Macau’s Gaming Service Index survey of casino resort staff performance, first launched in 2013, registered a record high by the fourth quarter of 2023. But the 2023 ‘tolerance’ indicator of the index – relative to staff attitudes to customers – showed a downward trend from pre-Covid 19 years, according to a Tuesday announcement about the survey results.
The overall reading for the index in fourth-quarter 2023 was 145 points, compared to the 138 points recorded in the prior-year quarter. The second highest reading for the Macau gaming sector was in the second quarter of 2017, at 139 points.
The survey was coordinated by the Macau Gaming Research Association, in collaboration with SGS Hong Kong Ltd, described as an inspection, verification, testing and certification company. The review was conducted by so-called ‘mystery shoppers’ that made observations of various services on the city’s mass-gaming floors. The survey had been compiled over 12 months every year since its inception in 2013; but the annual compilation later covered only the fourth quarter since 2020.
The overall index is composed of three gauges: the ‘smiling’ sub-index, a measure indicating casino staff’s ‘friendliness’ towards customers; the ‘proactive’ sub-index, used to gauge how active casino staff are in approaching customers; and the ‘tolerance’ sub-index, which reflects casino staff’s level of patience when interacting with customers.
The ‘tolerance’ sub-index score was 103 in the fourth quarter of 2023, as compared to the base score of 100 in 2013. This latest index reading – though already improved from the scores of below 100 during the Covid-19 hit years running from 2020 to 2022 – still tracks much lower than sub-index readings of over 120 during 2018 to 2019, the archived survey results show.
Within the overall index, both the fourth-quarter 2023 ‘smiling’ sub-index and ‘proactiveness’ sub-index respectively reached record highs, at 171 and 172.
For the latest survey, the researchers gathered an aggregate of 864 casino employee sample responses, of which 58 percent came from table game dealers, i.e., about 504 of all the responses. The rest of the samples covered employees engaged in either: customer service – such as membership desk work, cloakrooms, shuttle bus services and toilet attendants – slot machine areas; security; or cashier roles.
Table game dealers had a record score of 2.51, from a range of zero to 3.5. Compared against the fourth quarter of 2022, table game dealers showed improvement in all the sub-indices: ‘smiling’; ‘proactiveness’; and ‘tolerance’ attitude towards patrons.
The overall service quality of customer service and slot machine area staff have also shown improvement, compared to the fourth quarter of 2022, the survey results indicate. But those employed in security departments had lower scores compared to the 2022 survey, with a decline in all gauges. Cashier staff also saw a decline in their overall gaming service index reading, dragged by a lower reading in their ‘tolerance’ sub-index.
The overall service index of the Cotai properties’ employees in the latest results, which stood at 154, was 10 points higher than the ones on the Macau peninsula.
According to the association, SGS collected the casino employee samples from Macau’s casino resorts in Cotai and on the Macau peninsula. The mass-market customer areas of 12 gaming properties were visited for the survey.
They were: City of Dreams and Studio City, run by Melco Resorts and Entertainment Ltd; Galaxy Macau and StarWorld Hotel, operated by Galaxy Entertainment Group Ltd; Grand Lisboa Palace and Grand Lisboa, run by SJM Holdings Ltd; MGM Macau and MGM Cotai, of MGM China Holdings Ltd; the Sands Macao and Venetian Macao, promoted by Sands China Ltd; and Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace, run by Wynn Macau Ltd.
BY: 바카라사이트