific tier levels with budget-friendly prize pools. Slot players are escape gamblers. Solidarity is important. That being said, kiosks can kind of be seen as a more inviting guest experience than a traditional, over-caffeinated players club representative.”
Dominic Orozco, Chief Marketing Officer, Gila River Hotels & Casinos – Wild Horse Pass, Lone Butte, and Vee Quiva
What are some kiosk programs you used that were a huge success?
“Targeted programs to a specific demo, ADT and frequency have provided us with the greatest success. During a recent promotion with the Arizona Cardinals, our ‘Pick the Pros’ game allowed our guests to pick the winner of professional football games, which resulted in great incremental trip growth. Overall the kiosks have decreased lines, increased game play and provided our guests with more time to do what they love, which is to play their favorite casino games.”
And how are you measuring your success with kiosks – financial and gaming on the floor?
“When we launched our new Everi kiosks, we remodeled our players club around the kiosks to make it a faster and seamless experience for our guests. We are measuring success based on overall usage and the savings we achieve. For example, we’ve cut the waiting time in half for gaming transactions on the floor, which in turn gets our guests back on the slot machines faster. The guests can bypass the players club and do most of their transactions on their own. This allows the players club to do more on the gaming floor by assisting guests instead of being behind the players club booth. We’ve gotten great feedback, too – our guests like the quick access and user-friendly experience.”
Jaci Marx, Senior Director of Marketing, Isleta Resort & Casino
Are you using the kiosks on the floor to market to your guests differently? Are you doing different programs if they are local, high-frequency, lower ADT, etc.?
“Yes, we can use kiosks for a new member game or really target any level of guest. For instance, we may send out a VIP-only promotion on a direct mail piece and have the mail list loaded into the kiosk so that only those players are eligible to check in and participate in the promotion. A mid-level guest may want to check the points they have earned that day to see if they are eligible for bonus entries or to see if they played enough for a gift. A new member or a lower level player may receive their free daily entry into a promotion. This allows them to find out more about the property and promotion, and it is designed to incent them to want to earn more entries through play once they figure out how the promo works and what prize they are playing for. The other really nice feature is really being able to give the players targeted offers, either through a special promotion or through database offers. Since the mailing list can be loaded onto the slot machine, only those players who are supposed to get the offer see the offer.”
From the vendor side, we caught up with Angela Ahmet, Vice President, Loyalty Products, Everi, and asked her, “What feature or technology do tribal gaming operators tell you is the most important to them?
“Operators invest a lot of time and money into building their brand identity. It is what relates them to their audience and makes them appeal to certain demographics. Ergo, when they partner with a supplier, it’s fair to expect that brand will be maintained throughout all content. Everi is able to support this by customizing the content and layout of each user interface to provide an apparent custom solution that guests recognize, combined with the research and development that has gone into our technology. Much of our growth in the tribal segment is also attributed to being good faith partners. We have former operators who have been in their position and understand how to plan for successful deployments and the importance of sovereignty. Our customers are always afforded the ability to retain all data locally.”
To read the full interview online, go to www.tgandh.com.
