The new Facebook Graph Search may impact many online and off-line casinos. The new Facebook Graph Search links social media users to possibly millions of opinions of people that have had experience with some service or product. This would, of course, include casinos. The danger, experts say, is that the Facebook Graph Search could cause negative reputations for companies.
Casino marketing experts seem to agree that casinos will need to spend more time on customer service than ever before unless they want to be at risk of losing business due to a bad rep. In the past, a few unhappy customers could post on Twitter or Yelp and, generally, not too many people would see the post. With the new Facebook Graph Search, a new type of search tool that actually goes through people’s Facebook profiles to see what they are saying about companies, all of that has changed.
In simple terms, until now, someone could read some casino reviews and then decide as to whether or not they valued those reviews. Now, because of the way Graph Search works, those same people will see what all of their friends on Facebook say about a casino. The average Facebook user is estimated to have about 130 listed friends. And those friends have friends and so forth and so on. A few negative comments about a particular casino can explode into a huge mess in no time at all.
One of the problems that many casinos have is that they are behind in their customer service technology making it difficult for customers to voice their displeasure about something directly to the casino. Now, they can take that displeasure and post it to Facebook profiles and the issue could be read by potentially thousands of other people. Many modern casinos still use paper cards for customer feedback and this could mean trouble for them as more and more people turn to the Internet to voice their opinions. Casinos that want to fight back will need to make it much easier for their guests to give them feedback.
According to casino marketing gurus, casinos will need to act fast to take measures that will improve their customer and guest service. The key, of course, is providing great service to every customer so they have nothing but good things to say. But, the other key is making it easy for those who have issues to get those issues addressed quickly. This is really the only way to combat what might be a huge problem for some casinos in terms of their reputations. Those who act fast will probable be able to avoid a lot of the possible consequences. But for those that put it off, remember, once a negative comment is posted it is there forever! This is one time that being proactive can really pay off for casinos, both online and brick and mortar establishments. On the other hand, great comments about a casino will remain online as well, and that can mean a lot of new business.