By Martin R. Baird

      You may remember an old TV program called "Bowling for Dollars." It gave people the opportunity to win money by bowling. Perhaps it would have been more challenging if the program had been called "Swimming for Dollars."
      But what are the differences between the two? Generally speaking, people bowl indoors and swim outdoors. With bowling, you start the ball rolling down the lane, then stop and watch to see what happens. It's a get-it-started-and-then-watch sport. What about swimming? Well, if you started swimming, lost your focus and then stopped, you would sink with little fanfare.
      So what does any of this have to do with the gaming industry? Maybe more than you think! I have a question to ask. Is your property's commitment to improving guest service like bowling or swimming? After all, you improve service to help your guests have a better experience and add dollars to your property's bottom line. In a way, it's guest service for dollars.
      Do you approach advanced guest service as an activity that you sit back and watch and hope it has the desired results? We see this all too often with properties. A casino brings us in to improve guest service and we have great fun training all the employees. Then management sits back, hoping that the new information will forever change their property's culture.
      Most research on behavior modification shows that it's not effective to apply stimulus (training, in this case) and then just hope for change. If you want people to change, you must apply the stimulus over and over and reinforce it. Changing people's behavior is not a sit-back-and-watch sport. It works much more effectively if people are educated or given the skills they need and then have positive reinforcement when they perform the new behaviors.
      Then there's the swimming approach to creating guest service improvement and change.. As soon as the effort to improve guest service lags even for a moment, the business starts to sink. Just like swimming, if all of the effort and good intention that was invested at the beginning comes to a halt, everything is lost very quickly!
      I attended a program at G2E in Las Vegas and someone in the audience asked, "When does all of this customer service stuff end?" It either never ends or ends when you go out of business. Great service is an ongoing, participatory activity.
      So what do you do? How do you move from guest service bowlers and swimmers to a stellar guest service program that never ends?
      It starts with setting clearly defined standards. The people at your property need to know what is expected of them. Not in generic terms, but with concrete, measurable standards that are easy to identify. If you want to improve guest service, you must have
well-defined service standards before you even get started.
      Once the standards are set, training and education are critical! Now I'm not talking about sitting in a room and listening to a lecture until you start to drool from boredom. Training must be a fun and interactive experience. People need to be participants, not just attendees who are enduring required training. I think poor training actually deteriorates guest service. The employees are so disappointed that they have a negative reaction to providing better service.
      After training comes more training! Studies show that it takes 21 to 28 days to build a habit. Will one day of training build the habit of great guest service? The answer is clearly NO! It takes a high level of repetition to build a new habit. I'm not suggesting that you have 28 days of training, but having it more than once a year is very important to the level of retention as well as turning great service into a habit that your employees will adopt.
      Next, you need to elevate the skills of your supervisors and managers. If they don't have the skills to manage great guest service, it simply won't happen on a consistent basis. With the rapid expansion of the gaming industry, many properties' supervisors and managers don't have the years of training it can take to be a great boss.
      Most people manage from their own experiences. Unfortunately, that often means they manage in a punitive way. They watch their employees to see who makes mistakes. They want to punish them, give them points, write them up or even have them terminated. I'm not saying that these managers are bad people or wrong. They're most likely poorly trained at managing and definitely not trained at managing for improved guest service. Most people do what they do because that's what their bosses or their teachers at school did, so it must be right.
      Now's the time to add some new skills to the mix so your supervisors and managers carry out their duties in a manner that will improve the guest's gaming experience. Show them how rewards, incentives and praise can be much more effective than fear and points. It's easier to change a behavior with support and admiration than it is with terror and threats. Treats work much better than threats!
      Most supervisors and managers have no way of knowing this. They use the limited resources they have to "try" to make things better. Sorry, that's usually too little too late.
      I've said it over and over - great guest service requires a long-term investment of time, energy and money to make a difference. Some properties have the vision of a dedicated swimmer and continue to work toward excellence. Others lose their focus and simply sink. Some timidly watch and cross their fingers. The choice is yours.
      What's the mode of operation at your property - swimming or bowling? Is management committed to the never-ending effort it takes to reach new highs of guest service? Or do they prefer to bowl and hope to win the battle?

Martin R. Baird is president of Robinson & Associates, Inc., a guest service consulting firm based in Phoenix, Ariz., that provides specialty guest service training, management skills training, presentation skills training, team building programs and employee incentive and recognition programs for the gaming industry. The company is owned by Lydia and Martin Baird. The Bairds have a Web site, www.casinocustomerservice.com, that's devoted to helping casinos improve their guest service so they can compete and increase revenues. Robinson & Associates may be reached by contacting Martin at 480-991-6420 or at mbaird@casinocustomerservice.com. The company is an associate member of the National Indian Gaming Association.