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Maximising income means minimising machine downtime – but operators and venues rarely have the skills to tackle major repairs themselves. We find out who can help
Today’s gaming machines are complex chunks of engineering, with a mixture of moving parts and digital electronics, and frequently with components produced by multiple manufacturers. Their reliability is high, but still things do go wrong, and a single fault can make a machine unusable – whether that’s because it literally prevents it from functioning at all, as when a cash-accepting mechanism fails, or because it so seriously affects the playing experience that no customer will waste their money on the unit. That could happen if, for example, audio output stopped working.
In both these instances, the revenue potential of the machine instantly plummets to zero until it is fixed. So repairs – and regular preventative maintenance, if needed – are essentials, not luxuries, for gaming operators.
In many pubs, for example, gaming machines can account for between 20 and 50 percent of trading revenues, according to Gamestec, which manages some 35,000 units across the country. They are also important sources of revenue in other sites such as adult gaming centres, licensed betting offices, clubs and casinos.
To ensure that they are kept up and running, Gamestec has developed an infrastructure based on a central services team, which provides repair of electronics, parts distribution and centralised ordering.
“We know how important it is for our customers that machine faults are resolved as quickly as possible. In response to this we developed a robust infrastructure for repairs and also invested in training for our engineers so they are the best in the business,” says Peter Collinge, Gamestec’s operations director.
“We also aim to minimise instances of faults occurring in the first place, by making sure all machines in our estate are serviced regularly and that we choose the most reliable models to offer to our customers.
“As part of our commitment to fast response times we recently expanded our team of rapid-response motorcycle engineers so they now cover the whole area within the M25. The introduction of motorcycle engineers in London has slashed response times by around 50 percent and we are currently looking at introducing motorcycle engineers to other metropolitan areas where traffic congestion is a problem.”
Farming it out
But what about the smaller operator who’s not tied into a contract with a big supplier like Gamestec? Failures are relatively rare and the skills required to repair gaming and amusement machines command relatively high pay, so it’s not cost-effective to keep a technician on staff against the eventuality of problems.
"Failures are relatively rare and repair skills command high pay, so it’s not cost-effective to keep a technician on staff"
The answer, says Suzo Happ, is to outsource maintenance. “Complexity is an issue that faces gaming operators more and more. Advancing technologies are providing more entertaining solutions to players with multi-game video gaming. Yet these new technologies require very specific knowledge,” the company says. “This means that the amount of knowledge required by local technicians and service staff is continually rising, which takes up more of their valued time. Operators can support their technical team by outsourcing industry expertise.”
“The Suzo Happ Group is the largest global gaming component company,” says Erik Wijma, Suzo Happ’s sales director. “This vast knowledge has been channelled to ensure that operators can face the day-to-day challenges of introducing new technologies without being overwhelmed. We tailor our support to individual operator requirements, ranging from one-off training through to continual 24/7 support and right up to complete gaming-machine installations. This leave the gaming personnel to focus more on the customer and leave the technical complexities to us.
“We represent the best-known component manufacturers in the business, companies such as MEI, FutureLogic, ELO and Assa. Furthermore, operators no longer have the burden of one contact for each component, but the peace of mind that they have one contact for all.”
Also on offer from Suzo Happ are training services for operators, enabling their staff to fix minor faults themselves – and keep that machine revenue flowing.
