METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR DISPATCHING CASINO PERSONNEL AND TRACKING INTERACTIONS WITH PLAYERS
The present embodiment includes a dispatch system and method in which a casino agent is equipped with mobile computing devices that receive a dispatch notification. The notification includes the identity of an electronic gaming device at which an identified player has started a gaming session and the identity of the player. The player's record is displayed on the mobile computing device and includes the number of times the casino agent has been dispatched to a gaming device at which the player is identified as well as descriptions of prior calls.
This application is a Continuation-in-Part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/263,577 for Dispatch System Having Control Shared with Dispatched Service Providers, which was filed on Apr. 28, 2014, and a Continuation-in-Part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/177,969 for Automated Method for Servicing Electronic Gaming Machines, which was filed Jun. 9, 2016, which is a Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/755,268 for Method for Retrieving an Identity Card Associated with an Electronic Gaming Machine, which was filed on Jun. 30, 2015, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,367,991, issued on Jun. 14, 2016, which is a Continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/451,133 for Method for Creating an Electronic Log for Documenting Entries into Gaming Machines, which was filed on Aug. 4, 2014, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,087,431, issued on Jul. 21, 2015, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/891,684, filed Oct. 16, 2013, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/862,697, filed Aug. 6, 2013, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
This application is related to applicant's Application No. 13/445,438 for Method and Apparatus for Monitoring a Network of Gaming Machines and Dispatching Service Providers, which was filed on Apr. 12, 2012, and is hereby incorporated by reference.
FIELD OF THE INVENTIONThis disclosure relates generally to dispatch systems in which a service provider is dispatched to interact with a customer or a gaming device at which a customer is located.
BACKGROUNDGambling games may be implemented on gaming devices in casinos as well as being provided over the Internet—at least in some jurisdictions. As a result, casinos compete against online gaming for customers and also compete against each other. A casino offers a substantial draw over gaming in isolation at home, namely the opportunity for social interaction with other people, including the staff at the casino and other gamblers.
Even so, at some casinos, it is possible for a player to come to the casino, spend several hours playing a variety of gaming devices, and leave without interacting with another person in any meaningful way. Other casinos, however, have recognized that loyalty may be earned by providing each player with a welcoming and friendly reception each time he or she visits the casino.
The casinos that recognize the value in forming a strong social bond with players train their employees to engage in a variety of behaviors to create and strengthen the relationship between the casino and the player. In other words, they focus on providing a very high level of customer attention. For example, casino groundskeepers are encouraged to smile and wave at players entering the casino. Floor employees engage customers in friendly, patient conversation. Beverage carts roam the floor and stop to serve any player who wishes a drink of their choosing. New enrollees in the player-tracking club wear a badge that identifies their status to casino employees who greet and welcome the new player to the casino and to the club.
The casinos that focus on cementing a strong relationship with players are more profitable than those that take a more hands off approach.
But even small casinos may have hundreds of customers pass through in an evening. Some customers will be new, some come infrequently, and some are regulars. As a result, even a high-performing employee can be hard pressed to remember player names, prior interactions, information about the player, any incidents related to the player, player preferences, etc. Employees can be reluctant to greet customers because they are unable to remember whether they have previously introduced themselves. And they may be unsure of what to say to a customer.
Referring to
The gaming device 10 includes a cabinet 15 housing components to operate the gaming device 10. The cabinet 15 may include a gaming display 20, a base portion 13, a top box 18, and a player interface panel 30. The gaming display 20 may include mechanical spinning reels (
The base portion 13 may include a lighted panel 14, a coin return (not shown), and a gaming handle 12 operable on a partially rotating pivot joint 11. The game handle 12 is traditionally included on mechanical spinning-reel games, where the handle may be pulled toward a player to initiate the spinning of reels 22 after placement of a wager. The top box 18 may include a lighted panel 17, a video display (such as an LCD monitor), a mechanical bonus device (not shown), and a candle light indicator 19. The player interface panel 30 may include various devices so that a player can interact with the gaming device 10.
The player interface panel 30 may include one or more game buttons 32 that can be actuated by the player to cause the gaming device 10 to perform a specific action. For example, some of the game buttons 32 may cause the gaming device 10 to bet a credit to be wagered during the next game, change the number of lines being played on a multi-line game, cash out the credits remaining on the gaming device (as indicated on the credit meter 27), or request service from casino personnel, such as by lighting the candle 19. In addition, the player interface panel 30 may include one or more game actuating buttons 33. The game actuating buttons 33 may initiate a game with a pre-specified amount of credits. On some gaming devices 10 a “Max Bet” game actuating button 33 may be included that places the maximum credit wager on a game and initiates the game. The player interface panel 30 may further include a bill acceptor 37 and a ticket printer 38. The bill acceptor 37 may accept and validate paper money or previously printed tickets with a credit balance. The ticket printer 38 may print out tickets reflecting the balance of the credits that remain on the gaming device 10 when a player cashes out by pressing one of the game buttons 32 programmed to cause a ‘cashout.’ These tickets may be inserted into other gaming machines or redeemed at a cashier station or kiosk for cash.
The gaming device 10 may also include one or more speakers 26 to transmit auditory information or sounds to the player. The auditory information may include specific sounds associated with particular events that occur during game play on the gaming device 10. For example, a particularly festive sound may be played during a large win or when a bonus is triggered. The speakers 26 may also transmit “attract” sounds to entice nearby players when the game is not currently being played.
The gaming device 10 may further include a secondary display 25. This secondary display 25 may be a vacuum fluorescent display (VFD), a liquid crystal display (LCD), a cathode ray tube (CRT), a plasma screen, or the like. The secondary display 25 may show any combination of primary game information and ancillary information to the player. For example, the secondary display 25 may show player tracking information, secondary bonus information, advertisements, or player selectable game options.
The gaming device 10 may include a separate information window (not shown) dedicated to supplying any combination of information related to primary game play, secondary bonus information, player tracking information, secondary bonus information, advertisements or player selectable game options. This window may be fixed in size and location or may have its size and location vary temporally as communication needs change. One example of such a resizable window is International Game Technology's “service window”. Another example is Las Vegas Gaming Incorporated's retrofit technology which allows information to be placed over areas of the game or the secondary display screen at various times and in various situations.
The gaming device 10 includes a microprocessor 40 that controls operation of the gaming device 10. If the gaming device 10 is a standalone gaming device, the microprocessor 40 may control virtually all of the operations of the gaming devices and attached equipment, such as operating game logic stored in memory (not shown) as firmware, controlling the display 20 to represent the outcome of a game, communicating with the other peripheral devices (such as the bill acceptor 37), and orchestrating the lighting and sound emanating from the gaming device 10. In other embodiments where the gaming device 10 is coupled to a network 50, as described below, the microprocessor 40 may have different tasks depending on the setup and function of the gaming device. For example, the microprocessor 40 may be responsible for running the base game of the gaming device and executing instructions received over the network 50 from a bonus server or player tracking server. In a server-based gaming setup, the microprocessor 40 may act as a terminal to execute instructions from a remote server that is running game play on the gaming device.
The microprocessor 40 may be coupled to a machine communication interface (MCI) 42 that connects the gaming device 10 to a gaming network 50. The MCI 42 may be coupled to the microprocessor 40 through a serial connection, a parallel connection, an optical connection, or in some cases a wireless connection. The gaming device 10 may include memory 41 (MEM), such as a random access memory (RAM), coupled to the microprocessor 40 and which can be used to store gaming information, such as storing total coin-in statistics about a present or past gaming session, which can be communicated to a remote server or database through the MCI 42. The MCI 42 may also facilitate communication between the network 50 and the secondary display 25 or a player tracking unit 45 housed in the gaming cabinet 15.
The player tracking unit 45 may include an identification device 46 and one or more buttons 47 associated with the player tracking unit 45. The identification device 46 serves to identify a player, by, for example, reading a player-tracking device, such as a player tracking card that is issued by the casino to individual players who choose to have such a card. The identification device 46 may instead, or additionally, identify players through other methods. Player tracking systems using player tracking cards and card readers 46 are known in the art. Briefly summarizing such a system, a player registers with the casino prior to commencing gaming. The casino issues a unique player-tracking card to the player and opens a corresponding player account that is stored on a server or host computer, described below with reference to
To induce the player to use the card and be an identified player, the casino may award each player points proportional to the money or credits wagered by the player. Players typically accrue points at a rate related to the amount wagered, although other factors may cause the casino to award the player various amounts. The points may be displayed on the secondary display 25 or using other methods. In conventional player tracking systems, the player may take his or her card to a special desk in the casino where a casino employee scans the card to determine how many accrued points are in the player's account. The player may redeem points for selected merchandise, meals in casino restaurants, or the like, which each have assigned point values. In some player tracking systems, the player may use the secondary display 25 to access their player tracking account, such as to check a total number of points, redeem points for various services, make changes to their account, or download promotional credits to the gaming device 10. In other embodiments, the identification device 46 may read other identifying cards (such as driver licenses, credit cards, etc.) to identify a player and match them to a corresponding player tracking account. Although
During typical play on a gaming device 10, a player plays a game by placing a wager and then initiating a gaming session. The player may initially insert monetary bills or previously printed tickets with a credit value into the bill acceptor 37. The player may also put coins into a coin acceptor (not shown) or a credit, debit or casino account card into a card reader/authorizer (not shown). In other embodiments, stored player points or special ‘bonus points’ awarded to the player or accumulated and/or stored in a player account may be able to be substituted at or transferred to the gaming device 10 for credits or other value. For example, a player may convert stored loyalty points to credits or transfer funds from his bank account, credit card, casino account or other source of funding. The selected source of funding may be selected by the player at time of transfer, determined by the casino at the time of transfer or occur automatically according to a predefined selection process. One of skill in the art will readily see that this invention is useful with all gambling devices, regardless of the manner in which wager value-input is accomplished.
The credit meter 27 displays the numeric credit value of the money or other value inserted, transferred, or stored dependent on the denomination of the gaming device 10. That is, if the gaming device 10 is a nickel slot machine and a $20 bill inserted into the bill acceptor 37, the credit meter will reflect 400 credits or one credit for each nickel of the inserted twenty dollars. For gaming devices 10 that support multiple denominations, the credit meter 27 will reflect the amount of credits relative to the denomination selected. Thus, in the above example, if a penny denomination is selected after the $20 is inserted the credit meter will change from 400 credits to 2000 credits.
A wager may be placed by pushing one or more of the game buttons 32, which may be reflected on the bet meter 28. That is, the player can generally depress a “bet one” button (one of the buttons on the player interface panel 30, such as 32), which transfers one credit from the credit meter 27 to the bet meter 28. Each time the button 32 is depressed an additional single credit transfers to the bet meter 28 up to a maximum bet that can be placed on a single play of the electronic gaming device 10. The gaming session may be initiated by pulling the gaming handle 12 or depressing the spin button 33. On some gaming devices 10, a “max bet” button (another one of the buttons 32 on the player interface panel 30) may be depressed to wager the maximum number of credits supported by the gaming device 10 and initiate a gaming session.
If the gaming session does not result in any winning combination, the process of placing a wager may be repeated by the player. Alternatively, the player may cash out any remaining credits on the credit meter 27 by depressing the “cash-out” button (another button 32 on the player interface panel 30), which causes the credits on the credit meter 27 to be paid out in the form of a ticket through the ticket printer 38, or may be paid out in the form of returning coins from a coin hopper (not shown) to a coin return tray.
If instead a winning combination (win) appears on the display 20, the award corresponding to the winning combination is immediately applied to the credit meter 27. For example, if the gaming device 10 is a slot machine, a winning combination of symbols 23 may land on a played payline on reels 22. If any bonus games are initiated, the gaming device 10 may enter into a bonus mode or simply award the player with a bonus amount of credits that are applied to the credit meter 27.
Referring to
During game play, the spinning reels 22A may be controlled by stepper motors (not shown) under the direction of the microprocessor 40 (
A gaming session on a spinning reel slot machine 10A typically includes the player pressing the “bet-one” button (one of the game buttons 32A) to wager a desired number of credits followed by pulling the gaming handle 12 (
Referring to
Because the virtual spinning reels 22B, by virtue of being computer implemented, can have almost any number of stops on a reel strip, it is much easier to have a greater variety of displayed outcomes as compared to spinning-reel slot machines 10A (
With the possible increases in reel 22B numbers and configurations over the mechanical gaming device 10A, video gaming devices 10B often have multiple paylines 24 that may be played. By having more paylines 24 available to play, the player may be more likely to have a winning combination when the reels 22B stop and the gaming session ends. However, since the player typically must wager at least a minimum number of credits to enable each payline 24 to be eligible for winning, the overall odds of winning are not much different, if at all, than if the player is wagering only on a single payline. For example, in a five line game, the player may bet one credit per payline 24 and be eligible for winning symbol combinations that appear on any of the five played paylines 24. This gives a total of five credits wagered and five possible winning paylines 24. If, on the other hand, the player only wagers one credit on one payline 24, but plays five gaming sessions, the odds of winning would be identical as above: five credits wagered and five possible winning paylines 24.
Because the video display 20B can easily modify the image output by the video display 20B, bonuses, such as second screen bonuses are relatively easy to award on the video slot game 10B. That is, if a bonus is triggered during game play, the video display 20B may simply store the resulting screen shot in memory and display a bonus sequence on the video display 20B. After the bonus sequence is completed, the video display 20B may then retrieve the previous screen shot and information from memory, and re-display that image.
Also, as mentioned above, the video display 20B may allow various other game information 21B to be displayed. For example, as shown in
Even with the improved flexibility afforded by the video display 20B, several physical buttons 32B and 33B are usually provided on video slot machines 10B. These buttons may include game buttons 32B that allow a player to choose the number of paylines 24 he or she would like to play and the number of credits wagered on each payline 24. In addition, a max bet button (one of the game buttons 32B) allows a player to place a maximum credit wager on the maximum number of available paylines 24 and initiate a gaming session. A repeat bet or spin button 33B may also be used to initiate each gaming session when the max bet button is not used.
Referring to
The player selectable soft buttons 29C appearing on the screen respectively correspond to each card on the video display 20C. These soft buttons 29C allow players to select specific cards on the video display 20C such that the card corresponding to the selected soft button is “held” before the draw. Typically, video poker machines 10C also include physical game buttons 32C that correspond to the cards in the hand and may be selected to hold a corresponding card. A deal/draw button 33C may also be included to initiate a gaming session after credits have been wagered (with a bet button 32C, for example) and to draw any cards not held after the first hand is displayed.
Although examples of a spinning reel slot machine 10A, a video slot machine 10B, and a video poker machine 10C have been illustrated in
Gaming devices 71 coupled over an optical line 64 may be remote gaming devices in a different location or casino. The optical line 64 may be coupled to the gaming network 50 through an electronic to optical signal converter 63 and may be coupled to the gaming devices 71 through an optical to electronic signal converter 65. The banks of gaming devices 70 coupled to the network 50 may be coupled through a bank controller 60 for compatibility purposes, for local organization and control, or for signal buffering purposes. The network 50 may include serial or parallel signal transmission lines and carry data in accordance with data transfer protocols such as Ethernet transmission lines, Rs-232 lines, firewire lines, USB lines, or other communication protocols. Although not shown in
As mentioned above, each gaming device 70-75 may have an individual processor 40 (
Thus, in some embodiments, the network 50, server 80, and database 90 may be dedicated to communications regarding specific game or tournament play. In other embodiments, however, the network 50, server 80, and database 90 may be part of a player tracking network. For player tracking capabilities, when a player inserts a player tracking card in the card reader 46 (
The various systems described with reference to
Turning now to
As an alternative, the present invention may be readily implemented with all of the components in system 92 being located at casino 94, as shown in
Considering first offsite location 96, a Database Server 98 collects data from the casino and stores it in a manner that will be later described in connection with the operation of system 92. An Application Server 100 provides support for software applications, to be shortly described, that are installed on various computing devices included in system 92. The application server provides the software applications with services such as security, data services, transaction support, and load balancing.
In the present implementation, many communications between offsite location 96 and casino 94 are conducted through the Internet 62 via a reliable, high-speed connection. In the casino, a wireless router 61 provides a wireless network for various computing devices as will be shortly described. In the present implementation, the wireless network is implemented using the IEEE 802.11 standard.
Included on the wireless network implemented via router 61 are mobile computing devices, in the present implementation tablet computers 102, 104, made by Apple Inc. and sold under the iPad™ brand. There may be many other such iPad computers that are omitted here to simplify the drawing. The iPad computers may be used, as will be described, to monitor the status of service calls on the casino floor, either within an area or department or casino wide. These are typically carried by a casino agent who has responsibility for supervising others in the process of making such service calls, but the iPad computer also receives notifications for service calls that may require a supervisor, i.e., the carrier of the iPad computer. The types of notifications and responses that may be received and made, respectively, on the iPad computer is described in more detail in connection with the operation of system 92.
In addition to iPad computers 102, 104, a plurality of mobile wireless computing devices 106, 108, 110, 112 are also connected to the network implemented via wireless router 61. In the present implementation computing devices 106, 108, 110, 112, are also made by Apple Inc. and sold under the iPod touch™ brand. There may be many other such iPod touch devices that are omitted here to simplify the drawing. The iPod touch devices are typically carried by a casino employee, such as a floor attendant or slot technician, to communicate regarding service calls on the casino floor, either within an area or department or both. The types of notifications and responses that may be received and made, respectively, on the iPod touch devices is also described in more detail in connection with the operation of system 92.
A Server 114, also located at casino 94 in the present implementation, is connected to the Internet 62 and to network 50, which is shown in
In an alternative embodiment, dedicated devices are installed within each gaming machine to communicate with the machine's data ports, or the lamp illumination signal, and transfer that information, through wired or wireless networks, to a central event list maintained on the network, such as database server 98.
In still another embodiment, casino agents manually enter information about incident occurrence that is stored on the network, e.g., on database server 98. This information may be gathered from the machine signal light, from manual inspection of the machine, or both.
Regardless of the embodiment, all detectable events on network 50 may be collected and used to generate a call as described herein. For example, some player tracking systems permit player help requests to which responses could be made according to the present system. Many gaming machines include Help, Change, and Drink Request buttons, which may also generate a detected event.
Turning now to
Another table, not shown herein, is stored on database server 98 along with Table 1. The additional table includes a list of each of the floor areas, A1, A2, A3, A4, B1, . . . etc. Associated with each floor area is a unique machine number that identifies each machine within each area. As will be seen, this enables system 92 to dispatch assistance to the location and machine that requires service.
Table 2, shown below shows adjoining areas that are associated with each of sections, like section A, which includes A1, A2, A3, and A4. Each of the other sections is listed with its respective associated adjoining areas. As will be seen, when a service provider is not available or one is but requires assistance in his or her section, service providers may be drawn from adjoining areas. This table defines the areas from which sections may draw support if needed. As with other data stored on the network implemented via router 61, it may be entered via an iPad computer by a user who has sufficient permissions to do so.
The following Table 3 is a list of job positions and associated departments. Persons holding these jobs are qualified and eligible to respond to defined service requests, as will be further described. This table is also entered in database 98 and may be entered and altered in the same fashion as described above.
The casino may set goal times within which it is desirable to resolve different kinds of service needs. Table 4 depicts some exemplary goal times, which may be varied by casino personnel, via one of the iPad computers, with sufficient permissions to do so. Also included is a commute goal time, which is the time necessary for a service provider to travel to the gaming machine in need of service after accepting a call. This too may be set or changed by the casino.
Some types of responses require further categorization of employees who may respond, even for the same type of event. For example, some jackpots are so large that the machine does not pay them out. Different casinos may have different policies regarding what jackpot amounts must be hand paid, how many people need to be present, and the job position(s) of the person or persons who are required to be present, depending on the jackpot size. The following Table 5 provides an example of one casino's requirements. The information in this table is also stored on database 98. As is known in the art when a call code for a jackpot appears on the event list, the amount of the jackpot and the machine number are both associated therewith. This call code is the fourth row in Table 1.
Additional consideration will now be given to the manner in which system 92 operates. When an employee arrives for a shift, he or she logs in. As mentioned above, supervisors and managers typically use an iPad computer, which provides additional functionality over the iPod touch, device which the front line employees, such as floor attendant, slot technician, or beverage server typically use. Any employee, however, could use either device.
When a user arrives for work and logs in, he or she is first brought to an assignment screen where they indicate whether they are reporting to work under the primary or secondary positions. Each employee has a record that may entered via a supervisor iPad computer as described above. Employees are often trained and capable of performing more than one role.
For example, a Floor Attendant might also be qualified to serve as a Slot Supervisor. In any event, employees whose record indicates both a primary and secondary position are required to indicate in which of those capacities they are reporting at the start of a shift. An employee with only one role is automatically assigned to that role.
Next, the employee indicates in which section, e.g., A, B, C. etc. of the casino floor they are assigned to work. Their screen then shows their position, the section, and the supervisor to whom they will be reporting for the shift. Turning now to
Because the number of workers logged in is known to the system, the system can review historical data and make determinations about the number of employees and their qualifications that should be logged in and on duty for a particular shift. For example, the numbers and qualifications can vary significantly from a Sunday morning, to Monday evening, to Saturday night, etc. As a result, the system can automatically create and publish via the Internet or otherwise, work schedules, showing total employees, by area, by job type, by supervisor, etc. And it can notify each individual about the times for which they have been scheduled to work. Of course, each employee will be associated with historical data showing hours and times worked as well as shifts or times that the employee is not eligible to work. As a result, the system will not overschedule or schedule during times when the employee has not agreed to work.
There are 5 call status screens that may be presented to a user who is logged in on one of the iPod touch device. First, is a No Call screen (not shown). This screen indicates that there are no calls waiting, and presents a “Give me a Task” button to the user. Tasks are different types of service, such as routine maintenance, that can be performed at any time. The manner of accepting, performing and completing a Task is described in more detail below.
When a call is received by a person who is logged in to his or her iPod touch device, the Pending Call screen is presented as shown in
First, it will be recalled that a table showing the area (as shown in
If a person qualified to take the task is logged in, assigned to the section in question, and not on break, that call is automatically directed via the wireless network to his or her iPod touch device thus generating the Pending Call screen in
Once that person receives the audible notification and is presented with the
Also appearing on the screen is a description of the service that will be provided, in this case hand pay of a jackpot in the amount of $2000, shown in field 128. In this case, because multiple employees have been notified about this service requirement, the names of the other employees who have accepted the call appear in field 130.
Although not visible in the drawings, a bar 132 on which break touch-screen slider button 120 is located, can appear as one of three colors: green, yellow, or red, which provides an indication of the call level. The colors are based on a calculation made by system 92. Every 15 minutes the system looks for the number of dispatched users, i.e., those who have accepted a call. It will then compare the total number of users logged in, for each department shown in
Doing so informs the employee of the speed at which commuting and service work should be conducted and the level of attention the employee can give to a player who may be at the machine where service is requested. If the floor is relatively slow, it is desirable for the employee to talk with the player and interact as much as the player might want. If more busy, such interaction needs to be more limited and if in the red zone, such interaction might need to be minimal to keep up with the service calls.
When button 122 is moved up and Accept button 125 is depressed, the next screen appears as shown in
Alternatively, at any time prior to pressing Arrive button 134, the employee can move switch 122 down and press Quit button 136. This removes the employee from the job, and the system initiates the process for locating and dispatching another employee as described above.
But if the employee presses Arrive button 134, the screen shown in
But if Escalate button 140 is depressed, the screen in
Once the employee selects one or more of the service providers in
Considering first the 911 screen in
If in
Of course, there are times in a casino that are slow or where there may be more employees than required to handle calls as described above. During these times, an employee who does not have any pending calls, as in
Tasks can be scheduled automatically by examining the frequency with which calls are generated on specific machines or for specific issues on a machine. Because the system stores and analyzes data from all calls and other communications, it can be reviewed to spot a particular issue. For example, if bills jam frequently on the same machine, that bill acceptor can automatically be scheduled for preventative maintenance to determine if it needs servicing beyond clearing the jam.
Turning now to
A navigation bar 164 appears along the lower portion of screen 162. The icons in the bar permit the user to select different screens as labeled beneath each icon. A rectangle 165 indicates that the Dashboard screen is currently selected.
As with the iPod touches, a bar 166 changes between green, yellow, and red to indicate how busy the floor is by department. In other words, bar 166 reflects how busy the user's area of responsibility is. If logged in as a floor attendant, the bar will reflect the volume in the slot department; if logged in as a beverage, server, it will reflect the volume there.
A plurality of gages, like gages 168, 170, 172 are each color coded green, yellow, and red. For example, gage 168 has a green arc 174, a yellow arc 176, and a red arc 178. Gage 168 indicates the average commute time to a call, and gage 172 indicates the average completion time for a call. The gages in between gages 168, 172 indicate the average time to complete each of the 5 categories of calls in Table 1. The casino can set goal completion times within the system, e.g., jackpots in 15 minutes. If the average is, e.g., 11 minutes, the needle is in the green zone; if 12-15 minutes, in the yellow zone; and above 15 minutes in the red zone. At a glance, the supervisor can tell how well the staff is responding to calls by type relative to the casino goals.
An alerts section 180 displays notices including supervised staff who have exceeded break times, calls dispatched where no one has accepted the call after a predefined time, and changes in a staff status screen 182.
Staff status screen 182 can show only the supervisor's staff, in response to touching the “My Staff” tab on screen 182 or all staff logged in at the casino, in response to touching the “Active Users” tab on screen 182. The supervisor can touch a name on the “My Staff” page, which causes a dialog box to appear that permits the user to edit the employee profile, send a text message to the employee, or force a logout (which would be desired if the employee lost his or her iPod touch device). When an employee name is selected under the “Active Users” tab, the user of screen 162 may send text messages to that employee.
In
In
In
Next down in the left hand column is “Tasks.” The supervisor may accept tasks that are appropriate for his or her level and deal with them in the same manner as described above for tasks on the iPod touch device. The Give Me a Task panel is not selected in
The next section in the left hand column displays “All Calls.” In this section, a user can view all calls within the system in one of these categories: Unserviced Calls, All Calls, and Calls by Type. In
In
In
In
Turning now to
In addition to the structure described in
Games may be implemented on any of these devices via a dedicated application. Alternatively, game software may be provided on server 100, which executes and runs the software thereon. In such cases, the software generates a game interface on the computing devices with which a player interacts, typically via a web browser. Wagering may be effected via deposit accounts opened using the computing device and interacting with application server 100.
Obviously many of the events in Table 1 would not require or trigger a response from a casino agent for computing devices 190, 129, 194. But some kinds of gaming activity on these gaming devices could trigger a response from the operator of system 188. For example, deviations in wagering patterns on the gaming device might trigger a text message, automated or otherwise, from system 188 that could appear in a dialog box on the computing device or be provided to the player's cell phone if that number is known.
The duration of play or deviations from duration of play could trigger such a communication. Awards won or a sequence of losses could be used to initiate a message. Essentially any event or series of events on computing devices 190, 129, 194 that can be tracked by system 188 could be used to trigger messages from the operator of system 188.
As another alternative embodiment, system 188 could be implemented without that portion in casino 94, i.e., it could be operating only computing devices connected via Internet 62 from wherever they might be.
Another aspect that can be incorporated into either system 92 or system 188 relates to assimilating personal data for the players. As mentioned above, network 50 may include a player tracking system. Such systems often maintain a modest set of demographic information about each player. This information may be used directly to personalize a message (for example, to identify the player's name for use in conversation during the event resolution). Player tracking information may also contain a photo of the player, which is useful for identification. When an identified player is playing at a machine that triggers a call as a result of an event, such as one of those in Table 1 or a beverage order, any such demographic data may be routed via the system to the responder's iPod computer or iTouch device, thus enabling the responder to quickly identify the patron who may be affected by the event that produced the call and to address him or her by name.
In addition, the player can be directly notified that help is on the way when he or she has summoned assistance or when a call is generated as a result of an issue with the player's gaming device. This message could be sent immediately after a problem is detected using information in the player's player-tracking record (or another source), such as a mobile phone number, for text or voice communication, instant message, an email address, an address on a social media network, etc. This communication might read or be heard as follows: “Hi Diane. We've detected a bill jam on your game and apologize for the interruption in your play. A slot technician, Dan Stevens, has been dispatched to resolve the problem and should arrive within the next 3 minutes.” As a result, the dispatched employee may know the name of the patron, among other information, and the patron knows the name of the person who is on their way to help or otherwise provide service.
The message could be displayed on the player tracking screen, on the game screen, or both. This could be instead of or in addition to communication to the player's cell phone or other mobile device.
The demographic information is also useful as a key with which to obtain additional information about the player. For example, if the player's address is within her player tracking record, that address could be compared to property records to determine whether the property is owned or rented and its approximate value, which is then useful in gauging the player's potential worth as a customer. By accessing other external databases, such as those for credit cards, shopping habits, magazine subscriptions, automobile records, etc., a player's likely personality, affinities, likes and dislikes can be discerned.
This information may be gathered during the response to the call or when the player first signs up for a player tracking membership. In a preferred embodiment, the information is gathered at time of signup and updated regularly thereafter.
The player tracking system also holds records on the player's historical activities within the casino, including game preferences, wagering habits, whether the player is winning or losing, how long they have been visiting the casino, how long they have been at the casino on this visit, and a wide range of other data.
In another embodiment, the player is asked to respond to a survey indicating the level of satisfaction with respect to how the call was resolved. This could be as basic as asking a short yes/no question inquiring whether they would want the responder to provide the same service another time if it was again required. The survey could be delivered via the player tracking system, the player's cell phone—via text, email, or call—or manually.
In a preferred embodiment, an additional database is created to store every event involving each player, how the event was resolved, who the agents were that handled the event and the survey results of the player after each event to determine satisfaction.
It is important to strive to provide every customer with a satisfying experience but casino resources are finite and, in busy times, it is impossible to provide the maximum level of service to all consumers.
When more events occur than a casino's resources can handle, it is commercially important to satisfy the most important customers first. Players who frequently visit the casino and wager in high volumes, of course, are important. These players are identifiable through the player tracking database.
Also important are consumers who do not currently wager at high volume but who have the capacity to do so in the future. The likelihood of a given consumer to become a valuable player is predictable to an important degree. Predictions of potential worth may be made by agent evaluations, recommendations by other players or by application or commitment of the consumer.
Another important means of predicting importance is by comparing personal attributes of the unknown consumer against attributes of known valuable players. For example, a consumer without a history of wagering at a casino provides personal data showing he is a 48-year-old male living at zip code 89135.
Through the personal data assimilation described earlier, it is learned the consumer also belongs to a private country club, drives a luxury car and is a frequent flier. From its database on known players, the casino determines many high-value players share these characteristics. Therefore, this new player is accorded a high level of importance.
Alternatively, any player newly signed to the player's club may be considered of extra importance, regardless of whether any information about him or her is known. Studies have shown that a player's initial experience in a casino will weigh heavily on whether that player returns and the extent to which the player gambles there. As a result, any new player may be granted a higher priority.
Furthermore, even a player that is not enrolled in a player tracking system may warrant higher priority attention. For example, an uncarded player who has been wagering $4 per game for 4 hours would warrant a higher level of attention than a player who had been playing penny games for 10 minutes. The system can note the frequency of play and amounts of wagers and infer that the same, albeit unidentified, player is playing a game.
Another embodiment of this invention utilizes standard geo-location services, such as GPS, cellular triangulation, and WiFi access point mapping to determine location of casino agents. Interior location services based upon WiFi and other methods are available from a variety of vendors, such as Google's “Google Maps 6.0,” Apple's mobile location service, or products from Meridian, http://www.meridianapps.com/, of Portland Oreg. Any of these could be used to locate casino agents. In such a case, the section associations shown in Table 2 and described above may not be necessary, i.e., dispatch of employees is based on location (and of course qualification to do the job) as determined by the geo-location service instead of Table 2.
While agent selection based upon the agent's technical qualifications and physical location is technically efficient, it does not significantly improve the likelihood of consumer satisfaction or even the long-term efficiency of casino operations. As discussed above, when an agent arrives to work, she logs into the system through her iPod device, iPad computer or other equivalent communication device, which tells the system that she is available to handle events. At the end of the shift, the agent logs off, telling the system she is no longer available.
From login until logoff, when not on break, the system monitors and records the Agent's movements and actions. Many casinos are so large, multiple supervisors control a single agent, each overseeing an area of the casino. In such cases, the system is configured with each supervisor's identity, areas of responsibility and agents assigned to the supervisor.
When the agent logs in, the communicator informs her of which supervisor she reports to, her area of assignment and other details the supervisor wishes her to know. As also discussed above, she is also given an indication of how busy the casino is at any given time. All such information is constantly updated throughout the shift.
At this point, the system has a list of events within the casino that require service and a list of all available agents and their qualifications. It also possesses knowledge of priorities and the area and tasks to which each agent is assigned.
When a new event occurs, the system prioritizes it based upon player identity and how busy agents currently are at serving other events. The first priority is consumer satisfaction. If there are multiple agents qualified to handle the event and the player has had favorable interactions with one of the available agents in the past, that agent is assigned the task. The system includes a database of all casino employees, their qualifications, training, and history of performance in resolving prior events. This database can be consulted to determine priority by seeing how well the employee has resolved such calls in general, whether the employee has resolved a call for this player in the past, and, if so, how well he or she resolved the call and what, if any, survey response was made.
The communication device informs the agent of where the problem is and, optionally, the player's identity. The agent may also be reminded of the date and circumstances of her last interaction with the player and be given information about that player's preferences and desires.
If the player's importance is very high, an agent favored by the player may be called off of a current assignment to serve the new event. In that case, the system will dispatch a substitute agent to finish the task the diverted agent was working on.
If the event involves a lower-priority player, or if the player has no prior relationship with another agent, and if the casino is not busy with too many other events, the new event may be assigned to the agent with the least experience at that particular kind of event, in order to improve the agent's competence.
For example, Mary is a new agent, with little experience clearing bill acceptor jams. A bill jam event comes in from the EGM at location B-47, which is in Mary's area of responsibility. The system determines the player at that EGM has no need or desire for service from a specific agent and so assigns the event to Mary, so she can become more proficient. If the supervisor desires and personnel are available, an additional agent, or supervisor, might be dispatched to the same location in order to provide additional training for Mary or to evaluate her performance.
If the casino is busy, or the player is sensitive to delays but has no preferred agent, the task is assigned to the most experienced available agent.
Every agent's activities are monitored, recorded and evaluated. For example, Tim is a moderately experienced agent assigned to a technical malfunction event that is historically tricky to remedy. The customer at the involved EGM is a very high-value player, who is known to be demanding.
The system initiates a timer when the event occurs, as described above. In this example, presume the system is configured to allow a maximum of five minutes to resolve the problem within the player's expectations. The event is assigned to Tim, and accepted by him 30 seconds after event occurrence. Tim's supervisor is informed that a critical event service is in progress. From Tim's current location, it should take a maximum of two minutes to reach the location.
If Tim does not reach the location within two minutes, his supervisor is alerted, so that another agent may be sent to help. In this case though, Tim does arrive within the allowed time. The system knows that Tim has arrived when either (a) Tim so informs system through his communication device and/or (b) the door to the game is opened (most systems report EGM door openings and the door must be opened to fix the problem).
Tim should be able to fix the problem within three minutes after opening the door. If Tim does not declare the job finished within the allotted time, and/or the door is not properly closed within that time, the supervisor is again so informed.
In this way, the system evaluates agent performance in comparison to player worth, demands, and expectations in light of how busy the casino is at that time. The system works to preemptively inform supervisors of problems so additional resources can be dispatched. Alternatively, the system can dispatch additional agents automatically, instead of simply informing the supervisor.
These are simply two examples of event situations and not an exhaustive description of the system's full capabilities. One of skill in the art of casino management will recognize there are many ways to improve customer satisfaction within a finite budget by comparing agent qualifications, experience and availability, against customer importance, personality, history, and desires, while factoring in the nature of the event and the business of the casino to the time of the new event.
While the above examples describe the dispatch of a single agent to handle an event, it is anticipated that multiple agents may be dispatched simultaneously while other services are also provided. For example, when a player wins a jackpot of $1,200 or more the player is required to complete tax forms before payment is issued. For security reasons, witnesses are required to verify the player was given the money, security is needed to transport the money safely cross the casino floor, and paperwork is required for the cage to provide the cash.
The system can simultaneously, or in staged timing, issue notifications to the cage that cash is required, alert security to transport the funds, cause a casino host to greet the player, explain the process and get tax form signatures, and send witnesses to verify the transaction.
As set forth in applicant's co-pending '355 application, any of the messages described herein may be delivered by a virtual persona, as can any other communication that may occur on this system. The virtual persona messages may be via phone calls, text messages, e-mails, dialog boxes generated on screens, or any via any other telecommunications method. Further, such messages may be automatically generated or otherwise.
Illustrated in
Each call listed in panel 204 includes at least one icon of a human figure, each of which correspond to a user who has been offered or accepted a call generated by the system—or to a role in the system for which there is currently no user. The color of each icon indicates whether the user has completed the call; whether the user has been offered or accepted the call, or has arrived at the location specified in the call; and whether there is no user associated with the role needed on the call.
The supervisor device 200 can view any category of the calls by touching the name in panel 202. For example, All calls is selected in panel 202 of
As can be seen in
Before describing further functionality, it should be noted that the drawings are populated with simulated data, including calls, machine locations, users, comments, etc., which depict how the system actually works on a gaming floor. There may be inconsistencies in the data from one drawing to another. Regardless, the drawings illustrate the views, panels, buttons, various user inputs, and device responses that produce the decreased call times, increased user satisfaction, report generation, and other benefits associated with these systems and methods.
Turning now to
In
The Assign User button might be used when a user of device 200 selects the Unserviced Calls in panel 202 and sees a particularly old unserviced call. Alternatively, the Assign User button may be used to assign a user to any active call, even if another user has accepted it. The Unserviced calls include a color-coded stripe, like stripes 212, 214 at the left side of each call in panel 204. Each color provides the supervisor device 200 with a quick indication of how long the call has been open. For example, a green stripe would indicate a recently opened call, e.g., less than 3 minutes, a yellow stripe 3-5 minutes, and a red stripe, over 6 minutes. For unserviced calls, yellow and red stripes might inform the user of device 200 that the call needs to be assigned using the Assign User button as described. Different types of calls might require different times for their respective stripe colors to appear. And these could be different at different casinos, depending upon the targets for responding to calls.
In each call detail of panel 206, which can be better seen in
If the user of device 200 presses the defer button, the call is offered to another person on his or her device, panel 215 disappears, and the screen reverts back to its condition before panel 215 appeared. If the Accept button is depressed, panel 215 also disappears, and the call becomes the user's call on device 200. Because device 200 lists many calls in panel 204, including the call to which the user is assigned, an exclamation point appears over the Calls button in the navigation bar to remind the user that he or she is on a call that has been offered, accepted, or not yet complete.
Each employee has a Machine Access Card that must be inserted into a slot in a card reader associated with each machine to obtain access to the machine. This is the same type of card and is inserted into the same slot as a player-tracking card. When the employee touches the Link Employee Card item on menu 216, he or she can insert the card into any card reader. The system then presents on a pop-up screen (not shown) the machine number associated with the card reader into which the card was inserted. When the employee touches the machine number the Machine Access Card and employee user profile are linked in the system. As will be seen, this facilitates automatic creation of a machine entry log and enables rapid supervisor response to an illegal entry.
The next menu item is Create Self Speed Call, which produces a scrollable pop-up panel 218 as shown in
Panel 218 permits the user of device 200 to manually generate a call that he or she is assigned to. Various reasons for such a call appear on panel 218 but different reasons could be used, or reasons that are entered manually via a keypad. This is the same panel that appears if the Create a New Call button is pressed on panel 208 in
In
As can be seen in
In
In
After the screen in
Menu 222 includes two portions, an upper Alerts panel 226 and a lower Radio panel 228. Radio panel may operate independently of menu 222. When panels 202, 204, 206 are in the position shown in
The controls in Radio panel 228 facilitate voice communication among all the current system users via their respective iPad or iPod touch devices. The Radio panel includes a Scan Mode switch 230, which is toggled on and off when it is touched. When on, a scrollable list of channels may be viewed, only three of which, Security, Beverage, and Marketing are visible in
When a user of device 200 wishes to send a message over their current channel, he or she presses the Start Recording switch. After a short audible signal, the device begins recording a message spoken by the user, which can be a maximum of 12 seconds. The message is sent in one of two ways. First, the user can hit the send button as soon as the message is complete. Second, if the user has not hit the send button within 12 seconds after the message begins recording, the message is automatically sent. In addition, the message may be canceled at any time before sending by hitting the Cancel button. A recording bar 232 provides a visible indication of the 12-second maximum message recording time. It starts filling from left to right beginning with the start of message recording and ending at the end on the right just as the 12-second recording time elapses. The bar is part way between the beginning and ending of a message that is being recorded in
Each of the devices includes audio compression software that is helpful in two respects. First, the audio signal is digitized and compressed, thus reducing system bandwidth on the wireless network. Second, noise suppression is applied to remove the ambient casino noise that may be picked up by the device microphone when a voice message is recorded. Because the calls are recorded, they can be stored, either on the device or retrieved from the server, and then replayed on the device.
The microphone to used to record a user's verbal message is that built in to the device. And the speaker for replaying may be that built into the device—or the device may be paired with a Bluetooth earpiece and microphone, to enable hands-free use of the device.
When a message is sent, it goes first to the system server, which determines the current users on the channel to which the message should be sent. The server then sends the messages to all users on that channel. Next, an audible alert occurs at each device that is set to the channel of the message sender. Thereafter, the message plays. But if another message is currently being transmitted to or played on the channel, an audible alert informs the sender that the message was not sent and that he or she must create and send the message again. Alternatively, because the message is recorded at the device, it may be stored, either at the device or on the server, and thereafter sent in response to the user again touching the Send button. In a still further version, the server can stack all incoming messages in the order received and send them in sequence. In the present embodiment, each channel's message traffic is independent of the others. Put differently, messages may be sent and received on each channel as described without regard to traffic on other channels.
In
Concluding now the description of the Radio feature,
One of the channels is the Emergency channel. Unlike the other channels, when a user broadcasts on this channel, all users who are logged in receive the message. The Auxiliary channel is available by subscription only. Users who are not subscribed on the system do not see the Auxiliary channel on the list of channels presented on their device screen. This provides a private channel for authorized users, typically higher-level supervisors, on which to communicate.
Implementing the radio feature in this manner provides several advantages. First, the messages may be stored, either on the devices or on the server, for later replay—by either the users or a supervisor of a user. In addition, because the messages are stored, a supervisor can create a message to one employee or to a group of employees in advance of its delivery. For example, a supervisor can create a message at the evening before a shift begins, and store it—either on the server or on is or her device. When the employee or employees to whom the message is directed logs in the next day, the radio message is delivered and heard by the employee.
Before moving on, a brief description will be provided of the functions served by the other icons on the navigation bar of device 234. The status screen (not shown) presents information to the user of device 234 indicating the section and role that is currently associated with the user, typically those selected when the user logged in. In addition, there is a break switch that presents the same 15-minute/30-minute option described above. This switch starts a break clock running for the user of the device. Finally, there is a logout button and an edit button, the latter permitting the device user to change his or her section or role. The Calls icon presents the screen on which service calls are offered to the user and which also indicates the current status of a call the user has been offered or is on. This feature will be described more fully with reference to additional drawings that detail call functionality. The Text icon presents a screen (not shown for this embodiment) of text conversations and is the screen from which a user sends and receives texts and reviews stored texts, essentially as previously described. Finally, the About icon can be used to present a screen (not shown) that presents system or device information, such as the version of the software operating the device, the site where the device is authorized to operate, etc. There are also buttons to Re-Link the Employee Card, in case the linking process described above needs to be repeated and a button to change the employee's PIN, which is used to log on.
In
These averages may be used to set a goal time. For example a current goal time for an event could be set to be 80% of the most recently calculated average for that event. Each event displayed in
The average event time can also be used to expand the pool of responders. As will be recalled, if a primary responder does not accept a call within a first predefined time, the pool of responders is expanded to include secondary responders. If there is no response from the expanded pool within a second predefined time, the pool can again be expanded to include tertiary responders, and so forth. The time elapsed from the start of the event (and without acceptance) until the call is offered to a secondary responder could be 80% of goal time, and if the call is still not accepted, by one of the primary or secondary responders, within 100% of goal time, the call is now also offered to the tertiary responders.
These averages and goal times may also be used for the color coding, previously described, which visually indicates whether a call is currently being handled within time (green), approaching its goal time (yellow), or overtime (red).
In the view of
In
In
When a maximum call time is exceeded, the alert appears in the Alerts list, and the supervisor may choose to act by texting or otherwise contacting the responder, by assigning another responder (as described above), or by taking some other action. The supervisor may also choose to assign or shift users to an unsupervised section. And of course an illegal machine entry requires immediate attention. Machine entry is addressed in detail later on. Briefly, an illegal machine entry alert is generated by the system when a machine door sensor, each of which is monitored on the network and by the system, indicates a door opened, and one of the following is true: a) no current user is linked to machine access card that is inserted into the card slot; b) there is no call at the machine; c) no entry reason was generated (by the system) or provided (by the responder); or d) the employee is on a call but at a different machine.
In
In
Although exemplary lists are not shown for either, icon 244 generates a scrollable early out list, i.e., those employees who would like to leave early, if possible, and icon 246 displays a scrollable list of all current users who are associated with more than one section on the gaming floor.
Next,
Conversely, looking now at
Note that in in
Next,
Turning now to
In
Turning now to
In
After the user arrives at the machine, he or she can either depress the Arrive button on the screen or insert his or her user card into the card reader associated with the machine. Either way notifies the system that the user is at the machine, after which the display of
Once the call is complete, whether the user elects to add a comment or not, the user withdraws his or her card from the card reader, and touches the Complete button. The screen thereafter presents the display shown in
Sometimes the door sensor on a gaming device has failed or otherwise does not provide a signal to the system to indicate that a door has been opened. As a result, the comment button does not appear on screen 260, even when the door is opened. If this happens on a call, such as a General Tilt, that requires a door open event, when the user touches the complete button in FIG. 67, a panel 266 and associated keyboard appears (
Before recording this call in the MEAL log, the system first checks to confirm: a) the request from the user's device must give a call identifier, b) the call so identified must exist and be found by the system, c) the call is one that requires machine entry, and d) the call must be associated with a gaming machine that stored by the system.
The present implementation also permits a user to enter a machine and create a corresponding MEAL entry on his or her initiative. In other words, this can happen even when the system has not generated any call at all. To do so, the user touches the Create a Call button in
In
When the door is opened, the sensor causes the system to present the screen depicted in
Consideration will now be given to how a user is presented with a system-generated call that normally does not require entry into a machine, but during the course of the call, the door is opened. In
During the course of the call, the user determines that he or she must enter the machine. This may happen, for instance, when the customer asks the user to check the game history. When the door is opened, the sensor signals the system, which presents a scrollable menu as shown in
After the call is created, it proceeds as any other call. For the system to create the MEAL log entry, several conditions must be satisfied: a) the user must be carded in to the machine, b) there must be a call at the machine, c) the card in at the machine is associated with the user who accepted the call, and d) the user has selected a MEAL reason via their device.
There is also a call that can be created when, for whatever reason, the user's iOS device is not communicating with the server. Such a condition may occur when, e.g., the wireless network is down or the server is not functioning properly. It is of course desirable to continue service to machines and to log data regarding such service—especially machine entry events, which are closely monitored by casino operators and regulators.
When the connection to the server is restored, the entry is automatically transmitted to be stored as a system record. Once transmitted, the entry is first checked for validity. The location entered must correspond to a valid machine, the record for which is stored in the system. And the employee identified in the login name must exist and be in the Slots department.
In
Each of the types of MEAL entries discussed above include the following data: date, time, Reason for entry/Duties performed, Comments (if any), User's name, and Badge number. In addition, each entry is associated with data related to the machine that the entry documents. Information about each machine is stored on or accessible by the system and includes: Machine number, Serial number, Location, Program name, Program number, Certification number, Purchase date, On floor date, Off floor date, Sale date, and Model type. As a result, reports may be generated in a variety of ways to review information related to machine entries, e.g., by machine, by employee, by section, etc.
The system creates a potential MEAL record each time a call is dispatched because, as described above, a machine may be entered during any call—even one that was not initiated as a call that requires machine entry. The potential record, which includes the employee identification and call data is not stored in a MEAL entry unless and until either the sensor indicates an open door on the machine that is associated with the call (whether system or user initiated), or when the user responds with Yes when presented with a panel asking if the machine was opened, like that shown in
It can therefore be seen that this system constrains users by requiring MEAL entries under certain conditions, and by automatically collecting and entering the required information. Finishing now the MEAL description with reference to the flow charts in
Finally, one aspect of machine entry relates to system-defined illegal entries. If no user is linked to the server, either via employee card or by a successfully completed call creation or joined call, and a door opens, an illegal alert is generated on a supervisor's iOS device. If there is no call at the machine or if there is a call but no MEAL reason is provided and a door opens, an alert is also generated. An alert is also generated if the user is on a call but it is a different machine from where the machine entry occurred.
Another feature of the present system relates to fair distribution of offers to accept jackpot calls. Some casinos pool their tips and split the pooled tips based on the amount of hours worked. Others permit employees to keep all of their tips. In the latter operations, it is important to give everyone equal opportunity to be dispatched on calls to complete jackpots, which is where the majority of tips is earned.
The present implementation maintains a sequential jackpot eligibility list for each section in
When the first jackpot hits, the system starts at the top of the list and works down until an available user is located. Available here means not on a pending or active call and not on break. When the available user is located, the jackpot call is offered to the user. Regardless of whether the user accepts, defers, quits, or completes the call, that user is moved to the bottom of the list as a result of having been offered the jackpot call. If the user defers or otherwise does not complete the call, the system again starts at the top of the list and moves down in sequence to offer the call to the next available user, and so on.
When the next jackpot hits, the system again starts at the top of the list and works down until an available user is located, who is offered the call and moved to the bottom of the list. If the user defers or otherwise does not complete the call, the system again starts at the top of the list and moves down in sequence to offer the call to the next available user, and so on.
There is another routing feature that a casino will likely use when implementing the present system, namely giving priority to certain types of calls. First, on a floor that is adequately staffed during a time when slot machines are not particularly busy, all calls may be offered as soon as the system receives them. In other words, there are available users who are neither on a pending or active call nor on break. But often, especially when the floor gets busy, the calls are coming in faster than they can be serviced. As a result, a queue of calls is formed. In the past, because it is desirable to quickly respond to jackpot calls, those calls were always placed at the top of the queue rather than at the bottom. But the remaining non-jackpot calls were all serviced in first-in-first-out time order.
The present implementation permits calls to be prioritized based on a variety of factors. Each call is assigned a priority level ranging from 1 to 9, with 9 being the lowest priority call and 1, the highest. In addition to assigning a priority level when the call first enters the queue, the priority may change after the call is initially queued as a result of events that occur after the call first enters the queue. The following Table 7 illustrates one way in which calls are initially ordered in the queue.
When an event from a machine comes in, it is tentatively assigned either a 9, if a regular call, or a 7, if a jackpot call. If there is a carded player playing the machine that generated the event, the player ID is attached to the event message. This permits the system to look up the player and determine the player ranking, with one example of ranking being shown in Table 7. The priorities are then assigned according to Table 7 and the call is placed in the queue in chronological order of the time it came in with each call having an assigned priority value. This queue may be displayed on a supervisor's device as Unserviced Calls, as shown in
Several different parameters can escalate any call to a higher priority value. For every 30 seconds that passes between initial generation of the call and before the call is accepted, the priority level increases by one, e.g., a 9 goes to an 8, a 6 to a 5, and so forth. As a result, older calls steadily increase in priority.
As responders complete calls, go of break, log in, or otherwise become available to take a call, the system offers calls based on priority value, i.e., all with 1 values are first offered, all with 2 values are next offered, etc. And within each rank, e.g., all with 1 values, calls are offered in first-in-first-out order.
In addition, calls may be manually deferred by a user, automatically deferred by the system if the user does not respond to the offer in a timely fashion, and reassigned by a supervisor. Any one of these events also results in an increase (toward higher priority) of one in priority value. As a result, when the call is returned to the queue after deferral or reassignment, it is assigned to a higher priority group and is more likely to be serviced sooner.
With this system, highly ranked players may receive more prompt service, which is consistent with the operator's goal of paying special attention to the top players. But even an uncarded player who has had to wait for a long time for service may ultimately receive service before a highly ranked player as a result of the priority assignment. These priority values and adjustments to them, may be modified to satisfy a casino's service goals. For example, the 30-second time to increase priority value could be modified. Or newly carded players could be granted a higher priority. Or the highest rank could always go to the top priority.
The various embodiments of the system described above, improve the experience of a consumer within a commercial environment. As is obvious, customer satisfaction is essential to gaining repeat business.
Although this discussion describes consumers in the role of gamblers or potential gamblers within a casino, this system is equally beneficial in any gambling environment including within a traditional casino, via mobile communication device, such as a phone, pad or laptop computer and when the consumer is at home via the same devices along with a more traditional fixed personal computer or game device such a Microsoft's Xbox.
The system is also applicable to non-gambling businesses where consumer gratification—leaving the consumer with a positive memory of an experience—is important. In sum, this system may be equally well implemented in any commercial enterprise, both gambling and non-gambling and with physical or virtual presence.
In casino operations, consumer satisfaction is presumed to exist when services are delivered within defined parameters. For example, if a consumer experiences a problem and an agent provides assistance within a prescribed time, it is presumed the consumer is satisfied.
In practice, satisfaction is determined more by the respect, consideration, recognition, empathy, and kindness with which the service is delivered rather than with than the actual service itself or the speed with which it is delivered.
Modern casinos lack the tools with which to personalize services for individual consumers, motivate user agents to deliver satisfying experiences or to measure the performance of users or actual satisfaction of consumers.
The systems described above make it possible to personalize services for consumers, motivate user agents to deliver respectful and gratifying services, and measure the level of consumer satisfaction with each service delivered.
The present development relates to dispatch systems and more particularly to such systems that are implemented via computer networks.
It is known in connection with such systems to include a feature that prevents an employee from being dispatched in response to a service light button at a gaming device that was inadvertently depressed. In the normal course of business, a player presses the button, which lights a light on the gaming device. Before computer-implemented dispatch systems, attendants walked the floor looking for lights that were on to see what service the player might need, e.g., to order a beverage or get some change. Once the attendant arrives, the light is switched off and the service is provided. In this system if a player, housecleaner, or attendant accidentally pressed the button, which happens on a regular basis, he or she simply switches the light off.
When computerized dispatch systems came into use, the systems detected a light-on network packet, also referred to as a light-on event, which was generated in response to actuating a service-light button at an identified slot machine. As a result, simply turning the light off—even if done immediately—in and of itself would not prevent the original event from generating a call. The prior art did, however, also detect light-off packets (events) that are generated whenever a service-light button was turned off. The light-off events also carried information that identified the machine where the light was turned off. To prevent at least some unnecessary calls from being generated, each light-on event is stored in a queue for a predetermined length of time, e.g., 15 seconds. In addition, every light-off event that comes in is checked against each event in the queue to see if they are associated with the same machine. If so, the light-on event is removed from the queue and the call is never generated. But if the light-on event remains in the queue for the full 15 seconds, a call for that machine is generated.
In this prior art system, once a call is generated it is not cleared, i.e., canceled, even if the light is turned off after the 15-second delay.
The present development provides for clearing calls that no longer require a response as a result of a detected network signal. It also addresses calls that should not be generated or should be cleared after generation in response to an earlier-received network signal (as opposed to a later-received network signal as is the case with the service light) that indicates the call is not necessary. And it facilitates use of several different events to suppress or cancel a call, use of one event to suppress or cancel several different calls, and use of several different events that would each suppress or cancel several different calls.
The present system can deal with virtually any type of event or call that is generated. One example, discussed above, is the change light, which is the only event that the prior art dealt with. And once a call was generated, there was no clearing it. In this system, however, a change light call can be cleared at any time when the change light is turned off, which generates a corresponding light-off event, so long as the attendant has not arrived at the machine, i.e., swiped the arrived slider on his or her device. This is an example of a subsequent event clearing a prior event.
Another example relates to a proprietary slot management system that generates both a machine-paid jackpot packet/event and a jackpot packet/event for the same player award. These events are used by the system for accounting purposes. The jackpot event is used by the dispatch system to dispatch attendants to hand pay and verify jackpots over a certain amount. But if the jackpot has been machine paid, there is no need to dispatch attendants for a hand pay. Put differently, if there is a jackpot event that is not preceded by a hand-pay event, the attendants should be dispatched for a hand pay.
Still another example relates to bill-acceptor jams. Such jams generate a jam event on the network that is used to create a call. Each time a bill acceptor accepts a different denomination of currency, a different event is generated, e.g., $10 accepted, $20 accepted, etc. If a jam event is followed by an event of any bill being accepted it is desirable to clear the call, assuming it has not been accepted. This scenario, a jam followed by an accepted bill, could occur if an attendant cleared the jam because he or she was nearby and cleared the jam without being on a system generated call.
The table in the co-pending application refers only to calls, but each of these calls was triggered by a corresponding event. Any of these events could be used to clear any other event, multiple events could be used to clear one event, multiple events could be cleared by one event, and each of multiple events could be cleared by each of other multiple events.
At the network level, a database table is created that incorporates the rules. An exemplary format, and including a single exemplary entry, for such a table is below. The actual table has many rows, each of which comprises a separate rule.
The first two columns are event codes, some of which are used to trigger calls in the table in the co-pending application. Because different manufactures of slot systems each use proprietary codes to designate an event, it is necessary to map each of those into a corresponding code in the present system. For example, the above table depicts code 200 in the first column, which corresponds to a service-light on event regardless of which slot management system the slot machines are connected to. And Event Code B in the second column corresponds to a service-light off event.
The Event Type column is an entry that indicates which of two ways the rule will be applied. One way is: If event A occurs before event B within the configured duration (Hold Time=30 seconds), ignore event B. This is the example given above relating to a machine-paid jackpot event and a jackpot event, which is hand paid. The other way is: If event B occurs after event A, ignore event A. This corresponds to the service light and bill acceptor examples. In this nomenclature, event A always occurs before event B, but depending upon which of two types of processing is applied either event A will be ignored or event B will. The service light rule shown in the first row is the second event type, i.e., if event A occurs before event B within the configured duration (Hold Time=30 seconds), ignore event B.
The on/off column indicates whether the rule is currently in effect. The last column is a time stamp indicating when the rule was last updated. In the present embodiment the only columns that can be updated are Hold Time and On/Off, and casino personnel can configure each of these as desired.
In operation, all of the events collected from the network stream into the system. Each event comprises a packet that identifies the nature of the event (the event code) and the machine from which it originated. Each event is checked against the table to see if it has a code that corresponds to one in the table, either event A or B. If so, it is stored in a memory location that corresponds to the particular machine associated with that event.
And as each new event is stored in memory, it is compared with each of the events previously stored to see if one of the rules in the table above applies. Put differently, each stored item is checked against each new item to see if the stored item includes an Event Code A from one of the rows and the new event includes an Event Code B from the same row. For example, if a stored event associated with a particular machine includes Event Code 200 (service light on) each event is checked to see if it includes an Event Code 190 (service light off). If so the rule in the first row shown above is applied, i.e., the stored event having Event Code 200 is cleared from memory. As a result, a service light call is not created.
The Hold Time is the amount of time each event is stored in memory before it is cleared. If the event sits in memory for the entire hold time without the rule being applied, it is consequently removed from memory and used to create a call. In the case of an event coded 200, which is in the rule in the first row, a service light call is created.
Once any call is created, it is also stored in memory at the location associated with the machine that generated the event from which the call was produced up until the time the attendant swipes the arrived slider on his or her device, which clears the call from memory. Each stored call in memory is checked against the rule table and each incoming event, just like each of the stored events are checked. If the event code that was used to create the stored call corresponds to an Event Code A from one of the rules and the incoming event comprise an Event Code B from the same rule (row), the rule is applied.
For example, one sequence could be that an event having code 200 (light on) for a particular machine arrives and is stored in memory at the location associated with the machine where the light was turned on. Additional arriving events are checked against the stored light-on event, but the hold time lapses without a code 190 event (light off) arriving for that machine. As a result, the rule in the first row is not applied to this light-on event and it is cleared from memory and used to generate a light-on call, which sends the call to an attendant's device. As this call is generated it is stored in the memory location associated with the machine, i.e., the same location from which the event that was used to create the call was just cleared.
Each new incoming event and call is checked against each stored event and call to see if one of the rules applies. In the present case if an event code 190 comes in before the attendant swipes the arrived slider on his or her device in response to the call based on event code 200, the call is cleared from the memory. If the employee has accepted the call but not yet arrived, the call is cleared and the employee is notified via the device that the call is no longer active.
A prior event may clear a subsequent call and a call may be cleared by a subsequent event. In other words, the two event type rules apply equally well when Event Codes A and B are both events or when one is a call and the other is an event. In addition, as when rules are applied only to events, a single call may be cleared by multiple events.
It should be noted that when multiple events clear a single event or call, or vice versa, or when each of multiple events clears each of different multiple events or calls, each possible combination of events and calls require a separate rule (row) in the table.
Here is an exemplary list of events and corresponding events (labeled anti-events) that could be used to cancel the event:
One to many in the list above refers to a plurality of anti-events, in this case any denomination of bill or any value of ticket, which could be used to cancel a single corresponding event.
Turning now to
In
In
Before moving on, consideration will be given to the logistics of hand paying jackpots in a casino. Taxing authorities, such as the IRS, require tax forms, e.g., a W2-G, for gambling winnings over a set amount. This necessitates that jackpots above that amount be hand paid so that the necessary player identification and social security number may be obtained to satisfy these requirements. Although policy can vary from casino to casino, at most places hand paid jackpots need to be witnessed. As a result, hand pays always involve at least two employees, and usually several more. For example, when jackpots are above a certain level, at least one person with security will accompany a cashier or the attendant after he or she retrieves the money to take to the winning player. Further the attendant must get identification, including a social security number, from the player to generate the appropriate tax paperwork. The larger the jackpot, the more people will be required. At a certain level, the supervisor usually must witness the hand pay, and at even higher jackpot levels the slot manager and/or casino manager may also be included. During this process, the attendant must prepare the tax forms, act as a witness, and often take a picture of the winner that the casino uses for publicity. As a result, hand paying a jackpot requires coordination among a number of people doing different things at different times. This can leave the attendant, while still on the call, with idle time while others are doing their part.
In high limit games, hand paid jackpots may be hit quite frequently. As a result, there are multiple jackpots being hand paid in these areas. What is more, it is not uncommon for a high-limit player to have multiple hand-pay jackpots in process simultaneously. This can happen in at least two ways. First, gaming machines typically lock up after a jackpot that must be hand paid. This prevents further play so that the win can be verified and the jackpot paid. After the jackpot is processed at least in part, the attendant uses his or her key to reactivate the slot machine. In some casinos, the player may resume play on the machine before the forms are completed and the jackpot paid. While a first jackpot is being hand paid, as described above, a second one, and possibly even a third, may be hit on the same machine and the hand-pay process started for each.
Second, the player may have multiple hand-pay jackpots in process simultaneously because he or she is playing several machines, typically adjacent to each other. Such a player will often have multiple player-tracking cards, one in each machine, so that the player can receive appropriate recognition from the casino for all of his or her play. Having simultaneous hand-paid jackpots in process for a single player may result from a combination of the two, namely having multiple jackpots on a one machine while having multiple jackpots on different machines.
In prior art dispatch systems, each hand-paid jackpot is a different call and may produce a different attendant to process each jackpot, even when the jackpots are payable to a single player at a single machine or closely adjacent machines. This is both inefficient and potentially problematic for the player. Sometimes a first attendant takes the player's identification and social security number to process a first jackpot. A second attendant may then receive the same identification and social security number from the first attendant while the second attendant is processing the first jackpot. Then the first attendant returns and pays the jackpot without the identification because the second attendant has it. And then the second attendant returns the identification. This can leave the player wondering how many people are passing around his or her identification and social security number. It is better for a number of reasons if a single attendant can process all jackpots that are currently in process for a single player.
Returning again to the drawings, it will be recalled that the attendant, Gracie, was on a call to hand pay a $1200 jackpot, in
In
In
Now Gracie is working on the only other call, namely the $1750 jackpot. She hits the Arrive button in
Although in the above scenario, Gracie processed each jackpot sequentially, she could have switched back and forth among them at her option. For example, in
This is implemented by the system, which checks every hand-pay jackpot call to determine whether the same player has an active hand-pay jackpot. If so, the system assigns the new jackpot call to the same attendant.
In another example, after a quite period with no calls, Gracie receives a Change Light On call at B098502 as shown in
After beginning work on the jackpot call, another jackpot to the same player is assigned to Gracie in
In
Once Charlie has accepted the call and arrived at the machine, he hits the Arrive button (the resulting screen not shown in the drawings) in
When Charlie arrives at section B09, he determines that there is a communications problem with machine B09: 503, and creates a call at that machine by inserting his employee card into the card reader. This newly created all appears on the calls list in
Turning now to another example, in
As Gracie is moving about on the floor to complete her calls, she passes a machine with a change light on and decides to respond to that and does so by creating a call. This is accomplished first by touching the Create a Call button in
On the screen in
In
It can be seen that these features add a lot of flexibility and efficiency. An attendant may make himself or herself available to receive escalated calls even while on another call.
In addition, he or she may create, join, or intercept another call while on a call. This enables an employee who may be covering a lot of territory on the floor to efficiently route calls by location and the order in which they are initiated and worked. For example, if the attendant is on the way to one call at a relatively remote location, he or she can create, join, or intercept one or more calls while in the way to the remote call.
Also, the same attendant handles jackpots and other simultaneous calls to the same player, whether on the same machine, adjacent machines, or both.
In any of these scenarios, the attendant may switch among the calls, i.e., by making different ones of the calls active while the others are On Hold, as needed or desired under the circumstances.
A programmer with ordinary skill in the art may create computer code that implements the above functions as described.
Turning now to
When the user of device 330, in this case Emily who has logged in on the device as previously described, swipes to the right on the screen, image 336 in
When Emily swipes image 332 in
The Welcome screen image in
Screen image 340 includes the name of the call, Greet, at the top left. This is the name for a call that is responsive to the first card-in of the day. As can be seen there is a number, in this case the numeral 7, in parentheses next to Greet. This is the total number of previous interactions Emily has had with Nicole. Immediately to the right is the device number, in this case #231. This informs Emily at which gaming device Nicole has carded in so that Emily knows where to go. Beneath Greet is the player's full name, Nicole Kidman, and beneath her name is the player's club tier, in this case the highest tier, Platinum Elite. Under the tier is the player's favorite drink, a Long Black coffee. And beneath that is a date. This is the date that Nicole last inserted a card into an associated gaming device at the casino. The date is black if she had an interaction with an employee that was logged in the system and red if there was no such interaction. This provides additional information that the employee can use to create an appropriate greeting for Nicole. Alternatively, this information may be provided in the form of an elapsed time, stated, e.g., in hour or days, which indicates the time lapsed since the last card in was detected.
When a player's birthday is within a defined number of days of the current date, the Birthday field appears. In this case the birthday is indicated as being 2 days away by displaying +2 days. One day away is designated +1. If the birthday is one or two days before, there is a −1 or −2 indicator, respectively. This gives the employee the opportunity to mention the birthday as being the recent or shortly upcoming. Similarly, if the player has an anniversary or other meaningful date within the aforementioned defined number of days, the name of that event and the days until or since that occurrence are similarly displayed.
As described later, there is also a separate birthday call that is generated to create a birthday celebration. A birthday call may go out to multiple employees simultaneously, instructing them to individually or collectively wish Nicole a happy birthday, independent of the Greeting call. Birthday calls may occur on the first card-in, a period of time after the first card-in, after a first win on a gaming device, after a win of at least a minimum size on a gaming device, a period of time after a Greeting call is completed or other parameters.
Similarly, a specific call can be generated for an Anniversary or other special occurrence. The call name, such as Greet, Birthday, Anniversary, etc., appears in the upper left portion of the screen as shown in
Referring again to
The present system can produce close personal relationships between an employee and a customer. The customer may share information with the employee that the employee would like to remember but would not like to become generally known, e.g., information about the health of the player. The manner in which these notes are entered will be shortly described.
Each of fields 344, 346 show the last note entered with filed 344 showing a preference for a sport team, and field 346 showing the name of Nicole's dog. When either of these fields is touched, a popup window (not shown) appears, expanding over a larger area of the screen. The window lists earlier notes made and includes scroll bars that allow viewing of any number of prior notes. In a similar manner, when field 342 is touched, a popup window appears that displays prior interactions between Emily and Nicole. This is a list of dates and times in reverse chronological order. Field 348 contains the name of the employee having the most logged interactions with Nicole followed by the number of interactions in parentheses. When field 348 is touched, a window appears with a list of all other employees who have interacted with Nicole, including the total number of interactions and the date and time of the most recent interaction with each employee.
In one embodiment, Emily may make additional notes about Nicole on this screen simply by activating an edit function for the area in which the new note is to be made. The edit function can be triggered by double tapping the note area, by touching an edit button for the field (not shown) or other method. When the edit function is activated, a keyboard or other entry method appears on the screen. Alternatively, a voice to text function is activated to allow Emily to dictate the note. Although the keyboard and speech to text functions are not illustrated, they are well known in the art. For example Apple Inc. provides such functionality in its iOS operating system for mobile platforms and Google Inc. provides comparable data entry functionality on its Android platform. Any method of data entry may be used, in accordance with the particular mobile platform used.
In another embodiment, the ability to make notes is suspended until the call is completed and Emily can then make notes about information gained from her interaction with Nicole.
As can be seen in
In another embodiment, an additional touch button is provided so Emily may immediately decline the call.
Assuming Emily has pressed the Yes button in
In one embodiment, shown in
After the game is played and Emily concludes her interaction with Nicole, she hits the Finish button in
In one embodiment, Emily may only make notes about her interaction with Nicole after the Rate screen in
Once each slider button is positioned according to Emily's rating on each scale, and any desired notes are made, Emily presses the Rate button. The entered ratings and notes will then be displayed the next time a call to Nicole is assigned to an employee. In some embodiments the words, shy-bold and elated-angry, disappear when the Arrive button is pressed so that the player won't glimpse the screen and realize the employee is evaluating them. As can be seen in
When the Rate button is touched, the ratings and notes are logged, the call is complete, and Emily is presented with a statistics summary screen shown in
In
After the call is accepted by touching the Yes button, the employee arrives and touches the Arrive button, shown in
The time counters permit tracking for each employee of statistics on how efficiently the employee acts to accept each call, how long it takes to arrive (which can help to determine employee positioning on the floor), and how long the employee actually visits with the player. Each of these counters is useful in measuring employee effectiveness as well as staffing efficiency and time spent with each customer.
Other calls beyond the greet call described above are also generated by the system and offered to an employee. For example, on the day of a player's birthday or anniversary, the greet call may be replaced by or supplemented with a birthday or anniversary call. When a player cards in on the day of his or her birthday, or within a defined range of days of the birthday date, a call is generated in the same manner as described above. This call can go to a single employee or multiple employees. The conduct of the call is determined by management policy. It could be that each employee is separately dispatched to wish the player happy birthday or that only a subset of employees is dispatched separately to do so. It could also be that a group of employees are dispatched simultaneously and sing happy birthday and offer a cake or a present. The exact nature of such dispatches is in accordance with a combination of management policy, the player's perceived or historical worth, player personality and current business levels of the casino as well as the number of employees who are available to conduct the call. Of course the same procedures may be followed on the player's anniversary or other important days, thought he exact configuration of these calls may be use a superset or a subset of the criteria used for the birthday call.
Anniversary dates are typically provided by the player in connection with enrollment in or updating the player's record in the player-tracking club.
Additional calls can be made as described above even for a player who is not carded in. For example, drink request, service request, paper empty, hopper fill, and hand-pay jackpot, all of which are described above with another embodiment. Of course, if one of these calls comes in for a player who is not carded in, there is no player name or personal information for the player. But the employee responding can still greet and interact with the player in connection with fulfilling the call, e.g., replacing paper in the ticket printer. And if the player is carded in for one of these calls, the player's name and information is provided as described in connection with the call depicted in
In another embodiment, the employee greeting—at least the initial interaction—may be scripted by displaying a greeting on the screen of the mobile computing device. Different greetings could be served up according to rules stored in the system. For example, the first thing an employee says when making a first contact with an identified player might be: “Hi, my name is Emily. Welcome to Acme Casino. Is there anything I can help you with?”
This confirms to the employee that he or she has not logged an interaction with this player before and provides an indication of how to proceed. For a greeting call to a player who has a prior logged interaction, the employee script might be: “Hi Ms. ______. I'm ______. We met a few months/weeks/days ago. How can I help you?” The particular wording of follow up greetings can change over time and will also vary depending upon the time since the last interaction.
For players who are offered a game on the employee's mobile device, as shown in
Different scripts are used for different kind of calls. For example, a drink call might be: “Hi Ms. ______. I know your usual drink is ______ (from mobile device screen). Can I bring you one or would you like something else?”
To sum up, each type of call may have its own script. And those can vary depending on whether it is the first interaction or a subsequent one and with the time since the last interaction, or in accordance to the perceived or historical worth of the customer. Also, the scripts may vary from interaction to interaction so that the employee does not sound as if she is simply repeating the same statement over and over.
These scripts might be rule based. In other words, if first greeting use script A. If first interaction on a paper fill, use script B. If second greeting on first card in, use script C, etc. In another embodiment, interactions are evaluated, and different scripts or employees to interact with a player are chosen based on the evaluation.
In another embodiment, call assignments may be routed to the employee who has most often interacted with the customer on previous visits. For example, If both Tom and Emily are employees who are working when Nicole arrives, Emily may be selected for the call because she has met Nicole 5 previous times while Tom has met her only once before. In another embodiment, the call is assigned to the employee who gave high ratings to previous interactions with that guest. For example, if Tom had met Nicole only once before but rated the encounter as leaving Nicole very happy, Tom might be assigned the call because Nicole, although having had 5 previous encounters, always rated Nicole as angry.
In another embodiment, the call is assigned to the employee most highly rated on player surveys, or the employee who is most experienced serving players of category of historical or perceived worth, or by matching the age, regional birthplaces, mutual interests, gender and other matching or complementary characteristics of employees and customers.
Another type of call is the Introduction call, which, in times when the casino isn't so busy that all employees are already engaged with customers, an employee who has encountered the customer previously is dispatched along with an employee that has not previously met the customer. The employee who has previously met the customer then introduces the employee who has not met the customer, providing a basis of familiarity for future call assignments.
Another type of call is the Checkup call in which, after a period of time has elapsed since the last call to a given customer, a new call is created in which the employee simply checks in to see if the customer needs anything.
Similarly, an employee could be dispatched after a period of time to deliver a drink. The periods of time between call assignments to a given customer can depend on a combination of one or more parameters such as customer personality, expressed customer desires, customer historical or perceived worth, availability of employees for call assignment and other relevant parameters.
Criteria used to determine when calls are assigned and to which employees may be based upon information gathered from observation by employees or management. Additional information criteria may be drawn from player surveys, player interviews, personality profiles, information drawn from social media, information obtained from outside sources such as credit card companies, car purchases and other consumer activities, as well as instant or longer-term winning or losing events, frequency of player visit, distance traveled by the player, and other sources.
In the case of scheduled drink delivery, the schedule may be based upon player request, observations by employees, historical consumption and inside temperature and humidity. If the drink contains alcohol, service schedules may be determined by number of drinks previously served in the past few hours, customer weight, build, gender and other physical and psychological characteristics, as well as historical or perceived worth, cost of the beverage and local laws or customs.
One of skill in the art will appreciate there are a wide range of criteria from which to base call creation and assignment as well as selection of the employee to whom the call is assigned. Calls may be created and assigned in accordance to management rules which are encoded into the system software or thy may be created and assigned by allowing a machine learning system to evaluate criteria regarding the customer, the employee, current business levels and resulting customer behaviors. The machine learning system could be provided by IBM's Watson system or by similar systems from Facebook, Amazon, Google and other companies.
One way to evaluate a player is to track how much he or she spends after an interaction. Virtually every casino has a player-tracking system such as the IGT Advantage® made by IGT. This tracks play by the player. Each electronic gaming device includes a coin-in meter and a coin-out meter. Coin-in is the amount applied to as a wager on the gaming device, and coin-out is the amount paid by the gaming device as a result of an award in response to a game played.
The present embodiment interfaces with the player-tracking system to capture this meter information. The meter information is typically captured when a player cards in and cards out, among other times. Therefore, subtracting the coin-in and coin-out meter values at card in and card out provides data from which the total player spend for that session may be calculated. The spend can be actual or theoretical. The actual spend is the difference between the amount wagered and the amount won by the player. The theoretical spend is the hold percentage on the gaming device times the amount wagered. The theoretical spend is the amount the casino would be expected to receive from the player if/when the gaming device performs as it was designed over time.
Because the employee interactions are logged with time stamps as described above, and because the meter data is also logged with time stamps, data can be drawn from the databases holding this information to associate a spend amount, either actual or theoretical, with the employee who had the interaction. As a result, a database record may be created for each interaction that includes some or all of the following fields:
- Employee/Player/Date and Time/Machine#/Spend/Mood Rating/Personality Rating
This data can be used in a variety of ways. For example, prior to assigning a call, whether it is a simple greeting or to perform a task, e.g., hopper fill, the database can be consulted to consider which employees have had positive past interactions with this player. This could be based on spend, ratings, or a combination. This information could also be used to determine whether to offer a bonus game, like that in
The data may also be used to select different scripts. In other words, rather than implementing a strict rule-based methodology for selecting a strict, a more adaptive approach is used by making decisions based on the historical data.
The system can be used in other ways to optimize a player's gaming experience. For example, the card-in and card-out times over a long period, e.g., a year, may be searched and analyzed to determine which players are at the casino at the same time. This could result in an offer to one or more of the players who jointly visit. For example, an employee responding to a call will have the player's personal information on their mobile device, and will also have the name of another person, in a field not shown in the drawings, that is identified as a joint visitor with the player. This enables the employee to inquire about the other person and possibly get an introduction to greet the other player. This creates a new player relationship with the employee.
In addition, this information can be used to track total visits, e.g., over a year. A player who visits every couple of weeks regularly and spends modest amounts might be of more value to the casino than a player who comes only twice a year but spends much higher amounts. Recognition of such regular players may be achieved through displaying that information on an employee's mobile device, which gives the employee the opportunity to comment on their frequency of visiting and thank the player, perhaps using a script as described above.
Consideration will now be given to another feature that may be implemented on the system. Turning attention to
When each ticket is generated, i.e., printed, an entry in a database records time generated, machine number where generated, value, and unique validation number. When a ticket is inserted into a ticket reader, whether to cash out or to apply credits to gaming machine, the ticket in the database is canceled.
The present system can track an uncarded player using tickets. A session starts with the first cash out of a ticket, typically after play on a first slot machine. When that ticket is inserted into another slot machine, the system uses the unique number associated with it, and enters it in a database. As a result, the player may be tracked from machine to machine until the last cash out, which ends the session.
In this manner, the same kinds of analysis, in terms of spend by the player, can be performed as described above for an untracked player. As a result, calls to fill paper, pay jackpots, take a drink order, etc. may be optimized in the same manner as if the player was identified in a player-tracking system and using a card.
Claims
1. A method for dispatching a casino agent to an identified player of an electronic gaming device on a network of electronic gaming devices in a casino, the method comprising:
- enrolling players in a player-tracking club;
- associating each player with a physical object that is used by the player to associate him or herself with an identified gaming device selected by the player for tracking the player's play on the gaming device;
- creating a list of casino agents;
- providing at least some of the casino agents with a mobile computing device that is in communication with a wireless network operatively connected to the network of electronic gaming devices;
- storing the list in a memory connected to the network;
- receiving the physical object at a gaming device selected by one of the players;
- detecting a communication on the network indicating receipt of the physical object at an identified electronic gaming device;
- establishing a new gaming session for the player in response to the communication;
- determining when the last gaming session for the one player was established;
- if the time between the two gaming sessions is greater than a predefined duration, generating a call to dispatch one of the casino agents to the gaming device selected by the one player;
- automatically sending a call signal via the wireless network to the mobile computing device carried by the one casino agent, the signal including data indicating the identified electronic gaming device selected by the one player;
- receiving a call-acceptance signal responsive to an input on the mobile computing device carried by the casino agent indicating that he or she has accepted the call;
- receiving a call-arrival signal responsive to an input on the mobile computing device carried by the casino agent indicating that he or she has arrived at the identified gaming device;
- providing information from the player-tracking record for the one player on the mobile computing device;
- logging each call that the casino agent has completed in which the one player was associated with the gaming device to which the casino agent was dispatched;
- displaying information about the prior calls on the mobile computing device; and
- receiving a call-completion signal responsive to an input on the mobile computing device carried by the casino agent indicating that he or she has interacted with the one player and finished the call.
2. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving a description of the call from the one casino agent via the mobile computing device and storing the description in a memory operatively connected to the network of gaming devices.
3. The method of claim 2 further comprising retrieving at least one description of a prior call for the one player and displaying it on the mobile computing device during a later call.
4. The method of claim 3 further comprising displaying the same description on a plurality of mobile computing devices each of which is carried by a different casino agent.
5. The method of claim 1 further comprising determining a call acceptance time comprising the time between the call signal and the call-acceptance signal, storing each call acceptance time for the one casino agent, and calculating an average call acceptance time using at least some of the stored call acceptance times.
6. A method for dispatching a casino agent on a call to an electronic gaming device on a network and to log information regarding the call, the method comprising:
- storing a list in of casino agents in a memory connected to the network;
- storing records for each of a plurality of players in a memory connected to the network, each record including information about one of the players;
- monitoring the network of electronic gaming devices via a network computing device;
- detecting at the network computing device a communication on the network indicating that a player has actuated a circuit at one of the electronic gaming devices that associates the player's record with the one electronic gaming device;
- generating a call to dispatch one of the casino agents to the one electronic gaming device;
- transmitting a call signal to a mobile computing device carried by one of the casino agents via a wireless network that is operatively connected to the network computing device;
- receiving an arrival signal at the network computing device in response to action taken by the one casino agent via the mobile computing device indicating that the one casino agent has arrived at the identified electronic gaming device;
- tracking the time between receipt of the arrival signal and receive of a finish signal in response to action taken by the one casino agent via the mobile computing device indicating that the one casino agent has finished the call;
- tracking the number of times the casino agent is dispatched on a call to the player;
- storing the number of times in the memory operatively connected to the network computing device; and
- displaying the number of times on the casino agent's mobile computing device.
7. The method of claim 6 further comprising automatically sending a signal via the wireless network to the mobile computing device carried by the casino agent, the signal including data that identifies the one electronic gaming device.
8. The method of claim 6 wherein receiving a signal at the network computing device in response to action taken by the one casino agent indicating that the one casino agent has arrived at the identified electronic gaming device is in response to a signal generated on the wireless network as a result of an input received at a user interface of the mobile computing device.
9. The method of claim 6 further comprising receiving a description of the call from the one casino agent via the mobile computing device and storing the description in a memory operatively connected to the network of gaming devices.
10. The method of claim 9 further comprising retrieving at least one description of a prior call to one of the gaming devices having the player's record associated with it and displaying it on the mobile computing device during a later call.
11. The method of claim 10 further comprising displaying the same description of a prior call on a plurality of mobile computing devices each of which is carried by a different casino agent.
12. The method of claim 6 further comprising determining a call time comprising the time between the call-arrival signal and the call-finish signal, storing each call time for the one casino agent, and calculating an average call time using at least some of the stored call times.
13. A method for dispatching a casino agent on a call to an electronic gaming device on a network and to log information regarding the call, the method comprising:
- storing a plurality of player records in a memory operatively connected to the network;
- populating each record with information related to a different one of a plurality of players;
- storing a unique code in a physical object associated with each player;
- associating one of the electronic gaming devices with a player whose code is detected on the network at a selected one of the gaming devices at which the physical object is presented by the player;
- tracking the player's play at the one gaming device and storing information about the tracked play in the player's record;
- monitoring the network of electronic gaming devices via a network computing device;
- generating a call to dispatch one of the casino agents to the one gaming device when the code is detected on the network;
- transmitting a call signal via a wireless network to a mobile computing device carried by one of the casino agents;
- tracking the time between the call signal and a call acceptance signal that is generated in response to an action taken by the casino agent at a user interface on the mobile computing device;
- tracking the time between the call acceptance signal and a call arrival signal that is generated in response to an action taken by the casino agent at the user interface on the mobile computing device when the agent arrives at the one gaming device;
- tracking the time between the call arrival signal and a call finish signal that is generated in response to an action taken by the casino agent at the user interface on the mobile computing device;
- storing the tracked times in a memory operatively connected to the network computing device;
- tracking the number of times a call signal has been generated for the one casino agent in response to detecting the unique code for the player; and
- displaying the number on the mobile computing device.
14. The method of claim 13 wherein the call signal includes data that identifies the one electronic gaming device.
15. The method of claim 13 further comprising receiving data at the network computing device via the wireless network that includes a comment generated on the mobile computing device related to an interaction with the one player.
16. The method of claim 15 further comprising storing the comment in an electronic log.
17. The method of claim 13 further comprising receiving a description of the call from the one casino agent via the mobile computing device and storing the description in a memory operatively connected to the network of gaming devices.
18. The method of claim 17 further comprising retrieving at least one description of a prior call for the one player and displaying it on the mobile computing device during a later call.
19. The method of claim 18 further comprising displaying the same description on a plurality of mobile computing devices each of which is carried by a different casino agent.
20. The method of claim 13 further comprising determining a call-arrival time comprising the time between the call-acceptance signal and the call-arrival signal, storing each call-arrival time for the one casino agent, and calculating an average call time using at least some of the stored call acceptance times.
Type: Application
Filed: Jan 16, 2017
Publication Date: Jun 29, 2017
Inventor: JOHN F. ACRES (LAS VEGAS, NV)
Application Number: 15/407,096
