What Players Really Want
Understanding the wants and needs of gaming customers has long been the mantra of the most progressive leaders in the gaming industry. Collectively, casino operators in the United States have conducted thousands of focus groups and interviews with casino customers in order to understand how to make gaming experiences better. Spurred by the input of their customers, casino managers have undertaken customer service initiatives, increased training in customer service, developed host programs and invested capital in improving the service delivery process. Yet despite these efforts, most casinos have ignored the one complaint that most irks casino customers: tight machines.
Research has long indicated that what customers seek most in their gaming experiences is “time.” Gamers visit casinos for a variety of reasons including socializing with others, escape from the mundane, recognition and excitement. What they ultimately seek is a diversion from their normal lives. Casinos offer environments that are dramatically different and customers want to
spend as much time as possible in those environments before going back to their regular world. While every customer would like to leave a winner, for virtually every customer, gaming satisfaction is measured not by how much money they have in their pockets at the end of the day, but by how much time they spent in the casino before they extinguished their budgets and went home.