Casino Consultants At Robinson & Associates Announce Video That Outlines Innovative Ways Casino Marketing Executives Can Take Control of Online Reviews
Boise, Idaho (PRWEB) February 20, 2014 -- Casino consultants at Robinson & Associates, Inc., have released a new 30-second video that shows how casino marketing executives can take control of online reviews at sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor so they can avoid the destructive consequences of getting “scroogled.”
“Casino marketing departments are being stressed like never before,” said Martin R. Baird, chief executive officer of Robinson & Associates, a casino consulting firm to the global gaming industry. “They are being forced to do more with less because of the crushing pressure of competition. More than 20 years ago when we started consulting with casinos, ‘build it and they will come’ still worked. Now, ever-increasing competition means higher media costs, skyrocketing marketing clutter and a battle for every guest.”
This pressure requires that casino marketing departments make the most of every opportunity, Baird said. “Casinos are getting ‘scroogled’ and some don’t even know it yet,” Baird noted. “We just released a short video to explain how casinos are being adversely affected by Google, Yelp and TripAdvisor.”
Yelp and Yahoo have partnered to make so-called reviews part of Yahoo search results and there are two critical and related points that every casino executive needs to know, according to Baird.
“First, 46 percent of people admit to using review sites to vent frustrations,” Baird said. “This means they really are not reviews. They are high-profile complaints. Second, until a casino takes control of these reviews, it will be left chasing ghosts and trolls. Successful executives will quickly take back control of the review process.”
The video highlights five ways that Robinson & Associates’ Simply Share+ service returns control to the casino. “Simply Share+ uses proprietary technology to collect real-time casino customer feedback,” Baird explained. “We route the negative feedback to the casino so it can provide immediate service recovery. We accelerate customer advocacy by welcoming guests with positive experiences to share them on social review sites.”
Hoping that guests will share both the good and bad doesn’t work, Baird noted. “People, by nature, prefer to talk about negative experiences,” Baird explained. “The tragedy is that the negative reviews people post about a casino are affecting the casino’s bottom line. Negative reviews cost the casino new guests and drive the property’s website down in Google and Yahoo search results.”
Research found that people trust reviews more than ads, Baird said.“For a casino with a tight marketing budget, each destructive review means it will need to spend more of the budget to overcome the angry posts,” Baird added.
The new video covers what is happening with reviews and search and how that affects casinos.
“Google doesn’t run ads or send emails laying out how it uses reviews as part of its new search algorithms,” Baird said. “Google made serious changes in late 2013 that could have a lasting impact on how casinos need to market going forward.
“Think for a moment. If a potential casino guest sees your billboard and uses voice recognition to say ‘casino near here’ into his smartphone, Google will show the reviews for your casino. If your competitor has more positive reviews, they may come up first even if these competitors are located further away. I was in Sun Valley, Idaho, this summer and was standing between two restaurants. I asked my phone for a ‘restaurant.’ It pointed me to three restaurants and they were a couple of blocks away because they had more positive reviews.”
Some casino executives are also unaware that it’s not enough to just have a couple of positive reviews, Baird said. “Research also found that people need to see eight to 12 reviews to trust them. Casinos need to have a significant quantity of positive reviews. They also need to be recent. It never looks good to see a five-star review that is nine to 12 months old.
“Our video makes it easy and fast for casino executives to learn how to take control of casino reviews and avoid getting ‘scroogled.’”
About Robinson & Associates, Inc.
Martin R. Baird is a casino consultant and chief executive officer of Robinson & Associates, Inc. For 20 years, Robinson & Associates has been dedicated to helping casinos improve their guest service so they can compete and generate future growth and profitability. A Boise, Idaho-based casino consulting firm to the global gaming industry, Robinson & Associates is the world leader in casino guest experience measurement, management and improvement. Recently, it announced Simply Share, a real-time customer feedback platform that makes it fast and easy for casino customers to share their experience directly with casinos instead of posting comments online at social media sites.
For more information, visit the company’s Web site at http://casinocustomerservice.com/positive_casino_reviews or contact Lydia Baird, director of business development, at 208-991-2037 or lbaird(at)raresults(dot)com. Read about a variety of topics at Martin Baird’s blog at http://casinocustomerservice.com/casino_news.htm/, including casino-related articles, casino customer service training, mystery shopping, casino reputation measurement, casino training, service gap analysis and more. Robinson & Associates is a member of the Casino Management Association and an associate member of the National Indian Gaming Association.
Tom Ellis, Ellis Communications, Inc., http://www.elliscommunications.com, +1 (417) 881-5635, [email protected]
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