Harrah’s initial strategy to focus on people more than anything else through rewards programs led to growth and high profits in the early 1990s. But new competition’s innovative, highly themed environments that offered lots of new customer experiences literally altered the casino industry landscape and essentially forced Harrah’s to reevaluate its people strategy if it was to remain relevant. While there was a great temptation to follow the competition’s lead to develop properties with attractions like fake erupting volcanoes or roller coasters, Harrah’s ultimately decided to concentrate on its customer loyalty competency. This included moving the organization from an operations-driven company that viewed each property as an autonomous business to one that implemented a corporate-level, customer-focused strategy communicated by the Chief Operation Officer down to all of Harrah’s properties.
The effort to envelop customers with reasons to be loyal to Harrah’s started with the new organizational structure where divisional presidents and their subordinates in brand operations, information technology, and marketing services all reported to the COO. The idea that each property encouraged its customers to gamble at other properties was not common practice. The new organizational structure changed this mentality by emphasizing that all of the properties’ customers belonged to Harrah’s. This tactic enabled Harrah’s to better understand its customers’ behaviors. In addition, it led the company to develop a centralized brand to convey a feeling of being “exuberantly alive.” Harrah’s also set up employee measurement, recognition, and incentive programs throughout its casinos to improve customer service across the board. Finally, the company implemented marke ...