Why You Should Hire a Digital Concierge in Your Casino – and How to Find the Right One in 2021
Digital concierges in casinos can make a positive impact on guest experiences, staff productivity levels while delivering 400% ROI.
Go Moment is now part of Revinate, Inc.
---------Casinos operate in a highly competitive world. Every guest counts. Today as we emerge from the last 18 months, every dollar counts as well.
Digital concierges in casinos are at times the reason why players prefer one casino over another. They definitely impact profits. If you are thinking about bringing a digital concierge into your casino this year to positively impact your guests and your profits, read on! We have you covered.
Have you already decided to hire a digital concierge for your casino? Try a free demo to see Ivy in action.
What you can see here
- What’s a digital concierge?
- How do you know your casino needs a digital concierge?
- What can digital concierges in casinos deliver?
- ROI and digital concierges in casinos
- How to find the right digital concierge for your casino
What’s a digital concierge?
Concierges and VIP hosts at casinos work long hours with normal shifts extending well beyond 8 hours. Additionally, they are often on call 24/7 – since guests and players text them even when the hosts are not on the floor. During peak season – the New Year holidays for instance – most concierges end up spending 12 to 16 hours in the casino.
Sustaining this without compromising on guest satisfaction and experience is hard. Consider too that some casinos assign a single concierge to high-end guests for their entire stay – delighting guests immensely. With the current staffing crisis though, casinos are struggling to fill this role as well – leaving it to other staff members to take care of guests and players.
What if you could extend that same level of service that comes from a dedicated concierge to all your guests? What if you could do that without additional staff, while reducing the stress on your existing team and keeping your overhead costs low?
A digital concierge can deliver against all three objectives. Available to guests 24/7, a digital concierge texts with guests answering their questions in real time, with no change in enthusiasm. Beyond guest engagement, digital concierges also deliver ROI through increased game play and ancillary spend on-property.
How do you know your casino needs a digital concierge?
Your guests want it…even if they don’t tell you Digital concierges leverage a key habit – that guests prefer to text.
78% of people would rather communicate with businesses via text over any other method. Another survey in 2020 talks of how guests prefer to handle everything from hotel registration and meal ordering from the convenience of their smartphones. This one too flagged that almost 72% of respondents said that they would prefer to text for help in real-time compared to 42% who said they would like to talk to someone using video.
With almost universal use of smartphones, texting with a digital concierge is convenient and will elevate their experience while at your casino.
Your staff need a digital concierge too! Digital concierges take a huge load off the front desk and in-house staff. As much as 60% of queries can be automated. This means that your staff won’t be spending their time dealing with routine, repetitive inquiries. Their productivity levels are bound to increase in such a scenario.
If you’re worried that your staff might feel insecure, don’t. Data and research from Cornell University show that staff appreciate when automation reduces the tedious aspects of their workload, freeing them to handle more complex guest queries consequently increasing job satisfaction levels.
A combination of AI powered automated responses from a digital concierge and energized staff can help you build long-term relationships with your casino guests and players.
What can digital concierges deliver?
Digital concierges deliver delighted guests, productive and appreciative staff and more importantly directly impact your profits and profits. Here are some of the advantages of having a digital concierge at your casino.
Make every guest feel like a high roller Digital concierges are always there to support your guests and answer their inquiries – even at 2am! AI powered digital concierges in fact often give guests a feeling that they are texting with a real person at the other end. Imagine every guest thinking they are being handled by a personal concierge? Guest delight? Bingo!
Build loyalty The casino industry is known for innovation in designing and implementing loyalty marketing programs. Clubs, ratings, and tracking systems enable casinos to learn and increase the yield from their best customer programs. Digital concierges enhance this ability for casinos to use intelligent text messaging to make personalized offers and increase loyalty among guests.
Resolve issues and improve guest experience Casino owners can leverage a virtual concierge to offer guests quick solutions to standard issues and requests. By providing instant communication and connected services, digital concierges improve guest satisfaction and provide an elevated guest experience.
Tell you more about your guests A digital concierge software allows you to build a knowledge base of your valued guests so you can improve guest service and easily look back into the conversation history. Surprise your repeat guests with their favorite drinks!
Centralize tracking for all requests Record requests and incidents for all reservations, wake up calls, transportation, room service or any other service. By using a single communication channel (text messaging), casinos can have a record of all guest interactions in one place. For each and every guest!
Gives you transparency across shifts and teams A digital concierge keeps a history of the conversation which is easily accessible by all departments. Concierge software provides transparency to the entire guest services team and offers an improved way to collaborate on guest requests.
Deliver personalized, on-demand experiences Using their mobile phones to text, guests can converse with a virtual or digital concierge to find tables, make reservations, check concert schedules, book tickets to shows. Digital concierges also enable guests to “design” their own experience. This provides an opportunity for casinos to be more personalized in their customer offerings.
Free up staff time Large casinos can struggle to meet the expectations of their guests due to sheer volume, especially around peak evening times, check in and check out times.
A digital concierge frees up desk agents to allow them to focus on the more complex guest inquiries. When integrated with call centers, guests can speak directly with guest service agents when the digital concierge doesn’t have a ready answer.
Analyze guests’ interaction Casinos, like everyone else, are trying to better understand what makes their guests happier in order to design a more appealing environment. Data obtained through a digital concierge can offer valuable insights which you can further capitalize on.
Develop a personality Digital concierges are often mistaken for actual people chatting with guests! As a result, with the right input, the technology can create a customized persona to simulate the positioning the casino wishes to showcase, and help you stand out in a crowded industry.
Enable check in via text messages
Digital concierges can ask guests to send a text when they land, check them in, and share room numbers automatically. Guests can them walk straight to their rooms or the casino floor without having to visit the front desk. No more peak-hour lobby jams!
ROI and digital concierges in casinos
Within the casino industry, we know that good revenue management when combined with guest relationship practices can maximize the overall profits.
Digital concierges can offer up casino credit, compensations, airfare reimbursements, discounts, promotional chips, personalized discounts, shopping sprees, special access to facilities. All of these are additional revenue streams for casinos.
Let’s look at some of the ways a digital concierge can impact profits at your casino.
Extend personalized offers to players Digital concierges can message in-house guests about late check outs and extended stay deals just before the guest’s departure. The system can be used to deploy specific, targeted messages based on rewards programs, loyalty tiers, or other players club membership levels.
Booking benefits According to Cognizant’s Hospitality in the Digital Era whitepaper, every time a guest is inspired to book through a provider’s proprietary channel over an intermediary, it results in savings of up to 20%. Digital concierges can offer casinos a new proprietary channel to offer reservations, by integrating with the hotel’s back-end property management and reservations systems. The technology can even be used to upsell rooms and promotions in line with guest preferences.
Perks and profitability Las Vegas casinos today get more than half of their revenue from non-gambling sources, such as hotel rooms, retail and food and beverage sales. In fact, Caesars Entertainment generated approximately $4.45 billion in revenue from its casinos in 2019 with $4 more billion coming from non-gaming sources. Rather than bombarding your guests with marketing messages, a digital concierge can help improve your profitability by making relevant and intelligent offers in a timely and intimate way.
Convinced? Read on next!
How to deploy a digital concierge in your casino
IT and tech innovation teams at casinos are leading the charge with implementation and turnaround times of advanced technologies. Facial recognition, RFIDs and data modelling are now fairly commonplace in several casinos.
Deploying a digital concierge doesn’t involve the complexities of these advanced technologies. Often, they can be implemented in less than two weeks.
Here are some factors to consider as you choose the right digital concierge for your casino
Touchpoints for guests and players The first step is to research how the digital concierge will work and interact with all your departments as well as across the guest journey. By studying this, you can create a detailed map of all the potential touchpoints. Remember to include data from online and offline interactions, such as reservations, mobility and onsite events. If you have a list of all the instances where a digital concierge can interact with your guests, you are better equipped to find the right digital concierge.
Round-the-clock support For any casino, round-the-clock service is essential. So before investing in any digital concierge technology, ask about the online support team or dedicated assistance to avoid losses due to technical failures or downtime.
Scalability All casinos have periods when they are extremely busy. While choosing a digital concierge, you will need to ask if your digital concierge will be able to handle a higher volume of guests during a special event? The right digital concierge solution will scale to your casino requirements both in terms of messaging volume and costs.
Security and compliance Security and privacy are critical factors to casinos, their guests and players. Consequently, the digital concierge you choose must offer the data security and legal protocols to ensure compliance with all your industry standards.
Integration with tech stack Collecting data to draw out insights into guest preferences is essential for you to achieve a ROI on your investment. You can gather insights only if your digital concierge integrates with your existing tech stack – PMS (Property Management Systems), CRMs and payment gateways. Check the level of integration required for each platform. Not investigating this can lead to unnecessary time and costs being added to the project.
Pricing model Choosing the right digital concierge depends on the feature set, implementation speed and the price point. It is equally important to consider if the solution has pricing flexibility such as paying based on bandwidth or guest use. Some product companies even offer tier-based pricing based on the level of features required. Keep this in mind as you shortlist the right vendor.
Actionable data For personalization to be truly elevated, casinos must be able to have actionable data across departments. If your current data structure exists in silos, you should consider addressing this before deploying a digital concierge.
Reporting & analytics Advanced analytics can identify the right promotional triggers that keep guests coming back. Hoteliers have shown that they can leverage predictive analytics to personalize promotions that boost consumer acceptance rates 300% in one year.
Training While many digital concierge products are considered intuitive to use, and no more complicated than text messaging, some vendors will offer training and can often schedule training ahead of time for new staff as they join, to ensure there are no hiccups.
Adding intelligence: digital casino concierges get smarter
As the technology continues to evolve, we will see an increase in self-learning and improvement in communication nuances. This level of intelligence or artificial intelligence can be applied effectively to guest-facing technologies such as the digital concierge. Remember to check if your choice of digital concierge offers AI capabilities such as natural language processing and voice recognition.
In 2021, it is becoming harder than ever for casinos to attract guests to their resorts. With digital concierges, casinos can offer guests an experience that is well beyond standardized offerings.
For more information on how digital concierges are transforming the casino industry, check out some of the articles given below. If you would like to experience first-hand how a digital concierge can work in your casino, ask to see Ivy in action.
About Revinate
Revinate empowers hoteliers to directly connect with their guests.
Our Guest Data Platform and communication solutions unlock revenue for hoteliers and put them in control of the full guest experience — initial research, booking, check-in, throughout the stay, and even after check out — all via the communication channels that guests prefer, whether it's voice, text, email, or web.
More than 12,000 hotels globally bank on Revinate to drive direct revenue and deliver delightful guest experiences.
Ask us how we do it. Visit our website to get a demo.
Go Moment
Marketing Department
Revinate, Inc.
