TRIO360 is positively altering Casino Host’s workflow. In this recent interview with Viejas Casino and Resort’s Casino Host, Michael Spellman, we discuss what it was like before vs. after TRIO and how TRIO has ultimately assisted in booking more business.

Topics discussed Include:

• How TRIO affects hosts’ professional life
• What was work like before TRIO
• Friendly competition created from Real-Time Metrics
• Consistent Communication
• How TRIO services certain customers specific needs
• Booking more business with TRIO

Full Transcript Below

(0:00-0:27) Craig Shacklett: Hi everybody, Craig Shacklett with URComped talking to Michael Spellman Casino Host Viejas Casino and Resort about TRIO and how it has changed his professional life over these last couple of months since we put TRIO in. Michael, thank you so much for being here.

(0:27-0:28) Michael Spellman: Absolutely.

(0:28-0:38) CS: So Michael, why don’t we start with that? How has your role and how you do your job as a Casino Host? How has that changed since TRIO was installed at Viejas?

(0:38-1:16) MS: Well, probably the biggest thing is that it has freed up some of my spare time. I’m not tied to my phone like I was before. When I’m not on property, the other Casino Host can actually take over for me and take care of my guests for me. I’m also not tied as much to… I’m not bouncing between devices. And that’s kind of the best thing is that I can literally… It’s one-stop shopping. I can receive a text. I can book a room. I can check the play. It’s all in one place. So that’s definitely one of the best aspects of it so far.

(1:16-1:32) CS: That’s great. So maybe elaborate a little bit on what was it like before with texting, email, booking a room? Maybe tell me a scenario that would have been, you pulling your hair out. And then walk me through how it is now with TRIO?

(1:32-2:33) MS: So prior to TRIO, booking a room was sort of an endless… It was emails. It was emails through my device, especially if I wasn’t there. So let say, I’m texting a player and then maybe they call me, and it just wipes out the text conversation. I’m in the middle of a text. Somebody calls me. I lose that text. I lose my train of thought and then I have to say, “I have to book a room”. I have to book it through the outlook on the phone. It’s just very inconvenient. And if I’m at work, then I’m communicating through the phone. And then I’m getting on the computer, and I’m trying to book rooms through the computer, through email. Say, I have to make a change on the reservation. I have to ascend reservations and email, they have to respond to me. With TRIO, I can just send them the email, or send them the reservation. If I’m not happy with it, or if they’re not happy with it. They just bounce it back to me. There’s no multiple email chain.

(2:33-2:53) CS: Got it. That makes a lot of sense. So you’re doing all this activity. And then with hosts around the country, around the world know that you’re doing all this work and then you need to log the activity back in your CRM. So your boss knows that you’re actually doing work. So tell us how has that change with TRIO?

(2:53-3:36) MS: And so definitely prior to Trio, we were using a CRM. Where it definitely… It felt like an extra step. And TRIO has sort of freed me up from having to… Actually, log events in as a separate step. So now, when I do something in TRIO, it’s automatically keeping track of it. It’s automatically registering it on the… Is it called, “The Matrix?” Screen, the host Matrix? Yeah. The host Matrix. And so, the boss can see what I’m doing. They can see how productive I’m being… I can see how productive everybody else is being. And it’s sort of, insights a little bit of healthy competition between the team members.

(3:36-3:58) CS: I appreciate that. And you guys have a great team by the way. It seems like you guys are jumping in and helping each other out. You touched on that earlier, but how has that maybe changed your stress level? Or maybe you enjoy your work a little bit more knowing that somebody else can cover for you not having that demon in the back of your mind? Like, “Oh gosh…”

(3:58-4:54) MS: Absolutely, when I wake up in the morning prior to this. I wake up in the morning. I have at least 10 text messages. And so… I mean, it’s definitely improved my home life. I can go about my day without feeling like the moment I wake up I’m working. And it does take a little bit of trust, to allow the other team members to sort of take care of your players. But on the other hand, there’s a positive aspect to it too. Because I feel like the players are getting a more consistent message from the other team members. Because if… Say, if Laikyn promises a room to a guest, midweek. And maybe they are just on the verge of qualifying for it. And maybe I would say no, but then I can look back at the text. I can see that Laikyn did offer this to this player. And I can be consistent in the message. And I can do the same thing that Laikyn would do for her player when she was there.

(4:54-5:10) CS: That’s a great example. And speaking of making offers to players. How has TRIO maybe change how you are selling an event or just prospecting in general? What’s different about how you do that now with TRIO versus what you did before?

(5:10-5:57) MS: Well, with TRIO it’s kind of a snap because you can create a group. So you can create a group of people that are qualified for an event. And you can load a message into a queue. And you can just fire that queue out. Fire say, 20, 25, 30 texts out at once and just reply to them as they come back in. Prior to that, I would have to send individual text messages on this little thing right here. And it was daunting. It was daunting to have to promote anything. You have… I have to call hundreds of guests. And it’s just… Sometimes it was just impossible. So Trio has definitely made it easier to run any sort of campaign.

(5:57-6:26) CS: Your interaction with players. I know… We found that most high-end players prefer texting. Sometimes they do want to talk and maybe there are some more complex, or inviting friends with one extra room. They didn’t want to talk through it. But a lot of times they just prefer to text and say, “Hey is my room book?” Or just want to get one quick. So yeah, how was… You’ve already touched on a little bit. But has TRIO helped you serve those customers a little bit better?

(6:26-7:11) MS: Oh, absolutely. And I prefer text messages. I like everything to be logged. But on the other hand, there are players… There are times where it’s probably more appropriate to reach out and call somebody. If there… If you can tell maybe they’re getting a little emotional over a text message or they’re upset. And it’s also really easy to make a phone call through TRIO. And that’s something that I’ve been doing too. Because it actually logs the call on the metric screen. So, I mean…You can see who’s real chatty and who’s not real chatty. So that’s definitely been a plus for me is that I can actually do both. And it kind of encourages me to actually make phone calls too. Because it shows the bosses that I’m engaged with the players.

(7:11-7:16) CS: And you mentioned you can see who’s chatty. So, how can you see that? Are you talking about the…

(7:16-7:39) MS: You can see how much time. So we had a host in our department where the rest of us maybe had like 20 minutes a week of a phone conversation. And he had like, two and a half hours. So you can tell who the people are that like to actually talk on the phone. I like to keep my phone calls short and sweet. But some people like to chitchat.

(7:39-8:11) CS: I’m with you. If I see… If I hang up, “Oh my God such a long conversation, now look down. It’s like, 4 minutes and 50 seconds.” So yeah. It sounds like as a host, it’s making your job easier in a lot of respects. And then maybe there’s some Manager or Executive Casino boss watching this. And they’re like, “Well, what about the bottom line?” So do you feel like you’ve been able to book more business with TRIO?

(8:11-8:38) MS: I think so. I think it’s definitely helped prevent some of the players from falling through the cracks. Absolutely. It also logs, and I always go back to the metric screen. But it does log the… As trip points. And that’s actually one of my favorite things, is trying to get as many trip points as possible. Get as many high ADT players in and you’re generating money by doing that.

(8:38-8:47) CS: And that’s awesome. Well, anything that has stood out for you, that you enjoy about TRIO that I haven’t asked you about yet?

(8:47-9:35) MS: I’m really starting to like the follow-up feature. The follow-up feature is a really great thing. I mean, it’s so easy to do. You just click follow up under the profile. It’ll give you a bunch of time-periods to select from. You can select three hours, six hours, tomorrow, and it’ll give you a reminder. So I have about six of them set up for when I go into work today. So I know exactly what I’m going to be doing when I go in there. Because sometimes, I’ll have a player asked me to do something. And I’ll get to work. And I’ll be like… And so with this, it’s just going to fire me out a bunch of emails. A series of emails. It’s going to tell me exactly what I need to handle when I get back to the office. So that’s a really great feature.

(9:35-9:48) CS: I’m glad you brought that up. And maybe… Why won’t you tell us what… When you come in, you login to the TRIO. What do you do? How do you attack your day with TRIO now?

(9:48-10:33) MS: Well, I probably… I checked the chats first, and see what I have open. But a lot of times, I go in and a lot of them have been taken care of by the day crew. I mean, I work a later shift. And so, it’s my chance to sort of take over. And run with it. And help everybody else out that’s been helping me for the rest of the day. So yeah, I usually start with the chat screen. That’s awesome. and by “chat” its text messages. Text messages. Yeah. It’s actually addicting. It’s actually addicting to go through and sort of just kind of clear them out, and keep the number of open chats down. It’s kind of fun actually.

(10:33-10:47) CS: Well, you heard it here folks. This is Michael, a Casino Host, talking about how fun it is to use TRIO. I think you may be the first person on record, actually saying they like their CRM. So thank you, Michael.

(10:47-11:03) MS: No, thank you. I appreciate it. It’s a really great product. I mean, I really wouldn’t be on here gushing about it. And I wouldn’t have offered to talk about it. If I didn’t think that it was something, that was useful and easy to use.

(11:03-11:11) CS: Well Michael, thank you so much. We got to do this again because I know you are… I said at the beginning two months in, but it may even be less.

(11:11-11:15) MS: Yeah, it’s less. I’m about a month into TRIO. Yeah.

(11:15-11:30) CS: And yeah, so we got to do this again. In a few months because I know we got a lot of cool new features that are being developed. And I know that you are just going to find more and more cool new things to do with the tool to make your customers happy and grow your business. So let’s do that again soon.

(11:30-11:32) MS: Alright, Craig. Thank you very much.

(11:32-11:34) CS: Hey, thank you, Michael. Really appreciate it.

(11:34-11:39) MS: Alright, absolutely.