Rewarding Players

[Jacob]

I was reading a case study on Harrah's, I came across their "Total Rewards" program for customers. Basically, they really go out of their way to please loyal customers -- from small things like leaving free sweets in hotel rooms upon cleaning time, to offering free vacations at any of their hotels & resorts.

Harrah's believes that treating customers well will lead them to spending more money, and it's definitely true. Harrah's year-end revenue increased by $200 million upon the introduction of the Total Rewards program. Imagine that -- treat your players with rewards and they'll actually come back to play more!

This case study got me thinking. As customers of several skill gaming sites, what are some rewards we'd like to receive for our loyalty and frequent gameplay? What are realistic ways of rewarding players that go beyond the current rewards programs that King.com and WorldWinner.com offers?

[bmy1]

Vegas Casinos have long been doing loyalty programs. How else are you going to differentiate yourself in a saturated market like Vegas?

[msufan]

Originally Posted by Jacob

I was reading a case study on Harrah's, I came across their "Total Rewards" program for customers. Basically, they really go out of their way to please loyal customers -- from small things like leaving free sweets in hotel rooms upon cleaning time, to offering free vacations at any of their hotels & resorts.

Harrah's believes that treating customers well will lead them to spending more money, and it's definitely true. Harrah's year-end revenue increased by $200 million upon the introduction of the Total Rewards program. Imagine that -- treat your players with rewards and they'll actually come back to play more!

This case study got me thinking. As customers of several skill gaming sites, what are some rewards we'd like to receive for our loyalty and frequent gameplay? What are realistic ways of rewarding players that go beyond the current rewards programs that King.com and WorldWinner.com offers?

I love what Skill Addiction does in this area. Offer prizes, free credits, etc. for points earned with each cash game played.

I'd love to see a site offer the chance to get 5% or 10% off your entry fees for a month (like what king.com used to offer) as a possible bonus point reward as well.

[Flignats]

We try to throw as much rewards back to the players as possible and continue to think and ask for other ways to keep rewarding players as we grow.

A discount system could be a good option, I'll jot it down and see what we can do about that. Wouldnt be in the near future, we are going to be unrolling some cool features soon that we've been working on. It might be possible to incorporate into the next round of updates or something, if we choose to go that way. Keep the suggestions coming!

[Grengoddess]

Entry Fee Discounts - i LOOOVED that soooooo much when king did it XD maybe they can have it so that those who spend the most money on the site or those who have been there the longest or most loyal and what not get those entry fee discounts. though entry fee discounts wount be FREAKIN SWEET if worldwinner did it :P

First withdrawals - you know how for WWs PC membership that if you are a PC member your inquiries get processed first? well i think the same should apply with withdrawals. (well now that worldwinner has made PC membership lifetime....i guess the player services team should load up on migraine medication for the huge waaaaaaaaaaaaaave of players who they will have to process their inquiries first. lol ) And for king i think their most loyal members should only have to wait a week MAXIMUM for their withdrawals to come. or for king let the most loyal players have the option of multiple withdrawals.

and for the most loyal and highest contributing players i think we earn the right to have both worldwinner and king give us professional spa treatments at our house, free of charge, by a qualified professional XD

[dpaull414]

People love frequent flyer type programs. People pay an annual fee to get a credit card from airlines so they can accumulate frequent flyer miles that end up being really hard to use! Randall's grocery store (part of Safeway) allows you to tie your reward card to the continental onepass program and you can earn miles by shopping at randalls.

I think anything that gives people an incentive to accumulate points (even when they lose) is very smart. Could a skill gaming site get a credit card program running where money you spend on the card gets you game credits? Not sure what the cost to entry would be for that, but I'd be interested in something like that......

[Flignats]

Hmm, some interesting suggestions.

Well, GG, I personally do not think that it should take more than 5 business days to process a withdrawal for a player. King's 2 weeks is absolutely unnacceptable. I don't see a need for preferential treatment for withdrawals because they should be quick, and WW has done this well when I played there. However, King hold onto our money for the interest, ect.

Dpaul... I see what you are getting at, but it would be hard to convince people, I think, to trust a site enough to get a credit card with our name on it. Maybe I am wrong, I have not dug into that niche, but for me personally I would not get a CC with King's name put on it... I don't get CC's from major companies, why go to King for one.

However, the 'Frequent Player' Idea can still be done, by accruing enough cash game plays and giving a discount on entry fees for a period of time, ect.

[dpaull414]

I understand the trust thing, but Continental does their program through Chase, Hilton does it through Citi & Amex, they partner up with name brands people trust. I did a quick Google and it looks like there are lots of hits. No clue how legit they all are. But think of the possibilities! "Get your skilladdiction Visa card where 1% of your purchases earn you game credits which you can turn into CASH!"

Just a thought!

Originally Posted by Flignats

Hmm, some interesting suggestions.

Well, GG, I personally do not think that it should take more than 5 business days to process a withdrawal for a player. King's 2 weeks is absolutely unnacceptable. I don't see a need for preferential treatment for withdrawals because they should be quick, and WW has done this well when I played there. However, King hold onto our money for the interest, ect.

Dpaul... I see what you are getting at, but it would be hard to convince people, I think, to trust a site enough to get a credit card with our name on it. Maybe I am wrong, I have not dug into that niche, but for me personally I would not get a CC with King's name put on it... I don't get CC's from major companies, why go to King for one.

However, the 'Frequent Player' Idea can still be done, by accruing enough cash game plays and giving a discount on entry fees for a period of time, ect.

[Flignats]

Yeah, I've seen those kind of programs as well. I think it's a little outside out scope right now, but it is an intriguing niche of rewards to give back to the players. Dealing internationally, we'd probably have to limit it only to the US or something, not sure..

I think for now we'd want to stick with an internal discount reward system or something

Waht about you? would you take a CC from King or SA?

[dpaull414]

I'm a bit of a freak and want to get the best 'deal' I can. For me it's the Hilton Optima card from Amex. No annual fee, and lots of Hilton points. And with Hilton brands including everything from Hampton Inn to the Waldorf Astoria collection, you can find a property that works for you.... that concludes the commercial part of this post (altho if anybody is really interested, I could send a referral from my account and get 10k bonus points or something!)

But if King or WW offered a card, I'd check out the benefit and see how it compared against the Hilton Optima card. Cash is good, and I can convert game credits over to real cash by playing video games, and that doesn't suck... Say you get 1% of your charges back in game credits. If you charge $500 a month you'd get $5 a month. On the hilton card you'd get like 2500 points or so. It would take you about 8-10 months to get a free night at a hampton inn which would be like $100 with taxes. $40-50 in game credits over the same time period I could turn into way more than $100. So I probably would go for a skillgaming reward card....

Originally Posted by Flignats

Yeah, I've seen those kind of programs as well. I think it's a little outside out scope right now, but it is an intriguing niche of rewards to give back to the players. Dealing internationally, we'd probably have to limit it only to the US or something, not sure..

I think for now we'd want to stick with an internal discount reward system or something

Waht about you? would you take a CC from King or SA?