According to Woolf, the problem with most companies running loyalty programs is they have only enough resources to focus their customer strategies on the top 30 percent of their customers.

It’s designed to appeal to both big-time spenders and small but steady gamblers. What further distinguishes Harrah’s approach is the complexity of its loyalty program. Now it’s up to 75 percent, what loyalty expert Brian Woolf says is the level of customer data-tracking required to give companies a “world-class” view of their customers that, if applied wisely, can ensure continuous revenue growth.

“When we started five years ago, about 50 percent of our gaming revenue was tracked on the card,” says David Norton, senior vice president of relationship marketing for Harrah’s. So popular is Harrah’s loyalty program that it now includes 6 million active members who have used their memberships within the past year and 26 million members overall. When they swipe their loyalty cards, they’re also eligible to win a variety of perks, from appetizers to Swedish massages, depending on their level of spending and the information Harrah’s has collected about them. The trick? Gamblers don’t just win money when they play at one of Harrah’s 26 casinos. In addition, Harrah’s has been able to leverage the Total Rewards program to increase cross-market play-the amount of gambling revenue generated by customers outside their home markets-by 20 percent since 2001. Overall, Las Vegas-based Harrah’s estimates its customers spent about 43 percent of their annual gambling budgets at Harrah’s properties in 2002, up from 36 percent when the program began. It tracks customers’ casino play and offers them powerful incentives to consolidate their gambling with Harrah’s, boosting same-store revenues and earnings. According to executives, the cornerstone of Harrah’s growth strategy is the now-renamed Total Rewards program, its IT-powered customer loyalty program. It sought not only to identify its best and most loyal customers it also wanted to use that data to reward them in ways they hadn’t been rewarded before. While recognition cards aimed at boosting customer loyalty had been in the industry for some time, Harrah’s wanted to go one step further. The relaxation of state gaming laws only intensified the rivalry among casinos. When Harrah’s first started its Total Gold loyalty program in 1997, it was during a time of rapid expansion of casinos in hot spots like Las Vegas and Atlantic City, N.J.

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