What About Bob?

When we think of excellent customer service, we usually think in terms of going the extra mile. In a poker room, that can take many forms: the friendly, attentive floorperson who patiently answers a new customer's many questions, the manager who solicits the opinions of his patrons and considers and addresses their concerns, or the work ethic of a dealer who, when confronted with a question to which he doesn't know the answer, makes it his business to find out. At other times, we measure customer service by the number of perks and goodies thrown our way – a food comp here, a reduced room rate there. But even without giveaways, the positive, customer-oriented approach can always find a way to manifest itself. Gestures as simple as a smile and a hello when a customer walks into the cardroom, or a simple reminder as he racks up to leave to be sure to "clock out" so as to qualify for the weekly freeroll, can reap lasting rewards, for in a competitive marketplace, personal touches go a long, long way.

Most cardrooms I've played in are staffed by people dedicated to providing this sort of friendly, attentive service. That was true a dozen years ago and it remains true today. But while friendly demeanor and personal attention are the bread and butter of customer service, performance and delivery are the nuts and bolts, and it is in this area of nuts-and-bolts essentials that the years have produced a diminished standard. If that trend is to be bucked – if a room's management genuinely desires to improve its customer service – it must face up to one important fact: namely, that 99 percent of the actual poker-related service in a cardroom is provided by the dealer. If the overall quality of that service is poor, and the house provides no mechanism by which to improve it, the goods aren't being delivered. Desirable as they may be, comps, perks, and handshakes are window dressing, and not a substitute for essential service. Unfortunately, in many poker rooms today, more emphasis is placed on surface amenities than on the service that relates to the poker game itself.

The reasons for this are many, one of them being the changing demographics of cardroom personnel. A dozen years ago, cardrooms were fewer and farther between, and they tended to be manned by "old-school" types with extensive poker backgrounds. Today, due to tremendous industry expansion, many rooms are staffed by people with much less experience, people who may well understand the value of bread and butter, but often fail to grasp the importance of the nuts and bolts. When I wrote my last column about the consequences of bad dealer mechanics, I was fully aware that old-school floorpeople hardly need me to tell them of the dangers of exposed cards, or the telltale signs of a bad pitch; heck, an old-schooler can spot a bad pitch out of the corner of one eye while signing a comp slip on the other side of the room. Along the same line, old-schoolers who pass by a table where players are violating the OPTAH rule (One Player To A Hand) or conversing in a foreign language while the dealer remains silent instinctively understand that to politely and firmly step in and put an end to the offending practice is only half the job; the other half is to take the dealer aside at the first opportunity and educate him to the fact that speaking up in that spot is a fundamental part of his job, as well. By contrast, it simply doesn't occur to an inexperienced, undertrained floorperson to be on the lookout for bad habits that might put customers in jeopardy, and as for monitoring and communicating with the dealers … well, that's simply not part of the routine.

Much of the time, this isn't their fault, for people can only be expected to perform duties for which they've been specifically assigned and trained. The problem lies in the operational setup of cardrooms in which duties and relationships are vaguely defined. These informal systems may have worked well enough for old-schoolers whose knowledge of the game was as thorough as their grasp of duties was instinctive, but the times they are a-changin', and cardrooms need to adopt operating procedures that fit the personnel they've got. Although experience is always desirable, you don't need an entire roomful of old-schoolers to run a great room. What you do need, when dealing with people whose experience may be limited, is to define their duties and coordinate their efforts so that their individual skills and experience can mesh into a cohesive working whole. Without systematic coordination, you end up with a roomful of free agents, often working at cross purposes.

The free agent analogy is, I believe, apt. Consider, for example, the relationship of the dealer to the house. Dealers move around a lot from one cardroom to another, and the management styles of the rooms in which they travel can vary greatly. A hands-on philosophy toward enforcing the rules is of little use if it's not communicated to a recent hire whose last job was in a house in which the manager's style was to look the other way. As for new dealers, although a few casinos provide in-house training, most dealers entering today's workforce are the product of private dealer schools, some of which do a far better job than others in terms of training their students in the importance of running their games. After graduating from these schools, the job-seekers proceed to the audition, an event that would seem to afford the house a perfect opportunity to convey its operating philosophy, but often is little more than a cursory exercise to gauge minimum competence. And while many cardrooms are more thorough, even a comprehensive audition loses its value if it is treated as the final, rather than the first, stage in the process of review – which much of the time is precisely what happens.

A couple of years ago, in a room I was visiting for the first time, I observed a dealer audition conducted by a houseman I'll call "Bob." I was so impressed with the detailed attention Bob brought to the process that I was chomping at the bit to sit down and play in the room. He took such care to emphasize the importance of both proper mechanics and the need to run the game that it came as quite a shock when I later sat down and witnessed some of the worst shuffling and pitching I'd ever seen. The lack of proper technique, however, was nothing compared to the prevailing indifference to rules and procedures, and I remarked on the subject to a friend who worked there, wondering aloud how Bob generally dealt with such matters. My friend, who by this time had been employed in the room for almost a year, gave me a funny look and said, "Bob? Are you kidding? I haven't seen Bob since the audition. Bob never comes out on the floor." It was a classic example of perfectly good resources being wasted in an inefficient system.

Dealers are the lifeblood of the room, and the cardroom's goal of achieving customer satisfaction rests largely on the quality of their service. But, they need an effective system in which to work, one in which performance levels are monitored so that professional standards can be achieved and maintained. Although it's not always obvious to the casual observer, running a poker game, as opposed to merely pitching cards, involves things that don't come naturally to all dealers – but if "Bob" never comes out on the floor, who is to educate them as to their importance?