Inside Asian Gaming

AUGUST 2018 INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 41 COLUMNISTS collected; (2) Consolidation of data into an easy-to-analyze format; (3) Deriving usable insights from data; and (4) Timeliness of insights, including ability to use real time data in decision making. The discipline of data-based decision making takes a lot of guesswork out of the CX equation. Former Netscape CEO Jim Barksdale summed up the situation beautifully when he sheepishly said, “If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” JOURNEY MAPPING To truly enhance the customer experience, it is necessary to have the whole customer journey in sight. Think about how you can improve this journey. The journey mapping approach most used in service industries is “service blueprint,” a technique first described by G. Lynn Shostack of Citibank. A service blueprint identifies all key touchpoints along the customer journey, describing the physical evidence, the customer behaviors, the contact employee’s front-stage and backstage behaviors, and the support systems and staff that are instrumental at each touchpoint. Three of the six concessionaries in Macau have already harnessed the power of service blueprints to understand and improve CX, albeit with varying results. Service blueprints provide several key benefits. They provide a common point of discussion for service improvement, thus making explicit decision makers’ and employees’ notions of what constitutes the customer experience. By providing an overview of the entire service process – both current and desired – employees get valuable insights into how their roles fit into the integrated whole. Most importantly, accurate blueprint maps alert management to areas where the customer service needs to improve, costs can be cut, revenues can be increased and profits could be maximized. CONCLUSION In the increasingly competitive global gaming environment, there is little space for me-too loyalty programs and little reward for the “build it and they will come” premise. Developing a truly outstanding customer experience mandates alignment across culture, employee engagement, employee reframing, customer insights, and service blueprints. Forrester data show that the revenue impact of a 10-percentage-point improvement in a company’s customer experience score can exceed US$1 billion. If this single statistic does not prompt casino operators to get serious about customer experience, nothing probably will. Mapping the customer journey is a key element in enhancing customer experience While some companies in jurisdictions such as Macau try hard to retain their employees by offering regular salary increases, paternity leave and maternity leave, these moves accomplish little to increase employee engagement. Often, they only increase employees’ sense of entitlement, sowing the seeds of discontent.