Let’s try something radically different. Let’s throw customer comment cards and satisfaction surveys in the trash and concentrate instead on measuring and creating guest and employee advocates. For casinos that want to grow and thrive, I believe advocacy is the way of the future.

That’s all well and good, but change is an integral part of adopting a new approach to managing growth. Responsibility for rolling out that change falls on the shoulders of casino middle managers who may or may not be fired up about making it happen.

Change can be difficult, and that’s why middle management needs to learn some new lessons. Let’s approach this from the perspective of improving guest service, for two reasons—good service is one of the critical components of creating guest advocates; and improving service is definitely a big change for some casinos. But remember, the ultimate goal is advocacy and the benefits it can offer your casino.

To make it simple, let’s break the change process down into three major phases: preparation, acceptance and commitment.

The first two phases—preparation and acceptance—deal with awareness, understanding and positive perception. That’s the early part of creating change to improve customer service. A phrase in a long-gone ad campaign said, “Awareness is the first step.” That is critically true for improving your guest’s experience.

Middle managers sometimes believe their own press and comment cards a little too much. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the great comments you hear. It’s equally easy to forget that unhappy guests don’t tell you anything. But they do spread the word about their unpleasant experience at your property to anyone who will listen, including the people they play with at your competitor’s property. They are as far from an advocate as a person can be.

Next, you need to be positively predisposed to making the change. You’re off to a bad start if you’re only changing because you were told to, or because corporate is forcing the change. When change is forced, it shows, and not in a good way.

The last phase—commitment—is where the investment in improving guest service is matched with the desired change. It’s important to note that change isn’t cheap. The reason auto manufacturers don’t launch all new models each year is because of the cost of change.

The investment is the first thing most people notice, but in reality, it’s a small part of the true cost of change. For example, to improve service, people will be asked to step outside their comfort zone and try new behaviors. Believe me, that will come at a cost. Next, they will be held accountable, and that has a cost, too. If your casino makes the investment to hire us or some other company to do guest service training, that’s great, but the money can only do so much. After we’re finished, we will go back home or to the next casino. Middle managers are the ones who must hold people accountable over the long term.

Casino managers often think that improving a guest’s experience is simply a matter of training—hire the best training company and your people will easily change and provide better service. It’s more complicated than that. If you think change is easy or fun, try this little experiment. Take any one of your consistent behaviors and do it differently. It could be as simple as using your right hand to pick up the telephone and hold it to your right ear. If you normally order coffee in a restaurant, order tea.

This exercise will give you a feel for how change can affect a person and a company. Change must have commitment if it is to have any hope of succeeding.

Changing a property’s guest experience—and rolling out a culture of advocacy—isn’t as simple as deciding you need to change and then wiggling your nose and watching it magically happen. It’s a process that needs to be facilitated to generate the best possible return. Change isn’t always easy, but when approached properly, it can be done. And the end result can be amazingly good.

By Martin Baird

Martin R. Baird is CEO of Robinson & Associates, Inc., a customer service consulting firm that works with casinos around the world. He is creator of the company's Advocate Development System, and author of  Advocate Index: An Operational Tool.

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