Innovation sets new digital standard
for gaming industry
Customer
One of Australia’s largest casino operators,
Echo Entertainment Group Ltd. owns and
operates four casino properties along Australia’s east coast. Echo generates $1.6 billion in
revenue yearly, has more than two million
registered customers and 8,000 employees. Its
vision—“Let Us Entertain You”—blends gaming,
hospitality and entertainment to provide guests
a more memorable experience.
Industry
Hospitality
Opportunity
•Differentiate VIP customer experience
A high-stakes business
•Close legally-binding, high-value transactions
(chip purchase) on the spot and in no time
In the casino business, VIP customers are
critical—a mere 0.1 percent of the entire
customer base represents two-thirds of the
total revenue. Attracting repeat VIP casino
customers requires constant innovation and
differentiation; this is a customer base that
can—and does—travel everywhere. VIP Patron
access to their funds must be seamless and
fast, especially in casinos, where buying
decisions are often made on impulse.
•Mobile-enable gaming floor staff for proactive
customer service
Solution Set
•webMethods Business Process Management
Platform
•webMethods Integration Platform
Key Benefits
•Improved VIP customer service—10 times
faster than before, from 20 minutes down to 2
•Helped increase VIP revenue by almost 57%
in 2012
•First and only casino worldwide to digitize the
complex funds-to-chip issuing process
•Optimizing customer service fosters loyalty
and increases retention
Echo strives to deliver customers a superior
service and an upbeat, energetic and entertaining experience. Yet, the company’s existing
chip buying process was taking its VIP patrons
away from playing for up to 20 minutes as they
waited to convert their account credits to chips
at a gaming table. The process was manual
and resource-intensive, requiring paperwork
in triplicate and multiple approvals for security
purposes.
“We use technology to help us optimize our
customers’ experience, particularly in the VIP
space.”
— Rob James | CTO, Echo Entertainment
Get There Faster
Reference Story | Echo
Redefining fun
Building customer loyalty
Echo Entertainment constantly looks to surprise
its VIP patrons with new offerings and provide
the best customer service. By rethinking
the company’s Chip Purchase Voucher (CPV)
process, Echo wanted to transform a complex
manual process into a fast and convenient
mobile experience for its VIPs.
Game-changing innovations:
The flexibility of the solution enables the
company to quickly meet the dynamic needs of
its business, as changes can be rapidly implemented. Rob James, CTO of Echo Entertainment,
explained, “We can now make services directly
available to the business user and easily build
and test new applications. To be able to innovate very quickly is a real game-changer in our
industry. We use technology to help us optimize
our customers’ experience, particularly in the
VIP space. Being ahead of the competition with
innovative, mobile capabilities is our strategic
differentiator—we’ve increased our VIP revenue
by almost 57 percent in 2012 alone.”
To revamp the CPV process, Echo chose
Software AG’s webMethods technology. Now
VIP patrons complete a simple form on an
Apple ® iPad ® to request funds to be released.
The new automated paperless process takes
less than two minutes. Patrons enter a personal
identification number and digitally sign the
electronic contract to finalize the legally-binding,
With this new flexibility, Echo was able to
high-value transaction on the spot.
quickly extend the solution to innovative apThe innovation sets a new standard for the
plications for the public gaming areas as well.
industry—it’s the only fully digitized and mobile Now, casino floor staff use an iPhone ® app
method of converting credits on a patron’s acto identify and locate high-value customers
count to chips on the casino gaming table in the currently playing on the public gaming floor in
world today.
order to provide enhanced services to Echo’s
loyalty program VIPs and enroll new members.
It’s a win-win solution:
•Patrons spend less time waiting and have
more time to play
•Echo staff no longer has to leave the customer’s side to process requests or retrieve
their paperwork
Elevating the customer
experience
“It’s important to provide the optimum customer
service to every customer, but particularly vital
•More staff time available equals a higher level
in the VIP area,” said James. “Using Software
of personalized service for each VIP customer
AG’s technology helps us serve our high-end
customers faster and cater to their needs betBehind the scenes, Echo leverages SOA and
ter. We were able to build the majority of the
BPM as the agile backbone for its mobile
application in just weeks and realized tangible
innovations. webMethods Business Process
business results in just a few months. Our CEO
Management Suite, Integration Server, Broker
has formally recognized how IT and the business
and Composite Application Framework are
can partner together to improve our customer’s
the technologies behind the solution, which
integrates an iPad application, Echo’s core casino experience by optimizing business processes
and deliver world class results.”
systems management and a bespoke Web
application. Mapping the business process and
workflow optimized the overall process and
covered all possible use cases.
Find out how to power up your
Digital Enterprise at SoftwareAG.com
ABOUT SOFTWARE AG
Software AG helps organizations achieve their business objectives faster. The company’s big data, integration and business process
technologies enable customers to drive operational efficiency, modernize their systems and optimize processes for smarter decisions
and better service. Building on over 40 years of customer-centric innovation, the company is among the top 10 fastest-growing
technology companies in the world and is ranked as a leader in 15 market categories, fueled by core product families Adabas and
Natural, ARIS, Terracotta and webMethods. Learn more at www.SoftwareAG.com.
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