Macau gaming service quality improved in 4Q: survey

Jan 13, 2023 Newsdesk Latest News, Macau, Top of the deck  

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Macau’s annual Gaming Service Index survey of casino resort staff performance shows that the overall index in the fourth quarter of 2022 improved compared to the same quarter in 2021 and also the comparable period in 2019, i.e., the latter period just before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. But the 2022 ‘tolerance’ index relative to staff attitudes to customers continued a downward trend that started in 2019, according to the presentation of the survey results on Friday.

The fourth-quarter 2022 overall gaming service index reading was 138 points, compared to the 130 points recorded in the prior-year quarter, and the 110 points in fourth-quarter 2019.

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 their observations of various services on the city’s mass-gaming floors.

The overall index is composed of three gauges: the ‘smiling’ index, a measure indicating casino staff’s ‘friendliness’ towards customers; the ‘proactive’ index, used to gauge how active casino staff are in approaching customers; and the ‘tolerance’ index, which reflects casino staff’s level of patience when interacting with customers.

Within the overall index, the ‘tolerance’ index was only 99 in the fourth quarter of 2022, representing the third consecutive year with an index score of less than 100, and also marked a low compared to the base score of 100 in 2013.

Security, customer service (cloakroom, shuttle bus and membership desk), cashier, and slot machine were the casino-venue departments that showed a decline in the latest ‘tolerance’ index, as compared to the fourth quarter of 2021.

The service by table game dealers saw an annual improvement in the indices of tolerance, proactivity and smiling, according to SGS’s 2022 survey results presentation.

Meanwhile, within the overall gaming service index, the fourth-quarter 2022 ‘smiling’ index in relation to casino staff increased to 160 points, compared to 146 points in the prior-year quarter. Given that casino staff are required to wear masks, the researchers observed other facial cues to indicate the friendliness of the workers.

The ‘proactiveness’ index for the last quarter of 2022 showed a seven-point gain from a year ago, to 170 points.

The overall service index of the Cotai properties’ employees in the latest results, which stood at 150, was 16-points higher than the ones on the Macau peninsula.

According to the association, SGS collected an aggregate of 864 casino employee samples from Macau’s casino resorts located both 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.

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