Progress to Report
by Steven Marlin
August 1, 2008
Gaming Standard Association’s S2S and G2S protocols give IGT’s sb suite of products the flexibility needed to offer a resort-wide CRM system.
Server-based technology, business intelligence and predictive analytics bring CRM capabilities to the next level
Savvy casino operators are
deploying predictive analytics, CRM and business intelligence technology to
identify their most profitable customers while they’re on the property and ply
them with custom-tailored marketing offers.
In
June, Cannery Casino Resorts LLC unveiled plans to implement Aristocrat’s Oasis
casino management system at the Eastside Cannery Casino Hotel, scheduled to
open later this year, and to upgrade the existing Oasis system at Cannery
Resort Casino. Cannery will use the product’s business intelligence tools to
perform in-depth analysis of patrons.
“Oasis
offers us a broad set of marketing and analytical tools, and now that our two
properties will be linked our players will have the benefit of rapid rewards at
both Cannery locations, further enhancing our guests’ experience,” said Mike
Day, chief information officer of Cannery Casino Resorts.
Aristocrat had earlier
boosted Oasis’s CRM capabilities by integrating it with Tech Result’s Wager CRM
system. “By using the two products together, operators gain a 360-degree view
of casino patrons,” said Lael Berelowitz, product manager at Aristocrat. “In
earlier days, a player may have dropped $1,000 at gaming tables, and the
marketing system would have showed that player’s value as a $1,000. Today, that
same player may also spend $3,000 on meals and entertainment. By using CRM,
operators can measure value at different revenue centers exclusive of the
casino.”
Predictive
modeling analyzes data from different sources to forecast player behaviors,
game performance, and campaign success rates. It employs adaptive learning to
improve itself with experience. For example, if an operator were to achieve a
12 percent response rate from an offer, the system would use that data combined
with other historical results to fine-tune the campaign for future use. By
applying predictive modeling, every completed campaign becomes an opportunity
to increase the precision and potential for more successful
results.
CRM is the process of managing the endpoints of
customer relationships through marketing promotions and other relationships;
business intelligence refers to applications and technologies used to collect,
provide access to, analyze and act on data and information about operations.
Together, they enable data to be converted into information, and thereby
provide insight into customer behavior on all areas of the property or across
properties, enabling operators to measure the total value of the customer.
Predicting success
Gaming manufacturers are
partnering with established CRM and business intelligence providers to create
powerful analytics. Last Year Bally Technologies acquired gaming-specific
business intelligence software from Compudigm, and plans to couple it with CRM
applications now under development. Bally has paired the Compudigm software
with its own Data Analysis Dashboard business intelligence software; the new BI
solution provides advanced visualization, customer profiling and customer
segmentation.
“Our business intelligence
deliverable will work with either our own CRM app or one of the customer’s
choosing,” said Todd Sims, Bally’s vice president of systems operations. “We’re
building our own CRM to be part of our business intelligence deliverable, but
if an operator prefers somebody else’s CRM, we can interface with that.”
The need to capture,
analyze and transform data into actionable information is driving operators to
build data warehouses with predictive modeling capabilities. “Companies are
using data analytics to predict events and optimize their business,” Sims said.
“Organizations today have tons of information to process and capture. The
challenge is knowing what to do with all that data.”
While player card tracking systems are a good
starting point for building a customer information platform, they don’t begin
to capture the wealth of data that accrues from customer interactions both on
and off the gaming floor. “Card systems are important but it’s also necessary
to incorporate data from retail, dining and guest room systems into one
holistic view,” said Rory Fagan, sales manager for the hospitality & gaming
industry at SAS. “Operators need to get a single view of casino patrons and
make real-time marketing offers while they’re on the property.”
Server-based marketing
Server-based gaming offers
yet another opportunity to connect with players. “Server-based technologies
incorporating the Game-to-System protocol will allow operators to design their
own brand experience for patrons,” said Joe Moore, product manager for network
systems at IGT. “By capturing and learning from marketing initiatives with an
ever-present decision support system, operators will be able to engage in
continuous innovation in how they communicate and market to customers. The
customer experience ultimately is what determines how long a patron will stay,
how often they will visit and provides a competitive differentiator from other
properties.”
The Gaming Standards
Association (GSA) has created two types of protocols, one for games (the
Game-to-System or G2S protocol) and one for systems (the System-to-System or
S2S protocol). Older protocols such as Best of Breed and Super Slot Accounting
System have been abandoned, although concepts from both protocols were
integrated to create the industry standard G2S protocol.
In the server-based gaming
world, operators can communicate offers to players directly to the game, to a
host, through a kiosk, via e-mail or through a mobile device. Players redeem
offers on the property, and the transaction is recorded by the system.
Operators can evaluate the performance of an offer and then take it one step
further by applying predictive modeling to fine-tune it.
IGT’s sb NexGen interactive
touch screen display can be used for a wide range of player communications,
promotions, interactions and rewards; it features state-of-the-art networking
and connectivity capabilities using GSA protocols. The product includes a
Service Window feature that can open a player display within a G2S device such
as a gaming machine, kiosk or plasma screen, enabling players to receive
tailored offers and services. “When Service Window appears on the screen, it
asks players to enter a PIN, then from there they can not only check points and
balances but also interact with the property and respond to offers while
they’re in the casino,” said Moore.
Service
Window is a thin client display that can deliver customized content from a
central server to various devices on the gaming floor. Because it’s independent
of the actual game software, operators are free to create personalized player
messages, property advertisements, etc. without having to worry about the
regulatory considerations of changing the game software
Using
Service Window, offers can be triggered by actual events. “Suppose it’s 11:30
p.m. on a Friday night and the hotel system shows that 20 rooms are available,”
said Moore.
“Through Service Window, operators can fill up that expiring inventory by
making special offers to qualified players.”
The back room central
server component that IGT has created for delivering content to the Service
Window is called Media Manager, where content can be loaded, approved and
delivered to the Service Window.
Harrah’s Entertainment is
installing sb NexGen on more than 60,000 slot machines as part of its next
generation of CRM capabilities, which combines sb NexGen with Harrah’s Total
Rewards marketing program and its Prism (Personalized Real-time Interactive
Slot Marketing) interactive CRM system. Harrah’s is also piloting IGT’s Media
Manager software to deliver custom Prism and Total Rewards content to customers
directly on the game screens of IGT machines as well as non-IGT machines. The
setup will enable Harrah’s to deliver the next generation of interactive CRM
and a new entertainment experience to Harrah’s customers, according to Tim
Stanley, Harrah’s chief information officer.
Steven Marlin
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