Personal Skills

Personal skills are about how we treat people. As a supervisor, we’re a part of the management team. Part of being a great supervisor is learning what to say and how to say it. These skills aren’t always black and white, like technical skills are. Communication skills vary from situation to situation, but we’re going to give you the best guidance possible so you can learn these skills and navigate any situation.

The pillars of personal skills that we’re going to go over are:

Polished Communication
Guest Service
Communicating Relevant Information
Handling Misdeals & Disputes
Coaching Your Team
Prioritizing Tasks

Polished Communication

Being a polished communicator is about both what you say and how you say it. It’s a verbal skill that will help you project yourself as a knowledgeable leader. Communicating in a clean and polished way might sound easy, but it can be tough if you’re not used to it. But don’t worry, we’ll give you some tips on how to pull it off until it becomes second nature.

First, we want to be eloquent and well-spoken. Eloquent is a fancy-sounding word, but you don’t have to be fancy. Being eloquent and well-spoken means staying away from slang greetings and expressions.

It also refers to having manners, by the way. This is one of those things I wish I didn’t have to say, but after being in so many casinos and talking to so many people along the way, well, let’s just say we all need a reminder sometimes to be polite.

I’m not just talking about being well-spoken and polite to guests. We communicate with everyone, right? Let’s use this as a reminder to be polite and eloquent with everyone: guests, dealers, managers, and coworkers from other departments.

Being polite, eloquent, and well spoken is the easiest way to give a positive representation of yourself as a supervisor and the company you work for.

Guest Service

Speaking of being polite, let’s talk about guest service. Now, like most of our topics, guest service could have its very own training course. As you get into the business, if you haven’t already, you’ll likely go through plenty of mandatory training courses on guest service.

Guest service is the bridge from the company to the guest. Giving top-tier guest service is what builds and cultivates the relationship with the guests and keeps them coming back and telling their friends about what a great time they had with you. Giving great service will likely set you apart and make you a valuable asset to management. In the current climate of the casino business, great guest service is of utmost importance, as many companies are focusing more on service than on technical knowledge.

Every guest service interaction should start with a friendly greeting. Whether the guest is approaching your table, section, or just passing by, offer a greeting. You’d be surprised how many people who might not have even intended to play will sit down because of your friendliness.

When guests do approach and sit down to play, use their name, if possible. In table games, we get to cheat a bit with guests’ names because they often have rewards cards, so we get an easy chance to use their name when we give their card back to them. This can be accompanied by introducing yourself to them as well, and telling them to let you know if they have any questions. That’s the first block when building a strong guest service experience.

The next part is the part that gets lost the easiest, because there isn’t always time. But when you’re not busy with all your other tasks, you should really be talking to people. This is what makes the best floor supervisors, the ones who can balance being on top of their duties with talking to people and providing great service.

When you have time, ask the guests where they are visiting from, what brings them to town, and what else they’re looking to do while they’re here. These kinds of open ended questions not only make conversation, but it also gives you information that you can use to give them recommendations on things to do, restaurants to try, or anything else really. Giving recommendations makes for a more personal and memorable interaction.

Some supervisors will carry around a little black book with the names and details of certain players. This includes birthdays, names of family members, likes and dislikes. This makes it easier to remember repeat guests or high rollers.

Another way to create a memorable experience is to help teach someone a game they might not be familiar with, or maybe they’re nervous to try. A friendly greeting and offer to help teach them goes a long way.

It happens a lot in Vegas, especially. You’ll see someone standing near a craps table or roulette table. They are clearly interested and want to play, but are nervous to approach the table. If you’ve never gambled before, it can be intimidating walking into a big casino. And when the tables are full of people who (seem to) know what they’re doing, it can be intimidating to the point where some people may not even sit down.

That’s where you come in. If you see someone watching the game, it’s likely they’re at least a little interested. Reach out to them. Ask them if they’ve played before or if they have any questions about the game. A little friendliness from a supervisor in that situation could make all the difference in the world to that person.

Lastly, a guest service interaction isn’t complete without a parting remark. Whether you’re at the end of your shift or the guests have won or lost and are getting up to move on to their next stop, always express your appreciation to them for their business and wish them well. The best goodbyes consist of both appreciation for the business and a friendly parting remark. That might sound complicated, but it’s not, I promise.

Here’s an example. If they’re getting up to leave, a simple, “Thanks for playing. Have a good night,” is all you need.

Communicate Relevant information

Communicating relevant information is how we keep our whole team informed so everything can run quickly and efficiently. It’s easy to miss something if not all the information is being passed along when it needs to, and to the right person.

There will be a lot of key information that you’ll need to pass along to the appropriate coworkers, managers, and sometimes the dealers. We’re going to give you some examples of what that information will be and who to pass it along to.

First off, the most common time to pass off relevant information is during section turnovers. Whenever the new shift is starting or someone is going on break, the section is turned over from one floor supervisor to the next. When this happens, it’s important that the outgoing supervisor communicates all the relevant information to the incoming supervisor about what’s happening in the section.

For example, if you’re going on break, you’ll want to tell the breaker, “204 is almost out of singles, so I put a fill in that hasn’t come yet. Spot 2 on 206 bought in $5,000, and he’s got $3,000 in purple in his pocket. I warned the guy on 208 about his language already, so if he does it again, the manager said to call so they can come ask him to leave.”

There is a huge tendency in the business for floor supervisors to just tell each other who is being rated when they go on break or leave for the night. So many supervisors do this. Don’t be like that. You’re better than that. Anyone can see who is being rated. It’s in the computer. Pass along information that isn’t clear by glancing at the computer.

Examples of information that are relevant to pass along include, but are not limited to:

Significant win/loss
Refused names with significant play
Missing chips, and who has them
Weak dealers that may need help or extra attention
Players with behavioral issues
Faulty equipment

When I significant play or a significant win/loss, that’s according to your casino. Significant play at Four Queens is different than significant play at The Cosmopolitan. Every casino has thresholds of notification, when they want you to call the manager, surveillance, etc. Part of your job will be learning those thresholds.

Here’s what I mean by reporting thresholds. This is just an example of what the thresholds might be for active win/loss, which is when a player is actively playing on a table. The thresholds might look like this:

Pit manager if someone is up or down $1,000
Assistant casino manager at $5,000
Casino manager at $10,000
Table Games Director at $25,000
General Manager at $50,000

Now, you may not be directly responsible for each of these steps; it’s just an example of what the thresholds might be. But you will be responsible for at least the first few steps, so it’s important to learn wherever you work what these thresholds are, because managers don’t like it when they’re not aware of something that happens over that line. They’ll come right over to you and ask why you didn’t call. They’ll probably be more concerned with the lack of call than the event itself. Hey, that’s management for you. You’ve been warned.