Casino Enterprise Management

Suppose you go on a trip to Milwaukee and forget to pack your pants. An inconvenience to be sure, but not terribly difficult to remedy. You’d probably hop in a cab and go to one of the many fine pants stores for which Milwaukee is famous. Such is life in America. Our society values transparency, and there are not many problems that do not have a quick and easy solution, provided you can afford it.

As a new resident of Asia, I’m finding solutions to simple problems are not as easily found, especially when you find yourself pantless. Last month I traveled to the Philippines to attend the PAGCOR convention. PAGCOR is the regulatory body for gaming in the Philippines, and the PAGCOR convention is basically Manila’s version of G2E, only much smaller and with obnoxiously loud karaoke music. A person of relatively low intellect, I failed to pack pants for the trip. I had a couple of meetings scheduled with people who probably would not find my Air Jordan shorts as cool as I do, so I needed some pants—and fast.

Getting a taxi outside the hotel was taking forever, so I walked down to the street and hailed the first available white taxi I saw. (I should note here that there are 50,000 Filipino workers in Macau, and each of them individually warned me to stay away from non-hotel taxis.) We’d driven no more than a block when the driver’s meter went blank and he asked me how much I would pay him to take me to the Mall of Asia. Not knowing how far this place was or how much taxis are in Manila, I had no choice be to ask what the cost would be. He said 200 pesos, 250 pesos if there was traffic. (I later learned that taxi meters often break in the presence of Caucasian westerners and a metered fare would have only been about 100 pesos.) “Sounds OK to me,” I said, figuring 250 pesos is only about $6.

With the price settled, the adventure really began. The driver asked if I needed a girlfriend because if so, he could take me somewhere to find one. I told him I just wanted to get to the mall because it closed at 9:00 p.m. and it was already 7:30. But his pitch became more aggressive as he informed me that “Philippine women are beautiful and have many passengers.” I told him that this was very interesting but I really needed to get to the Mall of Asia. Besides, my wife probably would not approve.

This guy wouldn’t take no for an answer! He started babbling about how men from all over the world come to the Philippines to find wives. He even told me that his wife was currently married to a guy named Danny in Florida! The driver seemed friendly enough and was certainly enthusiastic, so I just humored him and laughed.

Next we cruised by a couple of streetwalkers, and he noted how “sexy” they looked, excitedly telling me that we would see even more on the way to the mall. Whatever, I said. At this point I noticed we were going in the opposite direction of where he told me the mall was, and I began to wonder if I was being taken somewhere to be robbed (which, I recalled, was why my Filipino friends in Macau told me not to get in regular taxis to begin with). The places we drove by seemed less public, and the driver grew quieter. I was smart enough to leave most of my cash in the hotel, but prepared myself by shoving pesos into my socks so I’d have something left in case he took my wallet.

Sure enough, the driver turned down a side road, pulled over and told me he’d be right back. He didn’t hesitate getting out of the car, even when I yelled NO! at the top of my lungs. Why would a cab driver ever stop the car and leave in the middle of a fare!? I watched him cross the street and shout at a group of shady-looking guys who were standing in front of a steel door. The door opened and an older guy came out, walked over to my door and opened it. He asked if I’d like to come inside and pick one of his girls. I told him no thanks, because I was really in a hurry to get to the mall to meet a friend. He said that was OK because I could just come inside and reserve for later. Maybe tomorrow, I said. Thankfully, they let me go.

It only took a couple minutes to get to the mall from there, and the driver charged me 500 pesos for the “tour of Manila,” which I gladly forked over, thankful nothing bad had happened. As I exited the taxi the driver made a final proposition for me: “Sir, would you like me to wait outside and take you to the girls when you’re done?”

Asian economies are booming and the populace is filled with people like my taxi driver who are overly eager to please their customers and fill their own pockets. Good service is a rarity even in more economically developed countries like Macau and Hong Kong. In the West, companies have lengthy customer service policies and employees receive training on how to treat their customers, but real customer service training is honed from years of experience as an actual customer. Every day a typical American eats in a restaurant, shops in a store, stays in a hotel or does something that involves playing the role of the customer. Through years of accumulation of these experiences we know how we like and dislike being treated, and this experience gives us a sense of how we should treat our customers.
But what about my Filipino taxi driver? He drives a taxi every day, but has he ever been driven? The same goes for waiters, waitresses, hotel employees and their managers—how much experience do these folks have dining out or being hotel guests? Even the upper class in these societies are no more than a generation or so removed from poverty, so the answer is not much.

I’ve only lived in Macau for three months and I have enough horror stories to fill many pages of CEM. Rare is the pain-free transaction, whether it’s buying a soda at the 7-Eleven or chips at a casino. Soon enough, one of Macau’s casino operators will learn a smile and friendly service doesn’t cost much and goes along way in retaining the customers they battle so hard over. Hey, maybe I can play a role in helping them get to this point. But until that day, I’ll just have to remember my pants. 

When not on the search for a comfortable pair of pants, Noah Acres leads the Asian offices of Acres-Fiore, a third-party development company and inventor of the innovative slot machine Halo. He can be reached at noah@acresfiore.com.