Mr. B (he wants to remain anonymous) reported on an Internet forum that he had forwarded part of my blog entry of September 11, “Trippin' in a Casino,” to Gary Loveman, Harrah’s CEO.  He suggested that getting rid of “daily average” would be an easy way for Harrah’s to increase customer retention with no extra cost to the casino. Much to his surprise he got a quick response, not from Mr. Loveman, but from probably one of his underlings who has been delegated the responsibility of responding to dissatisfied customers.  Here is the reply:

From: David Norton

Thanks Mr. B for the note. 

The comments below [from the blog] are quite observant.  Elements of Total Rewards [do] reward cumulative play and more frequent lower play trips, most notably the Reward Credit/point balance [and also] some direct mail offers as well as entries in promotions and some other things. Other things are dependent on the daily play level. I understand the points below [in the blog] but process wise it is very challenging not to make some things  dependent on daily value.

Hosts (do) have the discretion to take care of the customer as
needed to ensure they are properly rewarded.

Thanks again for the comments.

My comment would be that their very complex customer tracking system is based almost entirely on “daily value.” When you worship at the Altar of Daily Average, of course it would be “challenging” to change it. And his comment about using a host will be laughable to many good Harrah’s customers in casinos around the country. Their hosts are telling them their “discretion” has been progressively more and more restricted, that they spend too much of their time apologizing to customers that they can’t do as much for them now as they did in the past.

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