Inside Asian Gaming

INSIDE ASIAN GAMING JULY 2018 32 Fear of superiors among employees stifles creativity and innovation and breeds an “us versus them” mentality that thwarts open communication and creates latent hostility between workers and management. COLUMNISTS Online shoe and clothing shop Zappos.com is renowned for its exceptional corporate culture. There is often open hostility and ruthless politicking among some departments. This internal bickering is carried out on the organization’s time at the expense of the end customer. When effective cross- departmental teamwork is lacking, CX is often the first casualty. CONCLUSION Writing about his company in The New York Times , Tony Hsieh said, “At Zappos, we really view culture as our number one priority. We decided that if we get the culture right, most of the stuff, like building a brand around delivering the very best customer service, will just take care of itself.” It was this underlying belief that led Hsieh to build what would arguably become the best CX company in the world. Casinos in a lot of gaming jurisdictions have thus far been lucky to be operating in regional monopolies, duopolies or sellers’ markets. But the competitive environment is changing and changing fast. With increasing competition within and across markets, market leadership will quickly become a function of how well you serve the customer, not how fast you build capacity. Any initiatives to enhance the customer experience will have to be built on a strong customer-centric cultural foundation. Unwarranted excessive pride, poor organization-wide communication, over- emphasis on compliance at the cost of customer service, unhealthy power dynamics and strong silos are five red flags signaling a culture that is toxic to CX. Companies that are sincere about improving their customer experience should, first and foremost, take an inventory of their existing organizational culture and air out all toxicity.