Frequently the talk around the marketing department is how bad the "system" is. "We can't get any information," "That module never really worked," "Our support never calls us back," and "We weren't trained." Believe it or not, most of these excuses are valid and true. True yes, but don't assume the culprit could be the vendor.
It is a two way street and although the epidemic starts as early as the first sales visit, it continues throughout the entire installation life cycle. In order to insure your player tracking system is utilized to its fullest, check to see if these symptoms are plaguing your marketing department.
How honest would you be? Is that right, you're being paid to get trained on a system you'll use on a regular basis, but you merely failed to target on that day. "I simply kept getting pulled way during training." Ironically, team members believe their job is far more important than spending some time actually listening, taking notes and utilizing all of the functions the trainer is exceeding to perform their job. Let's not leave out the "I figured another person would show me later" clique. Incredibly, a multimillion dollar database investment doesn't command the exact same attention as a potluck in the break room.
Even though the install and training teams have a firm set of technical procedures and lesson plans, they routinely work and train on multiple shifts and with various departments. Consequently their "canned" lesson plans and agendas are placed on the rear burner as seasoned casino employees'influence the training session by soliciting, "Show me just the new stuff." and disrupting with "That doesn't apply to our jurisdiction." Frequently the trainers are tired, have gone over almost all their material and are simply as wanting to speed things up.
With the respect of time lines, frustrated guests and on-going daily operating procedures being organized, someone ultimately makes the decision, "We'll get trained on the fly with the live system, let's just make our guests happy and manage to get thier points back!" Of course what goes on two weeks in the future? (Hint, see reason number 1 & 2).
Once the device is running and every team member finally feels comfortable dealing with it, along comes version 2.0 - the "enhancement", "feature" or "upgrade ".This could be a large number of things, an insect fix, an update to the operating system, a brand new communications protocol, all very valid reasons to set up the upgrade. Here's the problem, no further are your keystrokes the same, now another screen appears, or you've got a brand new hardware conflict. Usually that is solved with a little training...and we all know how well everyone pays awareness of training.
Nearly all those who were engaged during the initial install or original upgrade are no further around. This can be because of natural attrition, promotion, interdepartmental moves or they couldn't stand another day dealing with their new player tracking system.
Your vendors likewise have natural attrition, especially inside their customer support departments. Representatives answering the phones aren't always the savviest and to be honest are tasked with a multitude of tasks, from logging calls, research, verifying accounts and software versions. Your vendor uses another vendor's database program to track, monitor and profile calls; this is the way they keep the item life cycle planning to justify new upgrades and features and heck, maybe they were tangled up in training.
Employees said they certainly were trained (that potluck was getting cold), the newest modules seemed to work, but once they went "live" the hardware wasn't communicating to the application or the casino never tried to print from three stations simultaneously. Sometimes it comes down seriously to departments simply not communicating with each other.
Believe it or not, it helps to really have a consultant in place to keep the casino asking the best questions and to carry accountable.
Knock all of us over with a feather. What happened to those easy to run custom reports, promotional coupons, bar code scanning options, easy NCOA (National Change of Address)uploads and a one-card database system? But with all due respect to the company development team at each company, they start the sales process with one time of contact and they end it with another. See number 10. Also, by the full time pencil gets put to paper, this alternative party vendor can't communicate with this third party vendor.