Understanding customers better

Resort and casino operator MGM Mirage is using data integration technology to get to know its customers better.

"To compete in the crowded casino resort market, we need a detailed understanding of our guests to provide them with entertainment options and offers that will make MGM Mirage their preferred resort," says Michelle Messina, executive director of corporate marketing.

MGM Mirage is implementing the Ascential Enterprise Integration Suite from Ascential Software to help identify and fulfill individual customer needs across the company's eight casino resorts in the United States.

Messina explains, "We are deploying the solution as the cornerstone of a terabyte-level data integration project." The initial installation is expected to take three months, but "we realize that a data warehouse project is never truly finished," she adds.

According to a recent news release, the MGM Mirage will use the system to integrate, profile, cleanse and load more than 50 million customer records and over 400 million transactions into a new data warehouse in real time to yield insight into customer spending habits. Guest services, operations and market research will use those results to plan marketing, incentive and direct mail campaigns that cater to the preferences and purchasing habits of individual guests.

The solution will help the resort to integrate data from many sources into a single enterprise data warehouse containing a variety of information, including demographics and specifics about what customers spend on food, gaming, entertainment, hotel and spa visits at all MGM Mirage properties, according to Ascential Software.