Inside Asian Gaming

JULY 2018 INSIDE ASIAN GAMING 29 experience. In response, in most instances, I get a nod from top management – a nod signaling weak agreement but also conveying, “We don’t want you to go there, you do what you’ve been hired to do.” Having a truly customer-centric culture brings into alignment other key CX elements such as employee engagement, voice of customer initiatives and designing the right customer journeys. Despite the vast body of literature emphasizing culture’s paramount role in making a great CX happen, I rarely find gaming clients who give me permission to examine their organization’s culture. Senior management always seems extremely leery about having the company culture objectively assessed. Yet, without explicitly addressing culture, all CX initiatives will be shallow and will fail to penetrate what lies at the core of great customer experiences. Without explicitly addressing culture, all CX initiatives will be shallow and will fail to penetrate what lies at the core of great customer experiences. Over the years, I have also learnt that it is not necessary to wear my psychometrist’s hat to be able to distinguish CX friendly cultures from antagonistic ones. Here are five clear indicators of toxic cultures that can smother any attempts at meaningful CX enhancement. DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR There is an interesting and rather cryptic verse in the ancient Indian Sanskrit text of the Kena Upanishad which reads, “Yasyamatam tasya matam matam yasya na veda sah; avijnatam vijanatam vijnatam avijanatam.” Loosely translated, it goes something like this, “To whomsoever it is unknown, to him it is known. To whomsoever it is known, he does not know. It is unknown to those who know it and known to those who do not know.” I am reminded of this couplet every time I hear senior management talk, without a shadow of doubt, about the outstanding experience their company offers its customers. Companies who proclaim that they are the best in CX delivery seldom expend any effort in Voice of Customer (VoC) initiatives or employee engagement studies. They just know. This kind of management hubris will ultimately spell doom for CX providers. True CX stalwarts like Tony Hsieh of Zappos or Herb Kelleher, former Southwest Airlines CEO, never take the CX quality they deliver as a given. They always have a finger on the pulse of customer and employee sentiment. Furthermore, they espouse humility as a prized value. BLOCKAGES IN UPWARD COMMUNICATION The importance of effective employee communication can’t be over-emphasized. Employees are the conduit to customers and to the outside world. Hardly anybody in the organization knows more about customer expectations and frustrations than your employees. Yet upward communication has become a huge challenge for most gaming companies. In some regions such as Macau, the communication difficulties are conveniently attributed to language differences. Language is but one variable in frontline staff interactions. Sometimes, management knowingly or unknowingly sends out cues through COLUMNISTS