Question 1:
The fundamental argument underlying Harrah’s strategy; is it better to catch many small fish or one big whale? The most rewards should be given to the group of customers with high customer worth, or customers who could potentially transition into that category (high predicted worth). Casinos typically target high rollers with a large bank roll who play high stake games. They court these types of players, offering complimentary rooms or services. Harrah’s on the other hand chooses to target low income working class individuals or retirees. They offer individualized incentives to those players based on the customer’s spending pattern. Each incentive is crafted to be profitable for that unique customer. Harrah’s is able to capture a large sum with their Total Rewards program and catering to people who choose to play games like slots. Although these games are not high stake with large sums of money riding per bet, the odds are greatly stacked in the houses favor. Another characteristic unique to Harrah’s is that they reward not just winners but losers as well. Other casinos offer deals to people who win large sums of money in order to get those winnings back. Harrah’s, on the contrary, give out nominal rewards like a free dinner to people who loose. Those individuals see it as customer services and feel more inclined to gamble at Harrah’s rather than a competitor. These unique practices along with a sophisticated IT database targeting customers who are likely to spend a good deal of cash, has given Harrah’s the ability to extract profits from many small fish.
Question 2:
Harrah’s has recently spent a lot of time, effort, and money on unifying their branding and launching their CRM across all their properties. The first thing Harrah’s should conduct an NPV analysis of acquisition costs and converting the potential properties to align with the rest of the