The Global Service Index (GSI), a service quality indicator of the Macau gaming industry, reached its highest level in 2023, with croupiers’ performance rising.
The index was established by the Macau Gaming Research Association (MGRA) in 2013 as a way to monitor and promote service quality of the gaming industry in Macau.
For the 2023 research, the association collaborated with certification company, SGS Hong Kong Limited to recruit and train ‘Mystery Shoppers’ and conduct data collection and entry.
The appointed teams studied with 12 representative casinos (Macau Peninsula: Grand Lisboa, StarWorld, MGM Macau, Sands, Wynn Macau; Cotai: Grand Lisboa Palace, Galaxy, MGM Cotai, Venetian, Wynn Palace, City of Dream, Studio City).
These included evaluations of seven frontline departments, such as Table Game-Dealer, Slot Machine, Cashier, Security, Membership, Shuttle Bus, and Cloakroom, with a total of 864 data points collected.
According to the association, the overall GSI in 2023 was 145, with its performance having continued to rise and reaching a record high since the index first started being compiled, after a bump caused by the pandemic in the last years.
‘There is an upward trend from the base of 100 points in 2013 to 2023 Q4. Although the GSI slightly declined to 113 in 2019 Q4, it gradually stabilized and continued to rise in performance each year thereafter,’ the association points out.
The performance of table game dealers, for example, was said to surge drastically to a historical high of 160 in 2023, after many years of receiving the poorest rankings of all departments.
At the same time, customer service and slot machine services remained at the top, after surpassing pre-pandemic levels.
However, the GSI of other departments such as security and cashiers dropped to levels below the previous years.
The overall GSI increase was also not even for properties in the Macau Peninsula and Cotai, with SGS collecting 624 data from Cotai and 240 from the Macau Peninsula.
While the Cotai index rose to 154 this year, returning to the performance seen in 2019, the Macau Peninsula index climbed to a historical high of 144.
‘Smiling’ and ‘Proactiveness’ of casino service were said to have broken the previous year’s record, at 171 and 172, respectively, with ‘Tolerance’ stabilizing at 103 in 2023.
According to the association, the reason why tolerance consistently has a lower performance than smiling and proactiveness was because, while the former develop as an instantaneous response through repetitive practice, the latter requires information processing for making appropriate responses and involves decision making of how they respond or follow-through inquiries.
The average waiting time for shuttle buses operated by IR properties also improved to around 4 minutes in 2023, the lowest since the index started.
