Tools that work seamlessly behind the scenes to do the work for you
Like many of you, I have a busy life. Between work, travel, and home schedules, I often find that I don’t have enough hours in the day to manage everything I want to do. But, being a technologist and a data guy, I’ve come to rely on technology as a way to manage through the chaos of the day. I leverage several different technologies that use automation and data to simplify my life. Two technologies that I get the most utility from include Waze and Nest.
Waze is a traffic and navigation app that you use on your mobile device. The app uses data from your mobile phone and the phones of others to supply real-time traffic data to the community of users. Not only does it provide traffic directions, but it also gives drivers recommendations on better travel routes. Waze allows me to navigate through the congestion of Seattle traffic without me figuring out the best route. Waze even predicts when I should start driving to my destination using historical traffic data.
Nest is a self-learning thermostat that optimizes heating and cooling in the home. Nest actively learns about your schedule. It builds a history of your heating and cooling behavior and automatically adjusts the temperature in the house based on your schedule. Nest even knows when I wake up in the morning and adjusts the temperature accordingly – a nice feature for those chilly Seattle mornings! What I really enjoy about the Nest experience is its ability to provide transparency into my energy usage while giving me recommendations on energy savings.
These two technologies have something in common; they solve targeted problems by automating data collection and analysis. In each case, these tools work seamlessly behind the scenes to do the work for me. The benefits are immense. This automation can save me a significant amount of time while doing things that I can’t or won’t do on my own, like finding the fastest route to work. And it can help reduce cost, like saving me money on my gas bill.
How does this apply to you?
Casino marketers are overwhelmed with lots of activities and decisions that need to be performed during the course of the workday. But like many busy casino marketers, finding the time to build reports and do analysis is challenging. And many marketers may lack the appropriate technical skills needed to extract and analyze all of the data required to make a decision. Automation can play an important role in helping your casino marketers eliminate time and skill-intensive tasks while saving money using technologies already owned.
For example, imagine creating a dashboard of all of your key gaming floor metrics that updates in real-time and is accessible by all of your executive decision makers. All the “grunt work” associated with extracting the data from your key systems, compiling it into an easily digestible presentation, and then sending it to all stakeholders can be automated. This frees up time for you to focus on other valueadd activities and may help you disseminate information more quickly to your teams. So, what should your casino do to better leverage automation?
- Review your player tracking system and see if there is a way to automate report creation and transmission. For example, imagine if you subscribe to an automated alert that triggers when a high-value player’s ADT or frequency of play falls below a certain threshold. This insight could arm your player development team with action items like proactively reaching out to the player or presenting some targeted offer.
- Take advantage of technologies your property already owns like SQL Server and Power BI to automate dashboard development and delivery.
- Explore automated comp systems with your slot machines to ensure deserving players are properly rewarded while not over spending.
As Henry David Thoreau said, “Our life is frittered away by detail … simplify, simplify.”
