Casino Consultants Robinson & Associates Reveals Yelp and Yahoo Deal Will Significantly Affect Casino Customer Service Training
Boise, Idaho (PRWEB) February 10, 2014 -- USA Today reported Sunday, Sept. 9, that Yahoo and Yelp will work together to improve search results by incorporating Yelp’s consumer business reviews into Yahoo search results. Casino consultants Robinson & Associates, Inc., announced that this will significantly impact casino customer service training.
“Now that Yahoo is working with Yelp when it comes to search results, it will make casino customer service training more important than ever,” said Martin R. Baird, chief executive officer of Robinson & Associates, a casino consulting firm to the global gaming industry. “Potential casino guests will see Yelp’s so-called reviews when they do a Yahoo search. So if the casino is not providing amazing casino customer service, it will clearly and painfully show in these reviews.”
Baird announced the following key tips about Internet search, online reviews, Yahoo and Google.
Google Initiated the Reviews Trend in Search Results. Google already uses reviews as part of its new search algorithms, Baird said.
“All a person has to do is enter the word ‘casino’ and a city name in Google and they will see the list of local casinos as well as reviews about them and their star ratings,” Baird noted. “Google has been doing this for a while now. With Yahoo joining in, casino online reviews will become more influential than ever. For casinos, that means these reviews are becoming increasingly important.”
A Large Percentage of Reviews Are Negative. Research shows that 46 percent of people use reviews sites like Yelp to share negative feedback, Baird said.
“This means that major search engines like Google and Yahoo will be sharing those negative reviews with more people and more often,” Baird explained. “For years, I’ve said that Yelp is not a review site, but instead a place for people to rant and complain. If they have a problem with a casino that they want solved, the best place to go is back to the casino in real time. Posting on Yelp to get attention or sympathy doesn’t solve anything.”
Quality Service is the Key to Counteracting Bad Reviews. Casinos need to provide better service now that review sites are connected at the hip with search engines, Baird said.
“It’s natural that these casinos will need to provide better casino customer service training and development if they want to generate a better guest experience and more positive reviews,” Baird added. “It’s human nature that people like sharing the bad more than the good, so great service will be required.”
Real-Time Customer Feedback Is the Key to Quality Service. Casinos have real-time customer feedback platforms at their disposal now, Baird said.
“Right now, the technology exists for casinos to make it easier for guests to share their thoughts with them rather than with online review sites,” Baird said. “But not enough properties are using it yet. Some casinos are still using comment cards. More and more guests now have smartphones and are comfortable using them to share on Yelp, TripAdvisor and Google+. This is a strategic change in the customer-feedback loop that casinos must embrace going forward. Casinos must give customers the option of real-time feedback.”
Casinos Must Embrace These Changes Quickly. Casinos that are slow to embrace the new relationship between search and reviews will be left behind in more ways than one, Baird said.
“When a guest uses Google or Yahoo to find a casino and sees low scores from reviews, that will affect the guest’s buying decision,” Baird explained. “Search engines also will use those negative results to drive down a casino’s search rankings, again negatively affecting the casino.”
Baird made one last point: “If casinos aren’t careful, they will get 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/train_the_trainer.htm 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.
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Tom Ellis, Ellis Communications, Inc., http://www.elliscommunications.com, +1 (417) 881-5635, [email protected]
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